Now Playing: Alan Wake, Poker Smash
Alan Wake, five years in the making and slowly turning into a joke the same way Too Human, Daikatana and GT5 are, is finally out. Remedy’s first game since Max Payne 2 shows these guys have still got it. While most people would have been happy with a clone of Max Payne, the funny Fins have instead given us with their take on Stephen King.
Mixing shooting with burning things with light, as you do, Alan Wake shows Xbox gamers something they rarely see these days- a slow paced game that’s as exciting as the more action oriented titles on the console. It’s central mechanic takes some time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a pretty addictive game. If you enjoyed Resident Evil 4, you should have some fun here, but the game is its own beast.
I don’t know why I like, I just know I’m enjoying this game much more that I expected to. It’s deliberate pace is probably soothing after all of the faster-paced games I usually play, not boring in the way the travel in RDR turned me off.
It’s a pretty game and sounds fantastic. Voice acting is either ordinary or genius, possibly due to the writing and whether you think Stephen King is a great writer or not. I have met in real life the guy they based Rusty, which is kind of neat, so that’s nice in a personal way.
What’s not the greatest? Lip Sync in cutscenes is atrocious and while the part of the story unfolds in the form of manuscript pages you collect (similar to the logs in Doom 3, Bioshock, et al), you have to go to a menu to play them, rather than just press a button to read them while you keep playing. One thing about working on a game for so long is sometimes developments pass you by.
Thankfully I have a long weekend coming up that will be used to savour this game. Like a fine wine.
Also released at the bargain price of a buck or two is XBLA title, Poker Smash for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It’s great, providing you have an iDevice made in the last year or so. I managed to compare the performance of this on my 3G iPhone with Cameron’s newer and not quite superceded 3GS and the 3GS flies while the 3G is a little sluggish. Only one music track is included but then, you have a frickin iPod!
Get it! Stat!
Next up is Just Cause 2 (PC) and SMG2 (Wii)
June 10th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I’m surprised that the iPod version of Pokersmash only comes with one song, but the rest are available at:
http://www.voidstarcreations.com/pokersmash/downloads.html
Even without the game these free mp3s are worth a listen.
June 10th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
I wish they would do a DSiware version of pokersmash it seems ideal for a take along game you can just put a few minutes into.
I got my copy of SMG2 today and have just beaten the boss at the end of the first world. It’s great, the additions I’ve come across so far are very well done and fit naturally into the style of play, but it’s a hell of a lot harder than the first game. It seems quite involved from very early on.
The only real problem I’ve had so far was on a level where you had to spin jump to flip switches and for the life of me, or for many lives of Mario, I couldn’t seem to get the jumps to register, but I think that was more because I have dodgy wrists though.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:57 am
I’m sure Pop-Cap will release Poker Crash soon enough on everything with a chip in it