Press B 221: Alan Wake Remastered – The Return of a Horror Classic

In this episode of the Press B Podcast, we explore the chilling world of Alan Wake Remastered. Join us as we dive deep into the eerie atmosphere, gripping story, and updated graphics of this iconic psychological thriller. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the series, we break down what makes Alan Wake a must-play for horror enthusiasts and discuss its impact on modern gaming. Don't miss out as we shed light on one of the best narrative-driven games of all time.

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00:00 --> 00:09 Jake, you should. Alan, wake me up before you go. Go. Alan Wake revisited today on.
00:30 --> 00:32 Remaster. But who's, who's keeping track?
00:32 --> 00:37 I mean, it's only three years old, too. I didn't realize they remastered it so recently.
00:37 --> 00:41 Is it really 2021?
00:42 --> 00:44 Don't quote dates over the intro.
00:44 --> 01:08 Don't fact check over in the intro. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Press me to cancel your favorite podcast. At least that's what's written in the manuscript of Valkyrie. He's just typing as we go. Greatest podcast ever. Actually, that's what we should done. I should have gotten one of us to record exposition to play over the podcast. That's what I should have spent the last 3 hours doing, not making a goddamn thumbnail.
01:10 --> 01:13 You think Alan Wake typed this podcast into existence?
01:14 --> 01:25 Somebody had to. All. That's all that. All that deep research we did. We didn't. I didn't even know this game came out three years ago. Or at least. Yeah. All right.
01:25 --> 01:27 That's why you got me. I got some. I got some facts. I got some.
01:27 --> 01:43 There you go. All right. Well, welcome to press b. I am your host this week, sick Jake and not alone. I'm joined in what we're going to call sweeps month here at press b as we're down to two people every week as everybody's been taking vacation or been sick. But charge here with me is crab week.
01:43 --> 01:44 Crab week.
01:44 --> 01:50 Happy crab week, everybody. That's not going to tie into this episode at all. Chart. How you doing?
01:51 --> 02:17 I'm doing great. Been. I've been trying to get through my second playthrough of Alan Wake before we got to this episode, but unfortunately, we had to hasten the project faster than that. But I have been poking around with some really great lore videos on YouTube, and it's resurfacing some of my memory of the game. It's a fantastic game. So I'm very excited to talk about this one. It's the only Souls game, that non Souls game that I've been pumped to talk about last couple me.
02:17 --> 02:45 You're not excited to talk about Marvel? Snap it. Got a new update chart. Tell you that game is going places. It's going places. So we're talking. We're going to talk about Alan Wake. Probably more leaning toward the remastered side of it, because that's the version I played, and that's you're playing as well recently, but you did play the original as well. So I know that we've been talking, you and I, about the remedy games quite a bit recently, and how I know you want to go through the entire remedy extended universe, which is a big undertaking. For sure.
02:45 --> 02:52 It's four games. I mean, it's not like it's 20 games, you know, it's just four of them, but they're all great games, so I'm excited to play them all.
02:52 --> 04:15 Yeah. And that's the thing, too, is like, for me, I know I've no remedy games from Max Payne years and years and years ago. Max Payne was one of my earliest PC games that I stands out to me, and I really love that game, but I kind of fell off the radar of that studio. I didn't really pay attention to any of the other games. And then last year, Alan Wake two came out and got rave reviews across the board. Like it was sweeping awards at the end of the year. And I wanted to play it quite badly, but I always tell myself, don't play the sequel unless you played the first one, you know, to get an idea of the story and whatnot, is. So I kind of held off. And at some point I'm like, you know what? I'm going to buckle down. I'm going to. I'm going to beat Elden ring this year. I'm going to get diamond rank and Street Fighter six, and I'm going to beat, God damn it, Alan Wake, the first one, and then I can play Alan Wake two. So I bought both of them back to back because it's on sale on the Epic Games store for like, like $5 or something ridiculous. So I went back and played it, and, uh, it's not a particularly long game. Uh, Alan Wake originally came out in 2010, and it's six chapters. And then it recently got a remastered version, which I just found out was 2021, so. And, uh, there are some differences I do. I will talk about in a little bit. So I played this recently. I just finished it last month, and I love the story, but Chardonnay, you got to chapter five recently. But how long ago did you beat the full game? And was it remastered or was it the original version?
04:16 --> 04:55 It was the original version. I actually have it on Xbox back here somewhere. Many moons ago, I used to do playtesting for Microsoft on the weekends for like an x, some extra scratch, and they would give you a little bit of money and then your choice of like a handful of games. Ironically, I got Alan Wake and Quantum break from doing. I had no idea that they were connected. I mean, I know they're Microsoft, you know, they're Microsoft games, but I didn't realize that remedy did both of them. It was completely. Didn't even think about remedy. And when I think of Max Payne, I always thought Rockstar, because it was one of the Rockstar games. I believe that came out many. Oh, yeah.
04:55 --> 05:33 I guess. I guess they own the IP, and I think Max Payne three was done by Rockstar exclusively. But, yeah, that. That first. That first Max Payne, I recognize only because one of the heads of remedies, Sam Lake, is his character model. His face was used in Max Payne. I remember the low polygons, but the super high res textures and his face look like he was smelling a fart the entire game. And I'm playing other. I'm playing Alan. Not to get into that too much, but he's in it as a live action scene sequences, and it's just weird seeing his face. He does the smile. He's very swedish or finnish. He's like. He's got a thick accent.
05:33 --> 05:46 Oh, man. You know, I didn't realize that the. The guy from Ali Wake two. You know, we won't say who. You'll find out pretty quick. It's no spoiler, but now that I see Max Payne's Polygon face, it is him. I didn't realize.
05:46 --> 05:47 Oh, yeah.
05:47 --> 05:48 Okay, that's funny.
05:48 --> 05:54 But the voice actor was always different for that guy, right? So it's just weird hearing his actual voice with that face.
05:55 --> 06:19 It's the same thing as Alan Wake's model character is also voice acted by somebody else as well, because his character is also, like, super finished, too. I think they're. I think the guys are the same. The same vein. He's a easy finnish actor of some kind, but he's voiced by somebody else. So when he talks like, no, you don't. You don't sound like Alan Wake at all. You sound completely different.
06:19 --> 06:53 It's so wild. So wild. But so I guess to get to dive in the story a little bit about Alan Wake and what it is, and I guess what draws it to us draws both of us to this game came in 2010. It's the. You play Alan Wake. You're a. I guess, a famous author. I want to say, like, Tom Clancy level of author. I guess in this. In this fictional universe, you're. You're fairly famous novelist, you're well known, but you got a case of writer's block, so your wife kind of talks you into a vacation, and I believe it's called Cauldron Lake. And bright village of town of Bright Falls.
06:53 --> 06:55 Brighton. Brighton Falls, yep.
06:55 --> 06:56 Which is Bright falls.
06:56 --> 07:33 It is based in Washington, which is not. Yes, it actually, the town doesn't exist in real life, but the town that it is modeled after is called North Bend, which is also the same town that Twin Peaks, the show really was filmed and modeled after as well. So, I mean, Qualumi Falls is in the beginning of the Twin Peaks thing. You don't see that, but when you're, when you're walking through Brighton, the town, especially in two, it is very reminiscent of North Bend and the R and R diner that's in Twin Peaks. If you watch Twin Peaks and then, Jake, you go back to the diner and walk around in there, it's almost identical.
07:33 --> 07:34 It's really.
07:34 --> 07:36 Yeah, it's absolutely insane.
07:36 --> 08:31 I wonder if they actually did, like, on location scouting of places to get research or if they just based off of, like, Twin Peaks. It's interesting. Okay, we'll get there. So you're a writer. You have a case of writer's block. You're kind of talked into the taking vacation in Cauldron Lake. And your wife, character in the game, is actually trying to get you to go to not an insane asylum, but like a therapy retreat of some kind. And he gets upset and storms out of the cottage. And then, oh, no, suddenly your wife falls into the lake and disappears. And then, oh, no, you're in a car accident and you basically go over the edge of a cliff. And when you awaken, you're in this terrible, dark nightmare of a scenario, I guess. And it's very much, this is very much a survival horror thriller type game. So I'm going to take a stab in the dark. You might be a fan of these games, huh, Jared?
08:32 --> 09:48 Just a bit. Just a bit. Jake and I were talking earlier today on Marco Polo, and we were trying to figure out if there was something that was reminiscent of this style of game. Because when you play resident evil, it doesn't. I mean, it's not taint control. It's very straightforward, regular, controlling kind of stuff. But we were trying to think of any kind of game that we could correlate it to if this is something on its own or, you know, if there's something that mimics it. And I told him that it felt very silent, Hill esque. And in the psychological term of the game, you know, you're, you're in a lot of dark places. This, this game's focused on the darkness is a very important aspect of the game, as a matter of fact. Like, your wife is afraid of the dark. She is a phobia of the dark. And the lights turn out and then you try and go and save her. And there's a bunch of stuff that goes along with the whole darkness aspect of the game. But the way that Silent Hill plays in very dark corridors with flashlights and stuff like that feels a lot more Alan Wake in this regard. So I feel like Alan Wake may have borrowed a little bit of silent hills kind of characteristics or framework to make Alan Wake what it is.
09:49 --> 09:50 Yeah, I was trying to figure out.
09:50 --> 10:06 Very much a mind. I feel like it's because where Resident evil feels more jump scary action. This is more of kind of a. Sorry, YouTube, but like a mind fuck kind of game. A little bit like, it's very jumpy and it's very dark and very, like, messes with your head as you're playing it kind of game.
10:06 --> 11:34 Yeah. Like, for me personally, I don't really. I really don't play horror games very often. I did like Resident Evil, and when I say I like Resident Evil, I'm talking about the PlayStation ones, right? One, two, and three. And that's where I felt. It felt like that. But you're absolutely right. It's more psychological thriller than it is horror. Horror. Although it definitely has jump scares, there's definitely parts where. Oh, yeah, I was joking offline. I beat Elden ring and then I beat Alan wake together pretty much back to back. And my heart rate has never been higher. I had a heart attack. I almost died for the. This podcast beat me. Like, it's pretty, pretty brutal. Cause there are definitely parts where, like, you're. You're absolutely right. You're. There's definitely daytime segments where you're exploring, you're getting a bit of story, you're talking to characters, but the majority of the game, at nighttime, you're fending for your life. Right? You're. You're trying to speed through zones from spotlight to spotlight for safety. Because in this game, light is a major mechanic, like you mentioned, to the point where a spotlight, like a lamp, an overhead lamp, is not only a save point, a checkpoint, but it's also if you're being chased by enemies, by entering a spotlight, they disappear. Right. It's like, it's like a safe zone. Uh, and to kind of go with that as well is you're armed most of the time. Not always. Most of the time with a flashlight. And in this game, the flashlight is. It's kind of like a weapon in that. It's neat in that in combat, and there's a lot of combat, their shadowy figure is called. I believe they're called. Is it called the taken, I think they're called.
11:34 --> 11:35 Yes. Yeah.
11:35 --> 12:10 So, and when they come at you, they're wearing, like, a shadowy cloak of shadow and armor, and you can shoot them with a weapon, and I think you can kill them, but it takes so many hits. What you're supposed to do is flash your flashlight on them and actually, like, intensify it and burn away their shadow armor. And then you can see their face, and then you can cap them, and that's usually how you get through most encounters. So everything about this game is about the control and management of light, and that's pretty unique. So that's what I was trying to figure out. Is there any game that you can recall that uses that kind of mechanic that might be influenced by Alan Wake? I couldn't really think of anything.
12:11 --> 12:32 I'm sure someone will call us out on our discord or our webpage or something, but I honestly have never used a light mechanic in that sense, more of the light mechanic to, like, find your way around or. Or to solve a puzzle or something like that, but never as a combat weapon, never using flares. And a flare, like, the flare gun is the bazooka of Alan wake.
12:32 --> 12:32 Right.
12:33 --> 12:45 Like, you. You fire one of those off, and it'll take everything out in its radius. I don't know many that. That really focus on using that as. As a trope. And I I think it's really cool. It's a really cool aspect of the game.
12:45 --> 13:18 Yeah. And, like, in terms of, like, the combat itself, but it's not like resident evil, where you get maybe one or two enemies on the screen. There are many sequences where you have half a dozen enemies coming at you. It's pretty in your face combat. There's also sequences where not just the taken are coming after you, but the mysterious, dark presence that haunts you through this story is lifting objects and throwing them at you. And when I say objects, I'm talking section of bridges, uh, trees, rocks, tractor trailers.
13:20 --> 13:21 It looks like Twister.
13:22 --> 13:51 Yeah, it's. It's pretty brutal. Like, it's just anything and everything around you can be a weapon from the dark presence. And those sequences, if you're not dodging and finding safety, you're using your flashlight to kind of burn those objects away. And it's. It's pretty unique. And I think that's kind of what drew me to this, this game and franchise is that it's very, very unique, or at least I feel it is. So I may not be a horror fan, but I really dug the mechanics of that combat, at least initially, so it can.
13:51 --> 15:39 It does get a little. It can get a little tedious further into the game. Admittedly, there is kind of a dodge mechanic that you can use in the game, but it's also a run mechanic. You have to kind of time it just right, and sometimes it skips and you feel like you're, like, I pressed it when the guy was swinging, but it's. It's a. It's super dark all the time, be that you are literally surrounded by people, and half the time you think the guys are just in front of you and then you take an axe to the back because something snuck up behind you you didn't see. Like, it's. It is crazy. Like, the. The focus on the combat in this can get, like, really out of hand. You got birds flying at you in some respects and shit flying at you, like the tractor trailers. And then there's. There's a character. This game is exceptionally story heavy throughout it, but it's not like a make your own, like, choose your own adventure kind of story. There's a lot of action, a lot of combat in it, but there's a lot of sections of meeting people and talking to the people of the town. And then later you'll see those people again, but they've been taken by the taken. So now you're fighting like the guy that sold that was getting you the hotel keys to get into your cottage in Cauldron Lake. You end up fighting him, and he's, you know, he's got some weird voiceovers that has cool voice modulation and stuff. It sounds all weird. It's. It's very. It's very unique, and it doesn't. You go into basically, like, arenas in certain respects of fighting things, but it doesn't feel like it. Like there's. There's an area, like an area that you should stay in when you're fighting a boss sometimes, but it still feels open enough that you could run. You feel like you're running for miles within this arena to find something. So I think that the stage layouts are really cool, too. It's super linear, but the areas still feel really open.
15:40 --> 16:14 Yeah, there's definitely sequences where. I kind of wish to explain it a bit better, but there are certain sequences where it's to your benefit to just kind of keep running right. To not fight everything you come across, because there are sequences where enemies respawn infinitely. And I found that part kind of annoying. Wherever in a game like this, which is common, you're very limited the amount of ammo that you have and the weapons you have to the point where actually every time you beat a chapter of the six chapters, they take away all your items. And that was really frustrating. So all the cool weapons you got at the end of the chapter, you start fresh. The next chapter, like a new episode.
16:14 --> 16:19 Of your 20 flashlight batteries that you literally would hold on to.
16:19 --> 16:59 And like, if you don't have the flashlight batteries, if you can't use your flashlight, you basically can't win the stage. So I didn't, it didn't get to the point where I had to like, reload a stage or anything, but it definitely felt there were sequences where it's just better for me to plow through and run and not use any of my resources, not use my batteries, not save my bullets, and then kind of save that for a boss encounter. And I'm not going to lie, it was fun for the first couple of chapters, but by chapter five, I think it was end of chapter four. And then five, I kind of got tired of the combat. I just wanted the story beats because the story was so strong in this. So, I mean, you're in chapter five now. Do you still enjoy the combat? Did you enjoy it last time? Yeah. Okay.
16:59 --> 18:11 I like this whole game from start to finish. I think it's. But I like those games. Like, the difference between you and I, Jake, is that I love, like, silent Hill, I like these, these kinds of action, creepy games because the combat isn't as relentless to me and it just fits with the story. And I don't feel like I'm getting pushed, pushed by wave and wave. But there are, there are things that you could do where I never, like, I've died a couple times in my, my recent playthrough. As of last night, I died like three or four times. But it never felt like this is all I've got. Like, I can't do anything else. This is what I've got. I have to figure this out. There are, there are things that you could do to make it easier for yourself. If you're like, oh, if I focus on this instead of that, then that'll make that go away. And it, and it makes it a, it makes it a little bit better than just like, I just gotta bull rush my way through this and figure it out. Yeah, it doesn't bother me. I'm a big fan of the combat. I've only played a little bit of Alan Wake two. We're not gonna talk about a lot of Alan Wake two. We're just gonna use that as a reference today. Yeah, but I like the combat in that a little bit, too. It's slightly different, but that's for another episode.
18:11 --> 18:56 Well, I mean, I'll just say that when I played Alan Wake two, because I'm a little bit further into it. I was glad that the combat is similar in the theme of Alan Wake one, but, I mean, it's been, what, 15 years since this came out. So they've definitely refined how they handle combat. I was expecting combat was like control, which another remedy game. But no, they've definitely done the alamoid combat, but I've only seen, like, one, maybe two enemies on screen at once. So it's a bit more focused on the survival horror thing. It felt more like resident evil to me, but, yeah, that's a sequel in this game. It's fast and furious. Lots of emmys on the screen. I felt you're dodging all the damn time. I'm with you when you. When you think you're safe and all of a sudden an axe flies past your ear and you're like, what the hell? And you just.
18:56 --> 19:35 You get that really quick. You get the quick violin sound, and it pans out, and then you can see, like, it does, like, a camera rotation about the things that are around you, and you're like, oh, shit, run. We just gotta run. You know, and. Cause it. It'll do that. Like you said, there are. There are points in the game where they just keep going, and there. There's hidden stuff in this game you can miss. Manuscripts you can miss. There's these coffee thermoses that you find throughout the game, which I haven't. I can't remember what you get if you get them all, but if not some kind of collectible deal. But trying to completion is trying 100%. This is very difficult on stream because it gets boring when you're looking for the same thing over and over.
19:35 --> 20:10 And there's sections where I just kind of plow through, and I would grab the thermoses if I found them. I would grab the manuscript pages as I found them. But I didn't go out of my way to 100% this game. I just. I'm not that kind of gamer, and I don't think you need it. I still got lots from the story without all that collectible stuff. I like you. I don't even know what you get for it, to be honest. But it was fine. Yeah, definitely. Exploring levels is key. There are certain stages. They're actually. They're actually quite large. And that there's vehicles in the game. I'm not going to say the car physics are amazing or anything, but the fact that you can hop in a truck and you can use the truck as a weapon to fight the taken or you can flash, you can even.
20:10 --> 20:14 Yeah, you can focus your lights like your flashlight and use that to break down their shields. It's pretty cool.
20:15 --> 20:42 And like, there's, there's sequences where you drive along quite a long road and use. There's places to stop and you can just ignore all of it and keep going, which I did toward the end of the game. But early on I was stopping and checking every cabin on the way because there is definitely new weapons, right? There's shotguns, hunting rifles, different handguns. There's the flares, which, like you said, are a godsend when you're fighting in groups of enemies, which you do. There's, I think it's flashbang. Flashbangs, grenades, which.
20:42 --> 20:43 Flashbacks. Yep.
20:43 --> 21:50 Which do exactly what they say. What they say they do. It's a massive thing of light which wipes a room of enemies, which is really useful. So it pays to explore in this game, which is neat. So, yeah, like, I'm with you. It's, it's not an open world game. It's definitely a single, like single, single note, like linear game. Thank you. But I know when I was looking up on research in this game, remedy originally wanted this to be an open world survival game. That's the original intention. But I guess they had trouble wrapping their, how they would do that and tell a good story because they're all about story remedy. Right? Like they have a very distinct cheesy narrative narration type of thing. They did Max Payne and they do that here as well. And you either love it or hate it, but I guess they couldn't bend that to an open world survival, so they made it more episodic. They definitely took cuesd from tv shows like Twilight Zones, right. Or my favorite is outer limits. I love outer limits. And they have, they wear them their sleeve to the point where as you're exploring the game and stages, there's black and white tvs around the place and they show like a fake Twilight zone inspired story called. Was it night springs?
21:51 --> 21:52 Night springs, yes.
21:52 --> 22:02 And there's a little tiny little videos, right? Like, sure. And they're not, they're not short. They're like five minutes sometimes and you can sit and watch them and they're, and they're cheesy as fuck, just like the original, but they're terrible.
22:02 --> 22:03 A lot of them. Are really bad.
22:04 --> 22:05 But. But they're great, though.
22:05 --> 23:15 I still rate. But they're. It's the. The whole Twilight zone thing. What I really like about this game, and I try not to go too far off the reservation on this here, but they. They, like, this game is happening in two different levels of what's going on. Like, some of it's, like, in Alan Wake's head, some of it's real. And while you're walking through, you'll see Alan wake on a tv, like, looking at a tv, talking to himself about how he has to write this story and he has to do this. And this is where these characters. There's a lot. It's. It's not Game of Thrones level characters, but there's a lot of names and people. There's Rose, there's. There's a lamp lady who is a. I think a callback to the log lady from Twin Peaks. For those of you who know who that is, the crazy log lady, there's Thomas Zane. There's a bunch of different people that are super important in this that you can easily miss and be like. They keep talking about that. The asgardian rock band that they have on there, which, with the gods of Asgard, are gods of Asgard. Amazing.
23:15 --> 23:15 Yes.
23:16 --> 24:00 They are so cool. Their characters are really cool, too. And they have a whole thing. I think gods of asgards are seen throughout the remedy connected universe. As far as I know, they're in control. They're in. Out there in quantum break, I believe. And they're very heavy in Alan Wake, obviously. But those two characters are really neat as well. But there's. The story is there's not just a linear, like, what's going on? And someone telling that there is. It's like an onion. It's like a cake. There's so many layers to this game that it's very convoluted to start, but it really pulls itself together towards the end. And you're like, oh, my God. Yeah, this is really well written. Like, this was extremely. Once it all pulls itself together, it's really cool.
24:01 --> 25:58 I love Barry the agent, right? He's Alan Wake's agent, and there's sequences with him that are hilarious. There's one line where he's like, just like that night springs writing gig I got you. Don't you remember that, Alan? You're great. You're great in that. And Alan's just groaning because he hated writing for a tv show is very hacky, right? Or the fact that he's carrying a cardboard cut out of Alan Wake because, you know, he's a famous author, does book signings, and Barry's like, don't worry, Alan, I've got your cardboard cutout. It's like, thanks, Barry. There's these, you know, basically zombies. It's funny, but then it also gets very serious. Like, you're. Your character is trying to find out what happened to his wife. He's getting weird phone calls. He thinks she's been kidnapped. And as it goes further and further, it gets really deep. I won't spoil the entire plot, but the overreaching idea of this story is that there's a supernatural aspect to bright Falls and Cauldron Lake, the cabin that you went to visit. And the idea is that Alan Wake, as an artist, is basically influencing the world around him. This dark presence is using Alan to basically create a world around him to try and escape. And that's the entire story focus. And we'll talk about the ending of the story maybe at the end of the episode, because I do want to talk about that a little bit. But the idea is that Alan Wake, the reason this world feels so supernatural yet hokey at the same time, is because he, as a writer, is writing his own prison. In a way, it's incredibly interesting. If you've played any other remedy games, if you're like me, maybe you play control first. I play control first. And that was a off the walls, X Files inspired type of game, and I loved it, but it had some weird, weird plot points and narrative stuff that was like, oh, that's incredibly interesting. Alan Wake has all that. And that's why I was all in. So I may not have enjoyed the combat toward the end, but the story beats were really great and really compelling, and I couldn't wait to get through the story of this game so I could play the second game.
25:59 --> 26:43 Yeah, it. And it sucks that it. I mean, I'm glad that they did the re release so that you can. We can play it with fresh eyes because the remaster looks phenomenal. It looks really good because I bought the first one on Steam, and it's just the. It's just the original version on Steam. And I was like, this doesn't. This did not age well. Like, very, very well at all. And then you. You were like, it's on epic. It's like, like $2, $5. Go pick it up. So I went and got it, and it had the whole. The DLC and everything because I've not played the DLC. I want to. And I was like, holy cow. This looks really good. So I'm glad that I can replay it with it looking as well as it does with the DLC attached to it, so that when I do play Alan Wake two, it's fresh in my mind.
26:43 --> 26:44 The.
26:44 --> 27:32 The cheesiness in the game also really lends itself to each stage or episode. What I really liked about this game is it plays like a tv show. My wife, when I played it, initially liked watching this because it plays like an EPTV episode, and then when it's done, it recaps the last episode you did like a tv show. So she. We turn it on, and she'd be like, wait, don't play that. I want to see the recap because I don't remember what you did. So she'll watch the recap of the show, and then we play into the next game, and it just bleeds into one another. Excellent. Like, and when you beat a stage or an episode, it's like an episode. It's like a supernatural episode or a show on the WB where it says, like, end of episode or whatever, and then you get some band playing a song in the background and some soundtrack.
27:33 --> 27:40 Yeah. One of those tracks is, like, used only once at the end of a chapter. And they're all bangers. They're all really well done. Yeah, it's.
27:40 --> 28:03 It's cool. It's. It's a. It's exceptionally well designed to remedy just. I feel like remedy just quietly has been hitting things out of the park, and we didn't, we didn't see it until control. And. And it's a little. It's a little shitty because. Because quantum break has a full star cast. Like, it's, at the time, a list actors are. Are playing in this game.
28:03 --> 28:03 Yeah.
28:03 --> 28:40 And it all connects. It connects to Alan Wake. It connects to control in some way, shape or form, some more than others. But that's. That's where my interest was piqued, because I love Alan Wake. It was. I was so excited to get it when I got it from Microsoft. And then playing it was just incredibly fun. And then they were like, oh, Alan Wake two's coming out. I went, finally, about goddamn time happened. Because this game deserved a sequel. It needed to have an ending. His american nightmare, which is a Alan Wake spinoff, didn't really do it much justice. It's good, but they wanted to do more. They just couldn't do as much as they wanted to.
28:40 --> 29:25 Okay, so I won't dive into spoilers of Alan Wake just yet. I do want to talk about the ending a little bit later, but yeah. So the remastered version, which I played for those who. Who thought about. Well, was there differences from the original? Obviously, the graphics got a little bit of a bump. They look pretty. It's still a 2010 game, right? The models are still not as high res as you might think they would be for 2021, but who cares? The atmosphere is definitely key. Style is all over this game. It looks very, very well done. And the music is just banger like. Everything about it is just very. Presented very, very well. Differences from the original that I was reading. Apparently the original 2010 release had a lot of product placement things like Energizer batteries in the game, certain codes you could scan with the Microsoft app tied to Verizon.
29:25 --> 29:27 There are QR codes all over the place.
29:27 --> 29:55 Yeah, weird stuff like that. In the remastered version, they took it all out, which I probably appreciate more because the product placement always irked me when it came to tv shows. I never liked it, so I probably would have been annoyed with it. But then I think this also feels on brand for a game like this, where it's based on those nineties tv shows, you know, like Twilight Zone rider limits. It's based on those. And product placement is very much a thing in tv shows. So I see why they did it, but it still feels kind of weird.
29:55 --> 30:08 But I mean, it's also. I mean, Microsoft had this. This was a Microsoft game. I mean, it's obviously made by Remedy and all that other shit, but I feel like maybe Microsoft might have a little bit of hand in that with the product placement stuff.
30:09 --> 30:35 Well, because this was. This would have been 360 era, I guess, right? Yeah. So my. Because I love my 360. But Microsoft was definitely trying to push the. The idea of a new media with the Xbox stuff back then to the point where they had one versus 100, which is the game show, but on the Xbox Live. And a bunch of things. Even Quantum break was trying to blur the lines between the tv show and a game with a lot of live action shots. And like you said, a lot of good actors.
30:36 --> 30:36 Yep.
30:36 --> 31:19 So that was Microsoft in that time period. So I get it remastered, though. Came out for PS five, I believe. Yeah, PS five, Xbox. What the hell it is. And PC. So, yeah, the. All the modern consoles three years ago. So it definitely looks really great. And like I said, it was dirt cheap on epic. Like, criminally so. But maybe it's just people don't have. I mean, people know of this game. It reviewed well. It got like high eighties when it first came out. And the remaster was well liked. But I think I'm with you where remedy is quietly making these banger games and outside of control, nobody knew. And then they released link to last year, and everybody's like, oh, right, remedy, still a studio that's around, and they're doing really awesome games, right? It's.
31:20 --> 32:35 I didn't know that control and Alan Wake were even remotely connected until the. Until the DLC. And I did some digging. And then you play Alan Wake two, and you see remnants, like, right off the bat, you see remnants of control in there. And I've not finished control. I played. I played enough of it to know, you know, all the stuff that's going on. But the fact that they were merging those two together, I was like that. And I'm a concept album guy. I love concept albums. I love that shit. I love it when. When companies bring in other things. And I don't mean, like, in Fortnite, we're putting the Avengers in. I mean, like, the story is tied to another character of that story from something that I played in 2010. You know, now I'm playing something in 2018, and it's like, oh, yeah, this guy Alan Wake, you know, he's. He's trapped out in this blah, blah, blah. And you're like, oh, shit, I played that. Yeah, that's, like, one of my favorite games. They're, like, connecting all that stuff together. And then, you know, you dive deeper and you find out quantum break is involved, and then you dive deeper and you find out all these other things are involved. And then, of course, you know, Alan Wake two decides to drop a DLC that has the two main characters from Quantum break and from control mixed into it. And that's just. It's just. Ooh, just. I love it. So excited.
32:35 --> 32:46 The best example I can give of this, what it feels like is if control is X Files, then Alan wakes. Games are like millennium for those who remember that. Lance Henry.
32:46 --> 32:47 I love the day.
32:47 --> 32:50 I love it, too. Short lived. It should have gotten more.
32:51 --> 32:52 Good show.
32:52 --> 33:11 But the feel of it, right, was so much different than X Files was the, you know, the supernatural event of the week. And that's what control was. Everything was a supernatural event, and they were all very, you know, isolated. But in this game, Alan Wake, it's a supernatural event, but it's the entire game stretched out, and that's where they kind of blend over. So can you play control without Alan Wake? Absolutely. That's what I do.
33:11 --> 33:11 Absolutely.
33:11 --> 33:56 Yeah. But if you've played Alan Wake going back to control, I kind of kind of paints it in a new light for you when you realize that what Alan Wake is going through as a supernatural event. There's a whole world of messed up supernatural events. And it's really interesting, like they did. When we're done these games, we have to do a kind of like a catch all episode on the remedy universe because there's. There's theories about, like, the dark presence in Alan Wake versus, you know, the bad guys. The hiss, I think they're called from good pulse. Are they different? Are they the same? They're definitely very similar in what they're doing, but they're different aspects of ways to control and mess with humanity. That's really fascinating. There's a lot of lore in these games, and I wasn't expecting that when I started playing.
33:56 --> 34:52 Right. You don't. You don't pick up Alan Wake to get, you know, to look at items and descriptions to get a information about what. What the world is going on around you and you. And you. Do you get transcripts? I mean, Alan Wake's story is. Is literally unfolding in front of you because he's. He's kind of already written it. And you're. You're finding that out as you go. And it's. It's just so well thought out. Like, the entire experience is like, the whole thing. You're like, jesus, this is so well done. And you don't you look at a dude wearing a tweed jacket with elbow protectors? Cause you gotta bring that up. Cause they literally dropped that. Make fun of them about that all the time. And you don't think that it's going to be as deep as it goes. And then holy shit, you just. This is a game that you can get into a YouTube rabbit hole for hours and never find the bottom of it. It is just so well done. I love the fairy with the cutout.
34:55 --> 35:06 It's just like the bits of humor. But the game is definitely dark and definitely gritty and I definitely appreciate it. Like, you're right. The guys wearing a tweed jacket, but a fucking hoodie, who does this?
35:06 --> 35:12 It's just, you know, get that. And he's running around the Pacific Northwest. I mean, he fits right in up here.
35:13 --> 35:15 It's. It's really well done. Coffee mugs.
35:15 --> 35:22 I mean, good God. Coffee. Coffee thermoses. You're. You're in your Washington, baby. Welcome. Welcome in.
35:23 --> 36:43 Yeah, it's. It's definitely a great thing. And for a game that has, and I say it in the best possible way, very hokey, cheesy narration right. Straight out of, like, it feels like a detective story, something that you're watching, like Stephen King, if Stephen King were to narrate over his own movies, that kind of thing, that's what it feels like. And it's cheesy, but it's still really compelling and really well done. And it's definitely worth listening to. And that's why, I guess, the tie into the DLC, I loved Alan Wake one, and I loved the story in it, but by the end, I got tired of the combat. But the dlcs, which there were two of them in the remastered edition, signal and writer, they're more combat heavy, right? And there is some story in there, but I didn't bother going through them because I got tired of the combat by that point. I just read the story plot summaries on the wiki, and I feel I'm fine with it. If I'd like to comment more, I might have maybe appreciated those DLC episodes more, but I couldn't get into it. So did you do those dlcs and then also american. You didn't do them? Okay. Because then the other one, there's also. This game did well enough that it got a. An Xbox Live arcade spin off the Alan Wake american nightmare. I didn't know that was a thing. I thought it was like a DLC, but it's a full on standalone thing. But I heard it's also combat heavy. Like, is there a story there?
36:43 --> 37:09 Very. They, yeah. So that we're gonna. They're gonna kind of breach into a little bit of spoiler territory here, but not. Not much that the purpose of american nightmare was trying to elaborate on Mister scratch, which is Alan wakes double, that you discover later in Alan Wake one. And it's his main focus now. They like the combat. You would hate this. You would not like american.
37:09 --> 37:10 I.
37:11 --> 38:55 They give you, like, a nail gun. Like, they give you all kinds of different, like, weapons you can use. But it's so like the concept of, is you're trying to, like Mister Scratch is keeping you stuck in a night Springs episode. So you're in Arizona now. Like, you've left Washington. You're not in Washington anymore. You're now in Arizona, but you're stuck in a night Springs episode. So you keep going through the same three episodes, okay. And he keeps stopping you and sending you back, and you're, as you're going, you're so repetitive. The biggest downfall of. Of american nightmare is its repetition. It's literally the same three levels three times. So you go, you. You do this fix, you talk to this character, you get a little bit more insight. But Allen remembers everything when he gets sent back. So he, he does something different each time to change the outcome, to move forward, but he keeps getting kicked back. And then the very end, you, you take on Mister scratch and you basically defeat him in some way, shape or form. But, and then, you know, but he, it, they wanted to do more with it, but I don't know if they ran out of time or finances or what. It was just, it was a, an abuse of, let's just do this combat thing that we were. So that's, we're such a fan of because it works so well with the DLC, maybe, and you would hate it. You would, you would play and maybe 30 minutes of it and be like, nope, this is absolutely not for me. That's why I, and I, okay, I even gritted my teeth through it. I was like, I got to finish this because I want to know how the story ends. But by the third time I was in the fucking drive in, I was like, okay, okay, this better be the end because I don't, I'll look it up. If this isn't the end, I'm going to look this shit up. I don't want to play this anymore.
38:56 --> 39:20 It's weird because thinking of control. Control also had DLC. And I know one of the DLC was kind of heavily a callback to Alan Wake. I never played that one. I played because I bounced off the first DLC, which was also combat heavy. So it is weird that remedy has made these combat systems in their games and they're functional, they're fine, but they're not something I want to build a, build a game around. Right?
39:20 --> 39:45 For me, these games, I love story controls combat. I love controls combat. I like really like being able to use a telekinesis and all that stuff. It. But again, Jake, we're different people. I mean, that's true. Yeah, that's, it's the same kind of setup for, for Silent Hill and Alan Wake one and all that, that stuff. Even, you even were like, I like Alan Wake two combat, but I don't love it. Like, it's still not my I would not choose it, you know, kind of thing, but, so.
39:45 --> 40:48 Cause I started playing Alan Wake two the first DLC night springs just came out, or at least the first part of it came out. And I accidentally started it up when I was playing through Alan Wake two. And I'm like, the story is so good. That's great. Oh, there's a tv and then suddenly, I'm. I'm not gonna spoil it, but I'm a character. Night springs. And I'm like, all right, I'll give this 510 minutes to see what it is. And I quickly realized it was. Almost felt like it was probably combat focused to the point you're entering a kitchen, and it's an arsenal of weapons, and you pick your weapons to fight with, and I'm like, I don't want to do this. Give me the story. Give me the narrator, give me the asshole writer again, I don't want. Don't want your combat. I'm sure it's fine. I am going to give that one a go, because I do. I can live with the Alan wake two combat more than this game. But again, it comes back to, like, controls DLC, and now Alan wakes DLC. Combat is not why I played these games. Not that I'm opposed to combat. I like Resident Evil one. Yeah, that's fine. But I mean, yeah, these games are familiar story, but that's. I'm glad you like the combat in control, though, because I bounced off that one. Yeah, I don't know.
40:49 --> 41:07 Yeah, I'm excited to dive in a little bit deeper because when I found out that awe, which is the Alan Wake experiment or experience, is controls DLC, that's. That was what started this whole rabbit hole for me, was like, wait, they're connected somehow and, you know, goes from there.
41:09 --> 41:40 Yeah, these games are. These games are great. Every remedy game, too. If anybody's played more than one, there's always one, like, stand out, amazing sequence. So I'm going to get, I think, over this point. Let's move it to spoilers of Alan Wake one and just say, yeah, Alan Wake remastered is fantastic to play. Came in a couple of years ago. It's dirt cheap. Totally worth playing. If you like the combat, great. But even if you don't like the combat music presentation story is stellar, and there's few games like it. So, any final words on Alan Wake before we spoil the hell out of it?
41:41 --> 43:12 Go play it. The story is really deep and really good, and you don't have to find everything. There's manuscripts that go after the game, but even if you don't find them all, the story still gets told. It's not like you miss anything. You just get a little bit more insight before the story gets its full blown discussion out. I would just play it and, and run through and, and enjoy the. Enjoy the game as it is. I think it's a. It's a beautiful game. Again, like Jake said, it's got that nineties feel from millennium, which is great. Very twin peaksy, if you like Twin Peaks and all that weird David lynch shit. It's the same kind of vein. And he. He talks about Stephen King being one of his favorite writers in the beginning of the game. So you can definitely see some king influence into the game itself from their writing. So, yeah, if you don't want it, that's. If that's the last thing you hear us say tonight, go play. Go buy Alan Wake for dirt cheap and just sit down. It's not a long game, and it's worth every single minute, and it'll probably open up some doors for you to be like, hey, I should try control if I haven't played that, or I should try quantum break if I haven't played that, and understand why Alan Wake two was getting so much love off the get go, because I still feel a lot of people were like, why is Alan Wake two getting so much love when it's been gone for 15 years? But they. They talk about all that and Alan Wake two, like, what has happened in the last 14 years and all that stuff? So go check that out. But go ahead and turn. Yeah, we're going to the spoilers.
43:12 --> 43:48 Spoilers now. Yeah, this point is spoilers because I had to talk about this story a little bit more. But also just want to point out, every single remedy game has a sequence that's just meme worthy. And in Alan Wake one, like an aloe and control, it was the ashtray maze. For those who've played that, like, the combination of music plus sights and sounds, that's just wild. Alan Wake two is as. Not as epic as that, but there's a sequence where you're on a farm. The. The gods Vadsguard, the. The two old guys you meet at the asylum level who are hilarious. I'm with you, right? Like, they're sitting there at the table playing night springs, the board game, and they actually play.
43:48 --> 43:52 The names are Thor and Odin.
43:52 --> 43:52 Odin.
43:52 --> 43:55 They changed their world tour and Odin. But it's.
43:56 --> 44:46 But they, like, basically tell you, oh, we have a farm, you should come visit or something. And you actually go to their farm and, like, a heavy metal band should they have, like, you know, the asgardian styled set piece that's on there and you're on the stage and you're fighting on the stage while Barry's, like, trying to fix the lights to help fend off the attack. That whole sequence was really epic. And as much as I have gripes of the combat. That set piece was done really freaking well and that will always stand out. My brain is like such a great combat sequence. I love, I love that set piece. And like I've heard Alibi two has very similar control. Had it. So remedy is very good with what they do. They have a formula, right? Like, much like Bioware has a certain formula with how they do their games. Remini has a certain style, and they definitely hit it when each of their games. So really awesome. How much do you remember the ending of this game, though? Chard.
44:48 --> 46:08 I remember quite a bit. I'm trying to remember the lady in Black's name, and I know her correlation and her relation. Thomas Zane is a very important character throughout it, and he's connected to the ending. I'm recalling the clicker, the light clicker that he was given, and a bunch of, like, tidbits from that. Again, I actually recently listened to an allure video, not too long, but I worked today while I was working on stuff just so I can get a refresher because I wanted to come in with a fresh mind on this discussion. But the characters and the names that are all correlated are pretty important. And the fact that they're setting him up to pretend that they kidnapped his wife, Hartman, I think the doctor that puts him in the insane asylum, which they go very shutter island on that hole. If you guys have seen Shutter island with Alan Wake inside the Assayne asylum, and he meets the old gods of Asgardhead. And then I love the Thomas, the Thomas Zane connection. I love his character. I love how he's in a deep sea diving suit every time you see him, because that's his favorite pastime, was to go deep sea diving. So people are playing this game, and there's some dude at a deep sea fucking seventies diving suit. You're like, who the fuck is this guy?
46:08 --> 47:13 So maybe explain a bit more to this people. Well, because I just beat the game, but my, honestly, my short term memory sucks. So I was trying to, like, wrap my brain around the plot of this game. So Cauldron Lake, there's definitely. It's a site of like a dimensional door to a different plane, right? That's where the dart. This place of power, right? Yeah, I think that's. I think that's accurate, right? It's definitely. Definitely a spot, a focal point of one dimension crossing over into the real world. And then you have basically the dark presence can't affect our world directly. She has to interface, she has to work with somebody to kind of do her bidding. And so she preys on artists, right? There's been stories before in fiction of, like, you know, the evil presence, using a muse or an artist to kind of do their evil work. And that's what they're drawing from here. And I guess that's what they're using Alan Wake for as a writer. He writes and affects the world. And before him, though, she had taken over Thomas Zane, I think he was also a writer. Or was he a painter?
47:13 --> 48:07 Thomas Zane? He was. No, he was a writer. He was, but he was a. He was more of a poet. He was more of a short story poet writer. So he. So she took over the darkness, took over his muse, his. I don't know if it was girlfriend or wife. His. His love interest. She. She was taken over by them. And while she was trapped inside her, she was tricking him into writing her into existence. But he found out about it, and he actually tried to rip the darkness out of his wife by ripping her heart out. So there's a scene where you see the darkness in Zane's wife's caricature with smoke coming out of her chest because he tried to pull the darkness out. So what Zane did, he learned this, and he wrote the darkness back to sleep, essentially. And also in doing so, he completely erased all memory of him and his writing forever throughout the world by doing this.
48:08 --> 48:08 Right.
48:08 --> 49:20 So the old gods of Asgard were a 1975 band, and they were stirring the darkness but never fully woke it up. And they knew that, too. So they were trying to, like, keep it at bay. And Alan Wake got tricked and was the one that finished opening the door. So they. They kind of made. Woke it up, and then he let it out. And because she trapped his wife or captured his wife and then tricked him when she fell into the lake, there's a whole scene that you wake up from the car wreck, but then you get drunk on the moonshine that the old gods of Asgard, Gazgaard, gave you. And during your drinking phase, because they use. They distill the water, or they use distilled water from Cauldron Lake, which is the place of power, which allows Alan to dream, walk in his dream to see what actually happened at the house. And he finds out that the darkness kidnapped his wife, but then tricked him that she was upstairs and led him back up into the writing room that his wife set up for him to write the book and trapped him in there and said, the only way to save your wife is to write this story. So he writes a Stephen King esque. Horror story, which he then lives out as you are playing the game.
49:21 --> 50:37 As he writes that story more and more, the dark presence is kind of basically manifested in the real world and can escape. Right. So at the end of the game, he eventually, Alan Wake realizes what he's doing. The pieces come together. He's not the first writer to be used by the presence. And he finds a way to basically save his wife and save Barry and his friends by kind of continuing to write the novel but not having them written in it, but writing that. I think he. I think he ends it off by writing Cauldron Lake sinks to the bottom of the lake, I think is what it was or the idea. So he knows what he's doing. He's writing the novel. That cauldron lake goes beneath the water. Everybody is saved, but Alan Wake is down there and has to stay down there to continue writing. But what kind of was weird is the ending line to the game is something like, it's not a lake, it's an ocean, and it's like end credits. Great song. That would have pissed me off in 2010 if I played this game, though, because you don't get the answer. You don't get any follow up to that, really. I mean, I may be in the DLC to a degree, but I don't feel like you do until island wake two, which is, you know, over a decade later. So that. That ending sequence is so weird. I don't think I needed it to end on a happy ending, but it's just such a cliffhanger and that. That just feels odd to me.
50:37 --> 51:29 Alan Wake had. There was. There was a transcript book that was written for Alan Wake, too, that had some lore that was connected to it, as well as some. Some graphic novels, I believe were also written for Alan Wake. You know, 2010, they were doing, Microsoft and Remedy was doing everything they could to promote this game. It was, it was quietly huge. Like, it had a lot of connecting lines and for good reason, too. So, you know, if you bought, like, the special edition, you got, like, a transcript book that you can read that came with the game, and it would explain a lot more of that other stuff. But, you know, they were setting it up for. There had to have been a sequel in mind for this whole thing other than him just being like, I've saved all my friends and I'm trapped down here for the rest of my life, you know? And. Yeah, but, you know, who, who knew. Who knew what they were going to do? But, I mean, like you said, it got great reviews so it just amazes me that it took him 15 years to get the next set of this game set up.
51:30 --> 52:52 Yeah. From what I read, it was they had ideas for a sequel, but I guess they couldn't get it. Maybe they couldn't get funding. Right. I'm trying to remember who owned them at the time. Maybe it was a partnership with Microsoft that kind of, you know, curtailed what they could do. I know, for example, Max Payne, they don't own the IP, too. That's Rockstar now. Right? So maybe they were kind of at the whim of. Of their publisher deals, but the ideas they had for analytics, two at the time, they couldn't use, and they ended up evolving it into quantum break. And then, like I said, it's the studio that. I mean, they make great games, but I never heard of any of them post Max Payne, to be honest, until I played control, and control was a stellar release that. That one's also really well reviewed, and I know it made remedy a ton of money, and that probably gave enough clout to do what the hell they want. And I think that's when we. Why we find eventually got Alan wake two and alawait two just for the. The 6 hours I played of it. It feels like it's the game that they want to make, and it's totally their own, right. And they. Nobody's telling them how to do a game, right. It's like larian studios of ballers, gate three. They made their own game. Nobody told them what to do, right? Like, for some miracle wizards, like, you know what? Just make us a good game. And they did it on their own. They did their way. So that's something special. I'm glad I played the remaster three years ago or now and not like three years ago or worse, ten years ago. Because, like, there's stuff in this game that definitely crosses over to alan.
52:53 --> 53:09 I loved the game ten years ago. I loved playing in 2010 when I first picked it up. I just fell in love. But again, it's a. It was in the realm of the stuff that I like to play, so. And I. And the funny thing was, it's like this game has, like. Has quietly so much hype behind it.
53:09 --> 53:10 Yeah.
53:10 --> 53:53 Is it. Is it. Am I just hyping myself up or. Because you look at the COVID and you're kind of like, yeah, it looks like a Gil Grissom fucking novel or something. It doesn't. Yeah, it just. Okay. Just looks like an Xbox game, but then you play it, you're like, this is so deep. It's so good. There's a, there's characters that you love and, and you care about that aren't just Alan Wake. Like, you give a shit about Barry. You give a shit about the guard, you give a shit about Rose. Like, you give a shit about people. You're like, I hope they don't get. And then the people that get possessed, you're like, oh, man, I like that guy. I didn't want to deal with that. Or there's an asshole where you're like, oh, good, I get to shoot that guy. Fuck that guy. You know, there's. There's just so much to it. It is. It is extremely well done. And, and the remaster has, I think, done really good justice to it.
53:53 --> 54:31 It's one of those games where I do feel bad now because I've played the first silent hill, and it was fine. It was good. But, I mean, I had zero interest in the rest of that franchise. And I've heard, you know, I think you've said good things about it. Wolf has said a lot of good things about Sound Hill two. I hear that there's a remake of Sound Hill two coming out, and I'm hearing a lot of positive stuff about it. Now. Is it that early? Yeah, but I mean, it's one of those games where I look at the COVID and I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, especially not a game, but I look at Alan Wake's box art, and it's just like, man, okay, it's a horror game. I'm good. I don't need to play it, right? I wish it's that way.
54:31 --> 54:32 It's a black cover.
54:32 --> 54:33 Yeah.
54:33 --> 55:03 With the name Alan Wake across it and him standing, like, between the A's or something with his flashlight, and that's. That's it. It's so like blade playing j. But it looks. It looks like a mystery book cover. Like you would buy that book for written by Stephen King or somebody. So it definitely, like, it plays into all of its tropes of writers and nineties tv shows and all of that stuff. All those tropes are in there really well depicted.
55:03 --> 56:04 Really fantastic package all around. So, I mean, just to wrap it up, I guess. Just stellar, stellar game. I'm really glad I played it now in 2024. Fantastic. I can't wait to play more of the sequel. It's enough. It's enough. Where I'm after I beat Ele two, I might go back and play Quantum break, which is a game I had zero interest in, like, I had no interest in it at all. Right. I almost want to play control again, although I'm not going to because that game is long. I beat it once, but it makes me appreciate the studio so much. I'm not going to call it a hidden gem, because I feel like everybody's played it but me. But there is. There's more to this game than I. I thought, and I wish. I wish I gave it a shot back then, because the. The atmosphere, the story, the narration is great. The bits of humor are very on brand for that studio, and I really appreciate what they're doing with it. I love the stupid, smug face of Sam Lake and Max Payne and the narration of this game. It just. What a. What a franchise. Like, it's just something. A wild ride. I'm glad I'm playing it now with now week two. So I think this is great.
56:04 --> 57:29 Sam Lake is depicted as Alex Casey, which is Alan Wake's character that he wrote about, who is a cop, who is a beat cop detective. And he actually kills him off in his most recent book. And the coming of him coming around to being like, well, I killed off this character who I've had hundreds of books. Well, not hundreds, but lots of books about a full story about, I've killed the character off. Now what do I do with my writing career? And that's where he gets the writer's block from, is because he's not writing about Alex Casey anymore. Then he finds out he's written departure, which is the name of the story of the game, and. But he didn't know he wrote it because he wrote it under the influence of the darkness. There's this whole thing. And I want to ask you, Jake, now that you've beaten the game and it's. It's a brain. It's a brain turner for sure. Do you think. Do you think that Thomas Zane may have actually written Alex Wake into existence to fight the darkness? Because he wrote. He wrote the clicker into existence, right? That saved Alan. Wait, that Alan Wake had as a kid? So Alan wasn't alive when Thomas Zane wrote this shit? Alan Wake doesn't know his father. He's not. He's not aware of who his father is. So there's this. This deep rumbling of. Did Thomas Zane actually create Alan Wake out of his own writing for the feeding the darkness?
57:29 --> 57:31 What a mind fuck.
57:31 --> 57:41 Isn't that great? I mean, that stuff you're really digging deep on a man wearing a tweed jacket. Like, it's just really well done. You just don't think that it's that deep.
57:41 --> 58:21 The sequel is featured. I mean, it's in the first 5 seconds of the game. Alex Casey is one of the main characters in that game. So. And that's. And I knew him. I recognized the name of him as the book from the first game. So it's like it was a real character. So did Alan Wake create Alix Casey or just, is this just the character who existed and the story that the dark presence pulls him into the. The threads of altering reality? Like, how much this reality is real and how much is created by Alan Wake? Or, like you said, Zane. Wild to think that Thomas Zane, after how many decades trapped, figures out the best way to save everybody is to write, right, his own hero. That's a wild take. I wonder if that's in the sequel more, right.
58:21 --> 58:45 I'm excited to see if there's going to be more about that because that's, that's, you know, that's straight out the lore thing that I was listening today and it made me go, huh. That's an interesting take on this whole aspect of this game. To think of something that deep in this is just. It's crazy that you wouldn't look at the COVID of that game and be like, this shit has a rabbit hole I'm gonna fall into. I'm gonna be up all night thinking about this now.
58:45 --> 59:22 And that's straight out of utter limits. For anybody who ever watched utter limits, as cheesy as that show was every episode, I would never say it's happy ending. It was an ending. And there's always some kind of twist, some kind of lesson learned or twist. And that's what this feels like. Rall and Wake is like, it ends, but then there's a twist. And then that twist, if given the chance, could be unraveled into something really awesome. And outer limits never had the chance to do that because the tv show. But here we have a game that can do that. So I'm looking forward to finishing Alan Wake two and talking about that with you, Chard, because there's got to be some of the answers hopefully in that game that kind of call back onto this because this is fantastic.
59:23 --> 01:00:06 I just love the Twilight zone picture now. You living in this world. I love the whole. The narrator and the whole, it's just, it's so perfectly done that you're like, damn it. It sounds so right. I feel like here on night springs, you're like, I'm watching Twilight Zone right now. It's just perfect. Everything about the game is so good. And if you have any appreciation for outer limits, Twilight Zone, millennium, Twin Peaks, x Files, any of those things, all those shows, this is an interactive game that allows you to play as that and really takes you into a really cool, really cool story. It's very deep story. Check it out.
01:00:07 --> 01:00:51 Totally worth it. All right, chart. I think that's an episode. We talked an hour on this game. Can't wait to talk about the rest of this franchise with you over the next year or so. Hopefully less than that, because we got to beat these games. Just want to give a quick shout out to folks in chat. Syntress, hello, jer, how you doing? Dwarblack, welcome. Thanks for joining the stream. You can check us out. If you like this episode, please drop us a like, subscribe to our channel on YouTube or on Twitch or any of your favorite podcast apps. You can also find us@presbyticancel.com or presby.org fuck.com dot. It's too expensive. We do stream and have episodes every Friday and Monday. And I don't do a whole lot outside of the podcast, but chard, you do. What are you up to?
01:00:51 --> 01:02:36 I'm actually playing the remedy connected universe as we speak. It's funny because we were. Jake and I discussed, Jake's only on vacation here in a couple weeks for a little while. And I was like, we should. I should get a little further into the RCU so that, you know, I can have a little bit more to bounce off of. And then he's like, everybody's out except for you and me. Let's talk Alan Wake. All right, I'll do it. I'll do the speed read and get through it, which is fine. Like I said, I'd already beaten this game, and I'm glad we separated these up into. It could be four episodes or, you know, whatever we're going to do with it. And I really. I've really been waving the flag, the Alan Wake flag for a long time, even before I joined the podcast to these guys. Cause I'm like, it's a really good guys. You just gotta sit down and try it and give it a try. And I'm really happy that Jake got what I was hoping he'd get out of the game and really did appreciate it to the point where it got him to get into the second one. And he might play Quantum break. And he wants to go back to control, like, to unlock all of that stuff again. It makes me really happy because this game deserves a lot of love. Extremely well done. And I'm playing through it again. I was kind of like, I don't know if I want to replay it again. And I'm on chapter five. And I'm like, I'm so happy I replayed this again. This is really, really good and really a lot of fun. So come check me out on Twitch Chardmonk at, you know, Twitch TV and join me as I continue to cruise through the RCU. We'll finish up. I'm on episode five of Alan Wake, so we should finish up that this weekend. And then I'm going to start quantum break after that so we can see how all that ties in and then control. And then finally we'll finish up with Alan wake two. And my hope is we get to Alan wake two right when the last DLC drops in. So we can have both of those because I think that's due out in October.
01:02:36 --> 01:02:45 The lake house. I think it is. Yeah. That should be interesting. Yeah. All right, well, we are pressing to cancel. Thanks for listening, Alan.
01:02:45 --> 01:02:46 You saved your cardboard cutout.
01:03:31 --> 01:03:46 One of those days for YouTube. Okay, hold on. Let's fix the intro video. Oh, it's already on me. Everything's set up and I have to do nothing. It was great when you watch episodes of two people on the ball. Even did a thumbnail ahead of time. It's great.
01:03:47 --> 01:03:50 It's like we got plans to not be here for a week.
01:03:52 --> 01:03:55 It's like I got vacation coming. Call this. Sweeps.
01:03:56 --> 01:03:57 Sweeps week.
01:03:57 --> 01:04:12 Sweeps. It's a. There's a channel I watch giant bomb all the time. I'm watching them for years. And they decided next week, just for the hell of it, they're doing b weekend. I'm like stealing our bit. It's all beef.
01:04:12 --> 01:04:14 Another letter, buddy. Yeah.
01:04:14 --> 01:04:20 20 other 525 letters you can pick from you to pick B. Son of a bitch. Sorry, YouTube.
01:04:20 --> 01:04:24 We'll do. We'll do g week. Then.
01:04:24 --> 01:04:42 Gweek. We should do a random themed week. Just pick a random animal, right? Like, you know, forget shark week. We could just do something like, I don't know, like crab weekend. Crab week finished the month off with an episode on Crab Rave or whatever the hell that game was. That game that had crabs that came out recently.
01:04:42 --> 01:04:47 Another man's treasure, I think it's called. Or something like another crabs treasure. Something like that.
01:04:47 --> 01:04:48 I think it was okay.
01:04:48 --> 01:04:53 Yeah, yeah. I heard. Was legitimately decent, you know, sounds really good. Black myth, wukong.
01:04:54 --> 01:05:32 So I know we're live and we're talking. We haven't started yet, but shroud, Shroud. Dextero did a quoted shroud saying that if Wukong black myth, Wukong doesn't get game of the year, then the awards are rigged. That's such a stupid statement. It's like saying if Dragons Dogma two doesn't get game of the year, then it's rigged. I mean, I'm not saying it's not a bad game. It's a good game. And Wukong looks like a great game. I don't think it's game of the year good unless you're really into that genre. I think that's a crazy statement. Like, we had Bellatro this year. We had freaking all kinds of great shit this year. I mean, helldivers, too was gonna be high on my list if it wasn't for all the, the train wreck of patching they've done.
01:05:32 --> 01:05:35 Erdtree, baby. I mean, that's a tree.
01:05:35 --> 01:05:45 Yeah. I mean, I think you can still make the argument that game is still, if it was a standalone spinoff game, shadow of the Erdri would definitely be up that list.
01:05:45 --> 01:05:52 Yeah, I agree. The least DLC of the year, if anything, for sure. Yeah, it should be.
01:05:52 --> 01:05:59 And, like, I'm sure, I'm sure Wukong is great. It looks very, the graphics look amazing. The music sounds pretty decent when it's there. But I don't know.
01:06:00 --> 01:06:20 I watched the first five minutes in the fight, like, the tutorial fight, and you're fighting on a cloud, like, in the clouds, and it is. No, I'm I'm serious. I know this looking thing because it literally all your motion, the clouds follow your motion, like, perfectly. It's like, this is beautiful, man. Fuck.
01:06:20 --> 01:06:32 I shouldn't have watched it isn't unreal five game. I think it's an unreal five game. I think it is because the next couple years, we're gonna get lots of this shit. Like, it's just really stellar graphics on, like, a high, like, unreal five is, is legit.
01:06:32 --> 01:06:50 I know my PC was, was down for the last couple weeks because, you know, I had to take the time off. But I updated my card, my drivers yesterday before I streamed, and then I just got on today and it's like Wukong's release. You need a new driver. I was like, stop it. Stop telling me to get this.
01:06:51 --> 01:06:58 There's so many games you have to play. You got Liza P. You've got, I don't know, Alan, wake two. We got to get through.
01:06:58 --> 01:07:02 Simstar is going to beat me up if I don't finish Liza P. I.
01:07:02 --> 01:07:09 Saw that the teaser ending to that game. It's. They could have a whole franchise of lies, of P. You never know. Should get in that door now.
01:07:09 --> 01:07:14 That's what I heard. I've heard. I've heard it's a great game and it's. It's fun to play. I just need to be in the mindset to do it.
01:07:15 --> 01:07:15 Yeah.
01:07:15 --> 01:07:19 I'm on my. I'm on my Alan weight kick. Which, speaking of.
01:07:19 --> 01:07:21 Yep. All right, drop that opening line, then.