Report #58
Huh, two posts in one month, can’t remember when that was the case last. Having 3 weeks of vacation and playing some shorter games surely helped. Compared to the last report the games were pretty bad apart from one, but hey, those need to be played as well ;) Airline Tycoon 2 has (rightfully) one of the worst Steam ratings of any of my owned games, so that was expected. But I was a bit disappointed in Alan Wake’s American Nightmare after playing the excellent Alan Wake. See my reviews for more details:
Reviews
Airline Tycoon 2
In Airline Tycoon 2 you're managing an airline: From hiring personell and buying your own airplanes to designing flight plans for those airplanes. The concept sounds interesting and it made me want to play a proper simulation game at some point again, but unfortunately the implementation is severly lacking. The controls are very basic, the user interface and menu structure cumbersome. Furthermore it is quite intransparent why some of your airplanes run a greater profit than others while this should be the most important part of an economical simulator. I could go on or into more details, but seriously, just don't buy this game.
Alan Wake is a horror action adventure where you play Alan Wake, a famous writer suffering from a blockade. He and his wife Alice are visiting a picturesque rural village named Bright Falls to take a break from their hectic New York lifestyle and maybe for Alan to find his inspiration again. However, soon after arriving, strange things start to happen. Some ancient evil has been awakend by their arrival and Alan has to battle the darkness to save his wife.
I don't like horror movies or games, but this one was rather spooky than really frightening. The gameplay is interesting, the fights are innovative and the gunplay mostly satisfying -- albeit some people complain about the repetitive nature of the fights, which is not unfounded criticism. The story is told well and is definitely a strong plus of the game. It drives the game and I wanted to go on to see how everything turns out. It also helps to hold the game together, something the sequel American Nightmare lacks. Overall the balance between story- and action-driven parts is well made, so that playing the game does not get boring.
While going through the game you can definitely see Remedy's fingerprint. The voiceover reminded me a lot of Max Payne and the reallife sequences (e.g. the movie collectibles) foreshadow Quantum Break. In addition there are some nice nods to Twin Peaks ("Damn fine coffee!"), which I want to rewatch now. (It may sound a bit strange, but I also got some Life is Strange vibes from the game, maybe I should play a good story-driven adventure or walking simulator soon again.)
All in all I was really impressed by the game. I had no real expectations going into it and was thoroughly surprised how much I ended up liking the game. I don't rate it perfect for two small reasons though: The graphics are really dated and unfortunately it bothered me a bit. Secondly, the two additional smaller DLC episodes were disappointing. Solid, yes, but miles away from the main game. Still, definitively a recommendation! The only one from this report.
This is the sequel to Alan Wake. However, it's an entirely different game. Instead of a linear horror adventure AN is a semi-open world action game, which changes the focus from the story to fighting. Unfortunately this ruins the game almost completely for me. The appeal of Alan Wake is missing from this sequel.
Although the graphics improved, the overall visual style is bland and uninspired. The same is true for almost everything else. There are some more weapons and more varied enemies, but this cannot outbalance the negative developments. The only positive thing were some tidbits of brilliant dialogue (esp. with Dr. Meadows), but even those drown in the insignificant rest of the conversations with the NPCs.
While the story lasts about 4-5 hours, the achievements need you to play the additional arcade mode, were you need to kill as many enemies as possible in 10 minutes on different maps. Some of the achievements are rather difficult, but thankfully the maps can be abused and seriously take the challenge out of those achievements. What remains is a bit of grind. All in all this was really disappointing and no recommendation from me for this game.
Currently playing
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DiRT 3 Complete Edition
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Disciples III: Resurrection
25.4 hours playtime
no achievements
I joined some people going for DiRT 3 MP achievements. We’re not finished yet, but so far it was a blast. I should do this more often. Disciples III on the other hand wasn’t a blast. This abomination is virtually unplayable on Win 10, so I only make progress when playing on an older PC of mine. As Airline Tycoon 2 it is one of the few games in my backlog with less than mixed Steam ratings, completely deserving of it.
All in all this might look like a mediocre report with two games with less than average ratings. However I’m deeply satisfied with my gaming. I enjoyed playing this crappy Airline game because it was fun seeing how one of the worst rated games of my backlog turns out. And despite everything I could see some good in it and it made me want to play a proper simulation game, so that’s a win. Alan Wake was so much better than expected and in addition I finally managed to complete a game with achievements again. American Nightmare was disappointing, but at least it was short. And it was satisfying to complete, since some of the achievements required a few tries to get them and I managed to not immediately give up but stayed with it until I got them. On top of that I was “brave” enough to meet up with some random internet people and hunt some achievements, something I usually don’t do, because of, well … random internet people.
Happy backlog-clearing to everyone,
Vito
2021 goals: 4/10 achievement games – 7/10 long games – 55/49 unfinished games
I’m not sure if “American Nightmare” is considered sequel, it’s more of a uhhh I completely forgot the word, off-shoot? Alternate timeline? I think you know what I mean. The closest we got to sequel were the DLCs you played in main game. And there are some hints that Remedy’s latest game, Control, is set in the same universe. They currently work on their next game that is supposed to be in “Remedy multiverse” or something like that and in 2019 they bought the publishing rights for original Alan Wake, so many people are hoping that a real sequel is in the works.
As for Disciples III, do you have legacy settings enabled in W10? If you don’t, it might solve whatever issues you have.
You are probably right, American Nightmare is probably not a real sequel. That’s probably why I was disappointed, because I wanted it to be a sequel. I still think it’s a bit weak even when you don’t compare it to Alan Wake, but maybe I would given it 3/5 in that case. Yeah I’ve also heard that there is a new game in the making and I’m looking forward to see more of it.
Thanks for the tip concerning Disciples 3! I actually tried legacy settings, but either I did something wrong or it did not help, at least not on my machine. It’s not that bad though, because I managed to beat it in the meantime. Glad that I never threw away (or sold) my old PC :)
that sounds right — i was expecting american nightmare to be more different from alan wake than a sequel. i ended up liking them both about equally for different reasons. i didn’t bother with arcade mode at all but really enjoyed the do-over loop
You’re right, that was a neat idea. I think I would have enjoyed it more with a bit more time between the games. As I wrote in my review, some of the dialogue was pretty good and made me think a bit more about the whole writer controls reality thing
Congratulations on all of your assassinations! Which game was your favorite this month?
Also it stinks to have a bunch of bad games in a row but it’s nice to finish them, last time that happened I spoiled myself and went off schedule to play an open world. =w=”
My favourite was definitely Alan Wake. Though the graphics are a bit dated, I really enjoyed the story and the way it was presented.
Actually it wasn’t that bad, because the games were quick to finish. And each game taught me something. Like for example Airline Tycoon 2 was really bad, but it made me appreciate proper simulation games more.
Which game did you choose to play?
Summer in Mara was my treat after my last bad month, and before that it was Lost Ember and Spyro the Trilogy. March was awful to me, I was genuinely enjoying one of the games too, Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf, but the ending was so bad and disappointing there was absolutely no way I could have recommended it to anyone.
Ah damn, that’s too bad when a good game has a bad and disappointing ending. It really can ruin the whole experience. Sometimes we just have those months, but thankfully the majority of games is usually more on the good than on the bad side :)
I played Alan Wake a few years ago and also liked it a lot. Any game where you can put the lime in the coconut is a winner in my book. I agree that there seem to be certain narrative & cinematic qualities that run across all of Remedy’s games. Quantum Break was very cool, although it surfed the limit of what my aging rig can handle, so Control might just have to wait until GPU prices come down!
Ha, yeah! Alan Wake has some great easter eggs and cultural references. I can always appreciate those. Quantum Break was fun as well. I don’t think it deserved the mixed reviews it got at its time. I remember the loading times to be awfully long though.
Yeah, tell me about it. I want to buy a new GPU for almost 2 years at this point but can’t bring myself to spend that much money. I too hope that the prizes come down eventually. I mean, sooner or later they have to. Right?
Nice. DiRT 3 was such a hit back in the day. It is good that you find pleasure in achievement runs, because sometimes it could feel more like a chore than pleasure. I am currently achievement running through Stygian, and oh, boy! It’s not pleasure at all at this point, with so much grind involved.
Achievements can definitely be no fun at all! It really depends on the game and in multiplayer on the people you play with. And the DiRT 3 MP achievements were all okay apart form one remaining one that involves a ton of grind. And the people were pleasant as well, no complaints there either.
I read your Stygian review, never heard of the game before. Sounds interesting, but damn, that game has a lot of achievements!
Yep, the game is an example of achievements done wrong. In order to get them, you’ll have to beat the game at least six (!) times. Some of them require huge amount of grind which doesn’t bring anything valuable to the game, some of them - luck, and some of them - strict pre-game choices. On my 3rd playthrough I’ve started using console commands (official in-game cheats; funnily enough, they don’t void cheevos), because it is still kinda interesting to see how the story unfolds with different characters but not with all that unfair grind.