Disclaimer: 4 Stars for story and atmosphere. The combat is such a chore, and at times just plain unfair, that I used the developer mode for unlimited guns and ammo. I don't enjoy survival horror games where you are constantly overpowered and outnumbered by hard to kill enemies with very scarce resources to do so. Yet, even on normal difficulty, Alan Wake is in large parts exactly that. By the time I realized this I was hooked by the story and characters, so I didn't want to leave it behind unfinished. Good thing you can activate developer mode and simply have a neverending amount of flashbangs aka "boom, get out of fights easily". Even then I died a few times in the second half of the game, sometimes enemies simply crowd and stun lock you so you don't even manage to throw the bomb. No idea how Remedy originally imagined this game to be played without provoking serious anger issues and/or hear attacks. That being said, i really enjoyed the stories, atmosphere, and characters in this game. Lots of quirky personalities and loads of great dialogue, the local radio show, the mystery tv series you stumble across every now and then, all of this creates a dense mystery that makes you want to see it through to the end.
I find the fighting in this game a chore. Step one: click enemy to death, repeat 10 times - and now for round two of this multi-stage fight, repeat step one! The game is also phenomenally bad at explaining the combat mechanics to you, you're mostly in the dark about what effects or even what damage output your different fighting styles/weapons will have. Apart from that, you're - once again - the chosen one and saviour of the world. Your party members sort of stumble into your company and then simply stay around even in the face of certain death, for whatever reason. Granted, some do share your motivations to see things through to the end, but several are just more or less along for the ride. Despite what the game and some fans tell you, decisions you make in Jade Empire are simply and exclusively good or bad. The 'open palm' / 'closed fist' 'philosophies' are just a reskin of the KotOR light side / dark side binary moral system. Probably I'm feeling more disappointed about the game due to this clash of the setting looking different, but the contents staying all the same. Add to that the less than great game mechanics, and you have a pretty mediocre game. It was nice enough to play once, but unlike other RPGs, I won't play this one again.
I finished the game last night, and I enjoyed the experience. The best thing about the game are its stop-motion-movie looks and the quirky characters. I liked listening to Hans recording rambling observations for Beverly on his voice recorder (though I'm still not entirely sure whether he calls the recorder Beverly, or if there is an actual young lady of that name). The locations range from (intentionally) boring to sci-fi/mystery cool. The gameplay is simplistic. If you get the right idea, it helps shorten backtracking and looping through conversations, but since the game will (almost) always automatically combine the appropriate items to solve puzzles, a braindead monkey would be able to complete the game simply by clicking through every possible interaction with every item and person. Therefore, Hans will sometimes simply solve stuff which you did not even know needed solving at that point. Apart from that, it's still fun to see those solutions for the most part (donning a knight's armor as a Faraday cage and the like). In the second half of the game, the story starts to feel quite rushed, where more in-depth story telling and characterisation of the involved persons would have been nice. Especially the antagonist's motivation, but also our ally's story remain mostly in the dark, which is a shame. Despite being German, I went with the English voice over. Hans Tannhauser's English voice actor does a better job than the German one, and he does a lot of talking. Furthermore, while the villagers feature German accents in the english vo, Hans does not have an American accent in the german version, which just feels wrong. Also, the not very spirited performance of many of the voice actors (not english Hans though) is much more fitting for German villagers trying to speak english. Despite the many criticisms I presented here, I had a fun ride, and can recommend the game for people who do not mainly seek brain teasing puzzles in a point&click adventure.
If you never played Fallout and want to know what it's like, but are put off by the dated 2d graphics and mechanics of the originals (which would be a huge mistake, btw, but I digress) - play this. Or simply disregard all of the above and PLAY THIS. It's highly recommended to get the Mods which merge all the small shitty compartments (necessary due to the consoles then) of Freeside and the Vegas Strip into coherent areas and add a few NPCs. Apart from that the Vanilla version gets my nod for first timers. You can still mod the sh*t out of the game later.
If you never played Fallout and want to know what it's like, but are put off by the dated 2d graphics and mechanics of the originals (which would be a huge mistake, btw, but I digress) - play this. Or simply disregard all of the above and PLAY THIS. It's highly recommended to get the Mods which merge all the small shitty compartments (necessary due to the consoles then) of Freeside and the Vegas Strip into coherent areas and add a few NPCs. Apart from that the Vanilla version gets my nod for first timers. You can still mod the sh*t out of the game later.
One of my favorite games of all time. Better than KotOR I in virtually every respect. The interaction with your party NPCs is deep and rewarding, the influence system really does what it says - influence your party members. I strongly recommend to play it with the TSLRP mod, which adds a lot of cut content and gives the game a more polished ending ( I always was okay with the very open - some may say, unfinished- original ending; but for most people it is more enjoyable with the restored content).
