Recent reviews by Neithen

When they keep milking ya game but the milk tastes kinda good

It's pretty groovy

An interesting game of politics.

The goal is to get yourself re-elected for another few years or so with another candidate competing against you (at least that is what I interpret), To do so you need to get the citizens of whatever nation you choose to lead to vote in favor of you by adjusting things relating to law, health, taxes, etc. to favor the party of your choice, the parties consisting of one group and their counterpart, ranging from motorists to environmentalists to capitalists and democrats as well as others such as parents, farmers, wealthy, middle class, poor, etc.

However, simply adjusting certain things in the game is not the only thing that happens, that would make things too easy. You have a cabinet of your own whom all also favor one group or another and may leave or work ineficciently if your actions do not favor their party. You can fire them if you wish but that would require hiring a new person for that spot which isn't bad, however the people you have to pick will not have as much experience in work as your previous one, for the longer they work the more better experience they have. Your cabinet also gives political capital, which is basically how much power you have each turn. You use political capital to act on whatever you choose act on like taxes or education etc.. Depending on how drastic a change may be, one may require more capital than the other, it would take much more capital to legalize narcotics or make gun laws less strict than it would to raise taxes. You can also enact policies which take no capital until adjusted.

Conflict may also occur in the game as well. For example, you can never favor every party at once, if you decide to stop the production of roads, for example (I couldn't think of a better example at the time I was writing this) you will anger the motorists and they may not vote for you, but the environmentalists will be pleased because this means less car usage which in turn means less pollution. Angry parties won't do much but not vote for you but if you cross the line against a party, they may send you a threat and you could be assassinated, leading to game over.

You'll also need to take note of the consequences your actions may take, you may decide to raise taxes on alcohol and lower the drinking age, this will profit you due to the fact that more people may be drinking if not stirred by the tax, but all the alcohol could lead to violent crime which you may need to raise security on, spending more money! You also run the risk of alcoholism being a problem. Other problems may arise in the game every few turns or so like asthma or homelessness. These issues are dealt by working on what causes said issues. Asthma is caused by pollution and the main source of pollution is cars so you can try to decrease car usage and help the epidemic.

Other things you might want to watch out for is your money, which is also taken on most policies and enactments. You want to watch your money otherwise you could be in more debt and lose your credit rating and decrease your chances of being voted for. Each turn you also have actions in the form of situations dealt with one decision but two questions such as freedom of information, yes or no? You also have intelligence that watches the parties in case any try to assassinate you but their effectiveness is based on how much money you put into them.

Overall, it's a sophisticated game and I highly reccommend it

Alan Wake is a game I would love to keep coming back to and play over and over because of it's great story but unfortunately now I know the story

BUT! That's not the point!

In my personal opinion the horror aspect of the game only comes from the fact that some "things" are trying to kill you and it's frightening to think so, the only jumpscare I was given was some points when Taken would come out and suprise me or when a big chainsaw man or axe man comes just a hair away from killing me, but, again, that's just my opinion.

The best part of the game is the storytelling. You follow Alan Wake, a writer who just happens to encounter a bit of trouble while on his vacation. I don't want to spoil too much for the story tells everything very well. All the things that happened in the story made me come back for more, especially the "cliffhangers" at the end of each chapter which makes you yearn to continue and see what happens next in the story.

Overall, I think the story is very well told and the suspense that builds up to the end of each chapter really pays off. The only flaw in the game in my own opinion is the very vague ending.

Alan Wake is overall a very great game and I definetly reccoment whomever reads this to play it!