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SchizoidFreud

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  4. Alan Wake

    in Games

    Posted

    Alan Wake Comes Out of Hiding

     

    No, it's not canned. It's still coming.

     

    After two years of silence, Alan Wake developer Remedy is gearing up to release a new trailer of its game in Finland to coincide with the release of the Max Payne movie (Remedy also developed Max Payne). Remedy granted us an exclusive interview with Sam Lake, the developer's lead writer behind both Max Payne games and the Microsoft exclusive Alan Wake. Sam's been at Remedy since 1996, and besides lending his jacket to the character, he also lent his face for the first incarnation of Max Payne.

     

    1UP: Was releasing a new Alan Wake trailer in Finland your plan for a while or was it more of a spur of the moment thing with the Max Payne movie coming out? What are your hopes with the trailer?

     

    Sam Lake: Honestly, a spur of the moment thing. At Remedy, we make cinematic games that draw inspiration from TV series and movies, and we started to talk about how cool it would be to see Alan Wake on the big screen. In Finland, with the Max Payne movie, it proved out to be an easy thing to arrange. We have been silent for a long while, concentrating on developing the game, and it felt good to remind everyone what Alan Wake is all about.

     

    1UP: How does it feel to see something like Max Payne the movie, which is based on something you've written and created, on the big screen interpreted by somebody else?

     

    SL: I haven't seen the movie yet, but I certainly look forward to it. It's fantastic and flattering to think that something you created and worked on for many years is strong enough that others want to take it and make their own interpretation out of it. That's one side of it. On the other hand I feel a bit nervous, as this is the first incarnation of Max Payne I have not been involved in at all. I'm sure it will be a surreal experience for me to see the movie. And I'll try my best not to be overly critical about it. [smiles]

     

    1UP: It's been a long time since you've shown the game. What has been going on in the past few years -- has the game design changed along the way?

    SL: It's natural for the design to go through changes. With the first Max Payne, we were only a couple of months from the release when the bullet-time found its final form. We always knew we wanted something like that in the game, but we went though many different iterations until we found the final design. Alan Wake remains true to the original vision of the game, but we are still fine-tuning different elements, making sure that this will be a best possible realization of that vision.

     

    1UP: What would you say are the key ingredients in a Remedy game, and is there something specifically Finnish in the game?

    SL: We want to entertain. Remedy games are all about a strong story, a strong lead character and cinematic action. I think that the quirky, idyllic small town setting we all know from a few very good TV shows has something very Finnish in it. You don't have to drive that many miles from Helsinki to find yourself in the middle of it. Truth is always stranger than fiction.

     

    1UP: Can you talk about the themes of the game and more about the television show/DVD box set inspired story-telling? How is this evident in the actual game?

     

    SL: The game is a psychological action thriller, and as such, everything revolves around the mind of the main character -- the things that lurk in the depths of his subconscious mind. How an artist transports what's inside him, in this case his fears, to the outside world through his art. Themes that many writers have explored -- Stephen King for one, Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and so on.

     

    We think of Alan Wake as Alan Wake season one; the game is the DVD box of a season of a television series turned into a videogame. The experience is divided into episodes with cliffhanger endings and there is a supporting cast of characters around Wake himself.

     

    1UP: You are in a rare position of owning the Alan Wake IP, which gives you leverage in working on the game. But with such a long development period, how's the morale at Remedy been during the project? Though, we think it's cool that you can work on the game for a long time making its as good as it can be!

     

    SL: I love what I do. Sure, there are highs and there are lows, but that's only natural in such a big project. Making games is not easy. Our quality bar is high. The great thing about working with a talented team is that whenever you are feeling tired you are bound to see something someone else has made for the project that gives you a needed boost and drives you to meet their expectations in your own work.

     

    1UP: Can you describe your work as a writer on the project? How your role has evolved during the development?

     

    SL: First and foremost, if you want to make a game with a story, you need to have a writer or a writing team involved in the project from the very beginning all the way to the end. You can take this with a grain of salt if you want -- this is a writer speaking, after all -- but at Remedy, we start with the high level vision, and that already includes the main character, the setting and the main themes of the story and the game. After that, more people become involved as we figure out the core gameplay and what's possible from the technology side. Then a story synopsis is made with the core gameplay in mind. The idea is naturally to create a story that provides opportunities for the core gameplay as often as possible. After that, we divide the whole thing into gameplay segments. Based on that, I create a scene outline. Detailed plans for each segment are made after that. Finally, a screenplay is written. With Max Payne 2, I wrote the last dialogue lines just two weeks before we went gold.

  6. Alan Wake

    in Games

    Posted

    Remedy explains why Alan Wake is taking so long and confirms new trailer for this month

     

    The site of Finnish mag Pelaaja is about to publish a 50-minute podcast which includes an in-depth chat with Remedy lead writer Sami Järvi on the current state of Alan Wake, why it’s taking so long and a proper confirmation that a new trailer is to be shown in Finland on October 15.

    From the podcast:

    • The reason it’s taking so long is simply that it’s a small team and building an open world game is very tough. They just want to take their time with it, but it’s definitely making progress.
    • The reason for a new trailer is simple. The team mostly came up with it on a whim due to the release Max Payne movie. Also, the company just wanted to show something new on the game.
    • Remedy’s using some of its old Rockstar contacts for the title’s development. Navid Khonsari who handled most of the mocap and VO directing in Rockstar’s games prior to GTA4 is apparently working on voice directing.
    • Remedy owns the Alan Wake IP, so the firm’s able to take its time with it, though Järvi admits in the interview it’s taking a long time to make. Remedy insists that it’s not that it won’t ever be happy with the game, but the team just wants to make it as good as it can be.

    We’re assuming the interview’s in Finnish, but you will be wanted to keep that URL in mind…

  8. Alan Wake

    in Games

    Posted

    Alan Wake: has it been found?

     

    It seems after a year or two of nothing, Alan Wake is about to step out of the gaming wilderness. We find out what's what...

     

    It was only recently that we questioned what had happened to one of the most promising looking games of recent times, Alan Wake. Had it become another Duke Nukem Forever, disappearing into a cauldron from which the occasional screenshot would emerge, and not a lot more? Or was it just that developer Remedy was keeping to its promise to keep schtum unless it actually had something to say? Whichever, what was certain was that nothing had been heard from the game – billed as a psychological thriller – for a couple of years, in spite of occasional rumours that new footage was to be shown.

     

    And yet we may have, finally, had some kind of breakthrough. Remedy’s previous games, the Max Payne titles, have just about completed their journey to the big screen. The Max Payne movie (from which we have some concept art here) is set to be released from the middle of October (the UK gets it a month later), and rumours emerged from Pelaaja – a Scandinavian gaming site – that a trailer for the game would be attached to the cinema release of the film in Finland. The translation of the rumour read along the lines of “It's our great pleasure to announce that, after two years of silence, Alan Wake is going to be showcased by Remedy in the form of a new trailer”. ‘Super Moderator’ Morry than chipped in with “The only event we can confirm is the trailer at this point, consider everything else a rumour”.

     

    As with most Alan Wake rumours, this was generally acknowledged yet dismissed. But that didn’t stop there being levels of interest in the story, and this has since been followed up by the website Videogaming 247. Quoting a Finnish source, the site reports that the rumour of an Alan Wake trailer is “100 percent true”, going on to suggest that further news on the game is set to be published in Pelaaja by the end of the week.

     

    Furthermore, over at the Alan Wake forums, the Forum’s Tech Director has posted that “I know I'm not a Remedy Staff member but I can confirm this story. Plus Pelaaja (more specifically Thomas Puha) have good relations with Remedy and are quite trustworthy.”

     

    It could be, after long, empty months of nothingness, that Alan Wake is shortly to make his first steps in some time towards the world. Because you’d have to logically suspect that if a trailer was being shown at in front of a major blockbuster – even if it is one based on a videogame, and thus playing to slightly more of a niche audience than usual – that the game is nearing some kind of finished state. After all, what’s the point of promoting something in this way to a broad market if nobody is going to be able to buy it for a year or two yet?

     

    Nonetheless, the mere appearance of something new from the game does go some way to dampening speculation that it had run into trouble, or disappeared off the radar altogether. For now, though, we can’t help but side with the commenter at Videogaming 247, who succinctly notes “About bloody time. It’d better not be sh*t!”.

     

    Quite.

  10. Alan Wake

    in Games

    Posted · Edited by Ψ BλrnλcleBrλinBrλnt Ψ

    New Alan Wake Trailer Soon :wOOtjumpy:

     

    Megaton, washes of here ...

     

    We can truly say with pride (and quite in flames!), That two years of silence, after Remedy intends to present the Alan Wake-game trailer for the new format.

     

    Trailer shown in the Max Payne movie-premiere-movie weekend in connection with Finnkino cinemas. The film will be premiered 17 October, but it held ennakonäytös already 15.lokakuuta, when it is already possible to see a new Alan Wake-trailer.

     

    Listen to issue more pelaajacast Player's broadcast, where to from here. You can also search Pelaajacastin Apple's iTunes service. Use the search term player.

     

    Trailer includes a new image of the game for a long time in production when the Xbox 360 game, which acts as a publicist for Microsoft Game Studios. None other than the cell phone cameras kehiin theater and trailer division ...

     

    More information on the game yet this week ...

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