Remedy posts

It's been a long wait to see what Alan Wake has been doing with himself. The writer first appeared to us in the press at E3 2005 in the game of the same name. That demo, at the ATI booth, has been the only live demonstration shown to the public . . . until this week, that is. Now four years later we got to see yet another live demo of the game (this time at publisher Microsoft's booth) and we think that the four year wait might actually be worth it.

Developer Remedy wanted to mess with the heads of gamers as Alan Wake has to deal with the fact that his supernatual-themed book is coming to life all around him in a Pacific Northwest town. He also has to deal with the kidnapping of his wife Alice by folks who want the manuscript for this new novel. The only problem? Alan doesn't even remember writing anything about it.

Microsoft's E3 2009 press event had members of Remedy on stage as they gave a live demo of Alan Wake. It was the first live public footage that was shown from the game since it was first announced at E3 2005 (yep, four years ago). It was announced that the game will be coming sometime in the spring of 2010.

The footage showed writer Alan Wake exploring the forest area of Bright Falls and dealing with a lot of supernatural threats; from invisible hands throwing objects like cars to strange people-like things that seem to look like ghostd but a lot scarier. The graphics look solid, especially in terms of lighting and the use of light and dark to create a creepy experience.

E3 2009 is getting closer and closer. And with the countdown continuing so do the rumors of what will be revealed at the show. One such rumor-filled source is a Twitter account called Game Fork who has been updating with info on what will be revealed at Microsoft's pre-E3 event on June 1

According to the page, you can expect to see Remedy's four-years-in-the-making action-adventure game Alan Wake come out of its full stealth mode at Microsoft's E3 event. Also due for a full reveal, according to Game Fork, is All Points Bulletin, the long-in-development urban action MMO from developer Real Time Worlds. Assassin's Creed 2, BioShock 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction are also planned to be shown in some form at the event. If this source happens to be on the ball, Microsoft's E3 press conference should be of interest to PC gamers as well.

[Via Gamespot]

Given the massive library of PC games, it only stands to reason that many venerable titles have yet to receive sequels. Sometimes that can be a good thing. Many are the developers who churn out half-baked sequels in an obvious attempt to cash in on a preceding game's success, only to burn out their fans who view the anticipated sequels as nothing more than petty patch updates running $50 or more.

Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, are not two such games. Since autumn of 2003, the brooding cop and his popular noir tales have sat dormant despite audible pleading from fans for a third installment. Rumors of Max Payne 3 have flown for years, leaving fans searching out the best in user-developed mod to sate a void only a virtual painkiller can truly heal.

Enter Mona: The Assassin, a new mod for Max Payne 2 that, while not a true sequel, successfully captures the paced action and gritty atmosphere that made Max's two official forays successful enough to... well, to warrant such a frothing demand for a true sequel.

Developer Remedy is now closing in on four years since it first revealed its plans for Alan Wake and since then little to no info or media has been released (although the developer did release a new trailer and screenshots last October). Now a new YouTube video has been released which supposedly shows off actual gameplay from the long awaited thriller-action title.

The video supposedly comes from an upcoming GDC 2009 presentation and is taken via the patent-pending "Shaky Cam" off a monitor. So the quality of the footage is, well, bleh. It doesn't help that the footage itself is on the boring side with the player character simply walking through a forest area and ending up at a lake-side shed. One interesting thing is that the viewpoint is third-person, which is something that the developers haven't talked about. Again, take this footage with a big grain of...well, you know.

Update: Looks like we and other web sites got suckered into this one (but we were also skeptical this was the real deal anyway). Videogaming247.com has posted word from Remedy that this footage is not from Alan Wake. In fact it comes from a canceled game from UK based Kuju called Redwood Falls according to this NEOGaf post.

It's been just over a month since the film adaptation of Max Payne was released to theaters but the movie, based on Remedy's action game series, will have a fast turnaround for its DVD and Blu-Ray release. According to High-Def Digest the film will be released for both disk formats on January 20, a little over three months after its release to theaters.

The movie, starring Mark Wahlberg as the title character, will apparently come in both rated and unrated formats with extras like a director's commentary, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage and more. The Blu-Ray release will also have a picture-in-picture track and BD-Live connectivity.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. After a long period of silence, Alan Wake is back with fresh screenshots and a new cinematic trailer. It doesn't save the game from potentially becoming vaporware, or a new Duke Nukem Forever-esque joke, but it still provides some hope that the thriller/suspense game will still see the light of day.

Download HD Alan Wake Cinematic Trailer (155 MB)

It's been a long, long time but developer Remedy has finally updated the official web site for their long awaited mystery-adventure game Alan Wake. While there's actually no new info on the game itself there are some brand new screenshots posted on the site (which we have reproduced here)

The new screenshots definitely show some improvements in visuals over the last screenshots that were released over two years ago but they still retain that X-Files/Twin Peaks influence in the game's art design and themes. In a post on the game's official message boards, Remedy states the screenshots were taken from the PC version of the game in 1080p resolution but cut down to 720p for posting on the web site.

The web site also has the much promised trailer that was first shown in Remedy's native Finland before showings of the Max Payne movie. Unfortunately as of this writing the trailer cannot be viewed or downloaded from the site (too much traffic perhaps?) We hope to have a local version of the trailer available for all of you to download soon. In the meantime the release date for Alan Wake is still "when it's done"

Now that the Max Payne movie is out in theaters and apparently bringing in decent box office receipts, one of the people instrumental in bringing the original game to life has said some rather critical things about the movie adaptation.

In speaking to Edge Online, 3D Realms head Scott Miller (who helped to develop the original game with the team at Remedy) stated he "could go on and on" talking about the issues he had with the Max Payne movie, from story points to character development to narrative structure. Miller says, "A big problem with the film is that we do not really know what is driving Max until we see the flashback scene showing him coming home and finding his family murdered. In the game, we put this scene right at the front of the story for a reason! Saving this scene until mid-film is a narrative blunder, because the audience needs to empathize with Max in order to like him and understand what drives him."

Even though the movie got mostly poor reviews from critics, movie goers still wanted to see Max Payne make the transition from Remedy video game to Twentieth Century Fox feature film. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com the film topped the US box office in its debut weekend, earning a solid but not spectacular $18 million.

Max Payne's revenues beat out Disney's Beverly Hills Chihuahua who had been atop the box office for the past two weekends in the US. It's main competition, the Oliver Stone docudrama W., only managed to make $10.5 million for the number four spot. Max Payne's credit sequence sets up a possible sequel but the question is will the movie's $18 million debut be enough to justify a follow-up?