Jeff Goldenberg > Games > Beaten

"Very decent puzzle game with a very common threadbare sci-fi story thrown in. For an indie game, I found the production value to be very high. My only complaint is this: there are 8 unique puzzle mechanics. There are 50 puzzles. Two of the mechanics are only used in 4 puzzles, and those are optional hidden ones! I wish they would have done more with those mechanics."

"The presentation is slick and original but the gameplay is minimal."

"First off, this game is huge. Well over a hundred hours of gameplay without counting the expansion, if you explore the whole world and do the side quests. Story is great, graphics are great, soundtrack is phenomenal. Gameplay expands upon the original game and tweaks some of what came before. Combat is familiar, but at the same time vastly different. Expect to change the methods you used in the first game for best results. Unfortunately, even in January 2026, the game is pretty buggy. Sometimes the bugs get in the way of your progress and you have to backtrack a bit or reload a save, but sometimes the bugs work in your favor and help you easily get past what should be a challenge. For that reason only, I cannot award 5 stars. Otherwise, a superb game."

"All-around great game. Presentation is fantastic. Combines light platforming, collecting, some puzzle solving, and secrets upon secrets upon secrets to discover."

"Overall, it’s a decent game, but like the single game released for PS4, it’s a very short and low-challenge affair compared to the rest of the series. This series peaked on PS3 and has been coasting on fumes since."

"I am a huge fan of Remedy games. The original Alan Wake is probably my favorite game of all time. This game, while being a nice piece of art (as the game itself will tell you multiple times) is definitely the worst thing Remedy has ever put out. It’s not terrible, but it really isn’t very good. Convoluted story, extremely limited and dated gameplay were not redeemed by the overbearing artistic vision the creators employed."

"Great story, great graphics (except for the characters’ hair - wtf?!), great voice acting, phenomenal soundtrack. Now the bad: very short game, mostly on rails, very few puzzles. The game should have leveraged the pretty cool dimension switching more. With multiple places to branch the story based on responses to certain situations, I suppose the game is meant to be replayed multiple times trying different responses to see the story unfold in different ways."