I’m at the start of Alan Wake, and I have a problem to solve. The wife and I have arrived at an island in the middle of a lake. It looks idyllic – although I know, thanks to the forehead-slapping foreshadowing, that it ain’t – but when we get there, we find that the power’s out. It falls on me to figure out how to get it running and as I’m strolling around the island, checking out the scenery, and maybe poking around for collectible thermoses, the game gets impatient. The voice of Alan Wake – my character, who’s also the narrator – butts in. He tells me I should go check out that shed by the house. That’s where I’ll find the generator. Which means I (the protagonist) am telling myself (the player) what to do, and I’m doing it because I (the player) am too damn slow ‘n stupid for myself (the protagonist) to bear.
This isn’t the first time that a game gave up on me. I’ve noticed that more and more AAA titles give us a puzzle, and then immediately hint at the answer. In BioShock 2, I was just loping around in Grace’s bedroom in Pauper’s Drop, searching for my target. And I guess I took five seconds too long, because the game told me to check behind a movie poster for the hidden switch. Uncharted 2 was all too helpful with clues when I was tracing wires around the wall in the museum in Istanbul, and if I blew a boss fight in Batman: Arkham Asylum more than a couple of times, the load screen would lean over and, like a sad-faced teacher telling me not to eat what I just found in my nose, explain exactly what I had to do to win.
Why Won?t You Let Me Be Stupid? | Edge Online
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