i played through alan wake for the first time. here are some things i loved along the way:
- the literal first words spoken in the game being "stephen king once wrote..." as alan tries to gas himself up as a writer
- alan only being able to jog for a little while before getting tuckered out because you're playing as a novelist
- alan feeling the need to point out an extremely obvious The Shining reference in his narration
- you put the lime in the coconut
- all of the random shit the taken say, but in particular stucky going on about his hot dog rankings
- looking at the novels on alan's shelf and realizing how fucking huge he made his name compared to the actual book titles
- all the episodes of night springs, but in particular "the quantum suicide" and "absence of creativity" ("Is that too moronic, indeed? Who can tell? It's a fine line between the stupid and the sublime... in Night Springs.")
- barry's puffy red jacket being the brightest, most saturated color present in any scene he's in
- agent nightingale being a direct inversion of cooper from twin peaks, who HATES small pacific northwest towns, AND having to work with their sheriff's departments, AND their coffee, AND their trees!!
- the never-ending list of author names nightingale will call alan
- the evil bulldozer that tries to kill you, foreshadowed earlier by the manuscript page "Wake Attacked by a Bulldozer"
- one of the patients at the lodge being a game dev and hartman going "he works on... video games. it's trash, of course. but it does involve some small creative effort"
- when you're talking to the old gods of asgard at the lodge and tor is routinely smacking the table with his squeaky hammer the entire time
- alan and barry driving with the cardboard cutout of alan in the back seat
- the rock concert segment
- alan jumping like this
- the dopefish poster upstairs in the bookstore
- the camera panning over during the live action talk show bit to reveal that the other guest sitting next to alan is sam lake himself, who does the max payne face when prompted by the host
- the fact that this game has driving segments and you can do donuts and drift into enemies
- and, of course... the energizer and verizon product placement
great game
