Ah, yes. Remedy Entertainment. A company that made Max Payne, Max Payne 2 (not 3), Alan Wake, Control, Quantum Break…
Games that aspire to be more than simple games are sometimes fascinating to me. And Remedy’s games always tried to blend different medium. From the comic book style cutscenes for Max Payne to the mix of real actors shot on studio and in-game cutscenes of Control and Alan Wake 2, there’s always something amusing about the way they did things. They clearly want to blend movies, cinema or just theater in general and games into a very cool and cohesive thing, where you don’t know where one ends and the other begins.
Shame about the gameplay part though.
I’ll write what I’ve played about their games and I hope you get to read a bit of a long ‘vapor memories’ review of my experiences with them. I’ll miss several games in this list so instead of omitting them, I’ll just say ‘Haven’t played so no comment’.
Death Rally (1996)
We’re starting strong with the ‘Haven’t played so no comment’ bit, so yeah. Never played it.
Max Payne (2001)
Max Payneis a third-person shooter set in NYC with Max Payne being the main character. The medium blend is more subdued, partially because of the budget, but the idea is still pretty good. It gives an homage to classic comic strips that were about detectives in the Silver Age of Comic Books. It’s not black and white as people would think but instead fully in color.
Max loves doing purple prose but he’s a wisecracking guy that had enough of everything so he mocks villains and shoots them dead until he gets what he wants. A classic 90’s anti-hero, a theme that went on to be overused in the 2000s.
The gameplay is still good despite its 25 years of age, you get to shoot digital enemies that oppose you and to aid you, you can slow down time with Bullet Time:tm: and Shootdodge:tm: where became resources to survive. Max can’t take a lot of shots to die so you need to think about what you’re doing before walking into a firefight.
As the game progresses, you get more weapons and tougher enemies, and unique scenarios, mostly filler but they offer unique ideas, even at the time.
Coupled with good voice acting from Max (rest in peace James McCaffrey), Max Payne 1 is an instant classic that everyone should play once. It’s that good.
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003)
What happens when you take your previous game and make it better? You get… Not Max Payne 2.
I jest, Max Payne 2 is a much better game, mechanically, but also much shorter. The plot is not as confusing, at least initially it tried to do an In Medias Res, where it started you with Max being bloodied and stuff, a classic movie trope (also used in Max Payne but only at the start), but here it’s pretty much in the middle of the game, then it goes into a flashback.
The gameplay is much better but that somehow made the game easier. You can abuse a lot of the Bullet Time:tm: features and they made it so more kills make a time dilation, aka, you get faster while time gets a little slower. You couldn’t run faster than your own bullets, but you can make a lot of damage very quickly. Oh and Max can do a spin that immediately reloads your weapons, no matter what you’re using. It’s bonkers and breaks the game in half. Dead On Arrival (the hardest difficult) has a 4 save limit and you’ll be able to finish without much issue.
The story as I mention, it’s a bit weaker. Remedy got a budget so model wise, they all got recast. They got all the voice cast changed too, minus Max, who is still James McCaffrey. It’s more of a closer to home story, where Max is back on the streets and finds that the people that he allied in the first game were all criminals, mostly, doing stuff behind the scenes and a clueless Max got caught in the middle.
Overall, even though it’s a ‘better’ game compared to the predecessor, I think you should play both, compare and contrast. To me, it’s not bad, another classic.
Alan Wake (2010) [and Alan Wake Remastered (2021)]
After a lengthy gap, they made Alan Wake, once exclusive to Xbox 360 then on PC, now available on PC, PlayStation, Switch and Xbox consoles as ‘Remastered’.
Alan Wake starts a new style of medium blending for Remedy where they started using actors both in real life and in game, merging the two into an unique experience. And for the most part, it is good, story wise. There’s a lot of intrigue and mystery, very Twin Peaks like.
The same can’t be said about the gameplay. Alan Wake is very repetitive in how it plays. As if the game was only thought about last and not first about the game. Once you see every variant of an enemy in the game, you have seen them all. Bosses don’t do much better either.
The vibes are cool, the Dark Presence is an unique idea for a villain, the concept of the ‘Taken’ is pretty cool, but once you actually play it, it’s like ‘ughhhhh’.
I think it’s worth checking out if you want Twin Peaks vibes, but little else. Max Payne 2 plays better.
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare (2012)
I played this for like 10 minutes. Not enough to pass judgement. It was one of the cheapo Xbox Live Arcade titles, more arcade-y than usual. Apparently canon in the Alan Wake timeline but I guess I should play more of it eventually.
Quantum Break (2016)
Haven’t played so no comment. Have heard of it a lot but not interested.
Control (2019)
Controlis one of my favorite pieces of lore and lorebuilding I’ve experience. I love The X-Files, Fringeand Control fits right in, in the so called ‘New Weird‘. A power fantasy of a woman, Jesse, stumbling to the coolest thing ever and turning into a Person of Power (quite literally!) and finding everything as cool as hell. You’ll feel it too, if you like New Weird like how I do.
The gameplay is unrefined ass though.
It’s a weird thing to describe but playing as Jesse against enemies that could just toss a bunch of shit, fly and keep flying, while she’s essentially a piece of paper is not fun. I get you’re supposed to feel empowered by the upgrade system but like… It’s just not good enough. Jesse should have more health or take less damage from attacks, while the enemies should have less health or take more damage when you shoot them. The bosses are fine but getting into the boss is the worst part. It’s not like in Dark Souls where you can just accept that dying is a part of the experience loop.
If Control was a TV Series, I’d own the DVD set, and a collector’s edition. As a game, it made me feel miserable and the part that I enjoyed the most was when I uninstalled it for the second time, because I wanted to see if I was the problem but nope, it’s still pretty terrible.
Before you say “you can install mods to fix it”, there’s no rebalancing mod, only cheat-y stuff (that I’m not going to do) or reshade presets, now DLSS5 AI slop garbage (ugh…) so it might be me expecting fun from a game that doesn’t let you have a power fantasy. I died a few times at the ‘Take Control’ part of the game and had to mute the music because it was annoying me.
Now I just read about Control on TVTropes.
CrossfireX / HD singleplayer campaign (2022)
CrossfireX’s singleplayer campaign was given to Remedy and it was so bad that it was shutdown a year later, as it was apparently a complete flop, as in, the whole game, multiplayer andsingleplayer. Wild. So this one is ‘I can’t play it to see how it is’. Maybe there are videos out there but like… Why would I do that?
Alan Wake 2 (2023)
I’ll attempt to explain this while channeling Alan Wake in this game.
He clicked the start button. He understood he had a game to play, to enjoy. That was his first mistake, one of many. Alan Wake 2 is trapped in a place where the story was no better for it than its gameplay. There were improvements, yes, but after being trapped inside the Dark Place for 13 years, he expected better, he demanded better. It never happened.
Alan’s story was the highlight of the game, as it plays with the man’s mind of an artist and the cool setpieces where Alan could change the scenario to make the story of the game progress further. The shooting was the same when he wasn’t inside the Dark Place, but in a tighter way. Finding clues, acting as a detective while he wasn’t, this was the game’s brightest moments, and even then, it was still trapped in the dark.
Saga’s portion was where things were not good. A vast open area, more than one, to explore and find things. But the exploring was dull, the enemies were annoying, the boss fights took too long. Her story portion was much weaker. The non-linear nature of the game was a lie, he had to play both portions to proceed. Others do better than this illusion of choice.
In the end, Alan Wake 2 will be remembered by him as a game that could have been more than just arthouse game, because while they can win awards, they’ll never sell well, and a sequel might never exist because of this.
FBC: Firebreak (2025)
Haven’t played so no comment. No interest.
Control Resonant (2026)
The latest game has Control’s Jesse’s brother, Dylan to attempt his fight against where the fuck is going on. Also the first time that no guns are used, just melee weapons. And… And… It’s good? It feels amazing to play! I’m invested in the gameplay more than the story because it feels amazing! What in the fuck? How did they manage to not screw up for once???
Obviously no spoilers because it came out in September 2026, but this game plays super well, mechanically, and the story is pretty grim but also very interesting.
I… I like it. It has been since Max Payne 2 that I haven’t enjoyed a Remedy game, mechanically.
Closing Words
Maybe Remedy finally understood that the blend of two or more mediums need to work not in cooperation but have a clear vision for them. Games are games first and foremost, and if you want to bring anything else to them, you need to ensure that the game part of the game is the one that speaks louder and has the voice to carry over things. People shit on Metal Gear Solid 4 for being movie length but the Metal Gear RAY vs REX fight is not a cutscene, you get to play that shit, and it’s fucking cool.
Remedy always that blend and once they decided to make it more movie-like, the gameplay took a backseat and it shows. But I think they finally learned that you need a good game, mechanically, to engage a lot of people. Highly refined jank is still jank at the day and can still put you off if there’s too much of it.
I get they want to blend mediums together but they need more than blending, it needs to be a mixture, where game is bigger in proportion or it won’t work well or work at all.