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I’d love to tell you more about Control, the eagerly-awaited Edge magazine coverbait from Remedy Entertainment, the mad Finns who brought us Max Payne, Alan Wake and Quantum Break. I’d love to. And I feel… I guess sort of qualified to do so, since I have played Control for a few hours. But I’m not going to. To heavily paraphrase a trademark opening line in the (delightful) Girlfriend Reviews videos…

This is not a review of Control. This is a review of what it’s like to wish Remedy would fix Control.

Our own Mat C reviewed Alan Wake in 2010, producing a definitive, thoughtful  piece of work. I agree with basically everything he said and the way he said it, so I don’t mean to just regurgitate. Mat took care of a lot of the heavy lifting for me by doing the Reviewer’s Job; my intent is to look with the space of years, a platform change, and perspective between the game’s 2005 announcement, its 2010 self, and its now self. Alan Wake is an exceptional effort that could have been even better. Yet to reject it as just a missed opportunity is unfair. There’s more to it than what we got, but what we got is still a superb game.

And I made a video! You gotta watch my video. Click the button! CLICK IT!

Time magazine has named Remedy’s horror shooter Alan Wake 2010’s Game of the Year. Our own Mat C also thought highly of it, as the above review indicates. Time talked about the game’s inherent maturity and complex storyline, even using the word “Hitchcockian” at one point: Lots of video-game covers have a bold M on their lower left corner, but none have felt as mature as Alan Wake does… Its mix of meta-awareness and Hitchcockian …

Review by Mat C Alan Wake Developer Remedy Entertainment Publisher Microsoft Game Studios Released 14 May 2010 (EU), 18 May 2010 (US) Available for Xbox 360 Time Played Finished Verdict: 5/5 Gold Star “That said however, Alan Wake is still an incredibly well put together package. From a technical stand point the game is perhaps a year or two outdated and it’s hard to see where more than five years of development time really went …

Potentially bad news for Remedy Entertainment, as its long-awaited horror title Alan Wake, an Xbox 360 exclusive, apparently moved only about 88,000 units in its first week of release.

Hey kids, you’re about to learn a fine new piece of Videogames Industry Phraseology. It’s new, even for my kind! We’ve only been using it for like a month, and now you’re about to uncover its mysteries… When a publisher – say, hypothetically, Microsoft – announces that a game – say, hypothetically, Remedy’s upcoming Alan Wake – will utilize “Project Ten Dollar” style DLC, what do you think that means? UPDATE: despite my concerns, Kotaku …

A post on Videogaming247 includes translated snippets of a Finnish-language interview with Remedy Entertainment’s lead writer, Sami Järvi. Remedy has been toiling away on Alan Wake for about a bazillion years now, and looks to be needing a bazillion more. And that makes Steerpike a sad, sad panda.