For those who have played the Xbox 360 exclusive game Alan Wake should remember this scene I have chosen. It comes right at the end of the game where the title character has finally figured out the secret of what happened to his missing wife and how to save her from the game’s main antagonist.
This antagonist is not some psycho killer or monomaniacal villain. It’s a villain that’s more akin to an evil entity. In fact, we learn throughout the game that the villain, known as the Dark Presence, is like something out of a Lovecraft story. It’s an evil intelligence that has spanned eons and yearns to free itself from it’s watery prison.
Alan Wake realizes that the only way to save his wife was to take her place and fight the Dark Presence from within and this is where the brief scene begins. It’s a scene that starts creepy enough until the very end when the real payoff arrives.
Remedy Entertainment announced just a few weeks ago that they will be releasing a new title for the upcoming new Xbox One console. This game is Quantum Break.
Remedy has made it known that the game will blur the lines between what is a game and what’s tv. The studio’s previous title, Alan Wake, did a great job in creating a game and using the tv episodic narrative to help propel the gameplay forward. It was like playing a tv show throughout a full season.
Will Quantum Break finally break the wall which separates the two entertainment medium? Only time will tell, but if Remedy promises to have the game run on the very graphics engine the trailer was using then it may just end up being the standard bearer of what a next-gen console game should look like.
Quantum Break has no set date for release but will only be available on the Xbox One.
One of my favorite video game titles of 2010 was the Remedy Entertainment and Microsoft Studios psychological thriller game Alan Wake. This title was a psychological thriller mashed up with survival horror that was influenced by Stephen King stories and David Lynch’s eccentric tv series, Twin Peaks. It was one of the few games which put a major scare to me whenever I played it which was usually at night. While the game didn’t sell copies in the Modern Warfare 3 level it did sell enough that it gained quite a huge fan following who clamored for more of Alan Wake and his fight against the malevolent Dark Presence. (Lisa Marie’s been trying the gaming thing lately and I must admit that Alan Wake is right up her dark sensibilities). Fans ended up getting two DLC chapters with “The Signal” and “The Writer”.
There had been rumors and talks about a proper sequel in the works within Remedy Entertainment, but such things continued to be unsubstantiated. While a rumor of sequel continued to persist the developers finally announced that there will be a new Alan Wake game, but it wasn’t going to be a sequel. It was to be a stand-alone Xbox Live Arcade title that should keep fans of the franchise happy while a sequel was being bandied about within the studio (I believe a sequel is already in development but still unconfirmed). This latest title was to be called Alan Wake’s American Nightmare.
The trailer for this title first premiered at Spike TV’s VGA 2011 and the game has tentative release date sometime around the Q1 of 2012.
The latest entry to the “Song of the Day” is from the American rock band Old Gods of Asgard. Their song I have chosen is their song “The Poet and The Muse”.
This particular song by the band was created years after the group’s very talented, but self-destructive guitarist Loki Darkens. The song was written by the band’s leader, Odin Anderson with his brother Tor Anderson and drummer “Fat” Bob Balder. It appears in the their 5th full-length album, The Black Rider Cometh, which was released in 1976. It would become one of their more popular songs and was even an inspiration decades later in a video game released for the Xbox 360 by Scandinavian game developer, Remedy Entertainment.
“The Poet and The Muse” plays like a Norse saga spoken to the accompaniment of the group’s music. It tells the tale of the poet named Tom and his beloved who he has dubbed his Muse. The song’s lyrics starts off simple enough about a couple deeply in love but as the song progresses it begins to take on a darker tone. This very dark presence in the lyrics gives the song an almost spooky story told by the campfire vibe which probably why the song became such a hit for the band despite their typical rock sound not appearing in the track until the very end of the song.
Whether the tale of Tom and his Muse is true or not really shouldn’t matter for the song is very good and to beginners to the music scene very easy to learn.
The Poet and The Muse
There’s an old tale wrought with the mystery of Tom The poet and his muse And the magic lake which gave a life To the words the poet used
Now the muse she was his happiness And he rhymed about her grace And told her stories of treasures deep Beneath the blackened waves
‘Till in the stillness of one dawn Still in its mystic crown The muse she went down to the lake And in the waves she drowned
And now to see your love set free You will need the witch’s cabin key Find the lady of the light gone mad with the night That’s how you reshape destiny
The poet came down to the lake To call out to his dear ‘When there was no answer ‘He was overcome with fear
He searched in vain for his treasure lost And too soon the night would fall And only his own echo Would wail back at his call
And when he swore to bring back his love By the stories he’d create Nightmares shifted in their sleep In the darkness of the lake
And now to see your love set free You will need the witch’s cabin key Find the lady of the light still ravin in the night That’s how you reshape destiny
In the dead of night she came to him With darkness in her eyes Wearing a mourning gown Sweet words as her disguise
He took her in without a word For he saw his grave mistake And vowed them both to silence Deep beneath the lake
Now if its real or just a dream One mystery remains For it is said on moonless nights They may still haunt this place
And now to see your love set free You will need the witch’s cabin key Find the lady of the light gone mad with the night That’s how you reshape destiny
And now to see your love set free You will need the witch’s cabin key Find the lady of the light still ravin in the night That’s how you reshape destiny
Through the Shattered Lens 