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Editor's note: Gamers with an Xbox 360 currently face a difficult choice: Alan Wake or Red Dead Redemption? Gary breaks down the strengths and weaknesses of each by looking at emergent vs. directed gameplay to help you choose. -Brett
Two big titles are battling for your gamer dollars right now: Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption. Which one is right for you depends on whether you prefer emergent or directed gameplay. Red Dead Redemption represents emergent gameplay at its finest, while Alan Wake offers a superb directed experience. But what do those terms mean, and how do you know where you stand?
Directed gameplay — where the developer guides you through a set of levels — has been around since the early days of gaming. Most games of the NES and early PC era were directed. Sure, a game like Populous, SimCity, or Civilization could give you wildly different experiences based on how you played the game, but gamers just thought that was cool and enjoyed it without thinking about larger implication of the different game types.
That changed when Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto 3. With it, emergent gameplay — where the developer gives you the tools to create your own fun — burst onto the video game scene. The concept of "sandbox gaming" resonated with gamers, who enjoyed simply wandering aimlessly doing what they wanted for as long as they wanted to.
We gamers enjoy both types of experiences, which is why directed action games like Halo sell just as well as Grand Theft Auto. But what about each of these experiences is so interesting and why does a game like Red Dead Redemption sell like hot cakes while Alan Wake appears to die on the vine? Let's compare the games in terms of the emergent vs. directed dynamic.
Value:
First of all, let's examine the concept of value. Alan Wake will give the gamer 10-15 hours of gameplay, but since the experience is directed, there isn't a whole lot of replay value. Downloadable content adds value but also incurs additional cost — and we don't know yet how well supported the game will be with future DLC.
Red Dead Redemption, on the other hand, offers 40-plus hours of gameplay with almost endless things to do. Trouble is, this could all become repetitive after a while — and who wants 40-plus hours of tedium? Still, the potential to wander the Old West, helping or hurting its inhabitants, is intoxicating.
Freedom:
Rockstar, who developed Red Dead Redemption, always does a great job great job of making you feel like you're in charge of directing their games, but when it comes to story, they have the ultimate say. In fact, you could say that Rockstar games are actually directed stories buried within sandbox games.
Many other developers offer some freedom without fully dropping you in a sandbox, of course, and I'd argue that Alan Wake developer Remedy gives you a fair amount of wiggle room in Alan Wake while offering an explicitly directed experience. But I don't think most gamers will see it this way. They'll see a survival horror game and think that the game will limit what they can do in the name of scaring them.
Fun:
In the end, what game you choose comes down to which one you'll have more fun playing. Red Dead Redemption lets you wander around the wilderness shooting deer, fighting bears, and aiding helpless women, while Alan Wake only tasks you with saving the title character's wife. Where's the fun in that? That directed experience can't possibly compare to the emergent game play, right?
We all know it can. We have all played great games that are heavily scripted and bad directed games that spawn endless enemies until you clear the level. We all have positive and negative recollections of such games. Fun isn't necessarily in emergent gameplay — it's in how well crafted the entire game is.
If that didn't help you determine which game is right for you, then cheat and do what I did: Buy them both.
A year ago, neither Alan Wake nor Red Dead Redemption was on my list of must-buy games. I assumed that Alan Wake would be just another survival horror game, a genre I don't generally like, and that Red Dead Redemption would be a shitty follow-up to Red Dead Revolver. I was wrong. I bought both games and have found them both to be excellent.
Turns out Alan Wake is a thriller, not a survival horror game. It gives me some freedom to explore, plenty of items to discover, and some light puzzles to solve. It's fun, and it looks, sounds, and controls great. And it excels as a directed experience by providing a gripping story with fleshed-out characters.
And Red Dead Redemption is a classic Rockstar game, more along the lines of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City than Grand Theft Auto 4. It offers the best sandbox of any Rockstar game to date, while also providing some of the best directed experiences I've ever played.
By buying both Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption, you'll be rewarding two great developers for their hard work while giving yourself two of the best games of the year.
