10 Amazing Games (With ABYSMAL Combat)

4. Alan Wake II

Finnish developers Remedy Entertainment are an easy company to root for. They make brilliantly weird games that marry stunning production values with lightning-in-a-bottle creativity, even though their idiosyncratic approach never meets with the sales success it deserves. But it has to be said that some of their wounds are self-inflicted, as is the case with Alan Wake II's desk-chewingly infuriating combat.

Alan Wake the Second suffers from an increasingly prevalent flaw in Remedy's output, which is its love for enemies that flit across the battlefield like X-Men's Nightcrawler on cocaine. In a survival horror game where ammo and health kits are at a premium, it is beyond infuriating to be constantly besieged enemies that warp out of your crosshairs and materialize in your personal space like a creepy wrestling fan at a hotel. Fighting these enemies is never entertaining, intimidating or terrifying - it's just deeply, deeply annoying.

To be clear, Alan Wake II is a stunning, bravura feat of writing and engineering that deserves to be experienced by anyone with the slightest interest in video games. But by the sacred elbow patches of Alan himself, play the game on easy if you want to enjoy it at its best.