Alan Wake – Review

Alan Wake made by Remedy and published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for Xbox360, a long awaited game with plenty of development years under its belt and now it’s finally here. Will this just be another Silent Hill ‘clone’? Or a brand new attempt at mashing your face into intense realism, dramatic game play and a story so gripping it puts heroin to shame.

Story

Alan Wake starts off the game by tearing through some country lanes like some A.S.B.O teen, he claims he’s in a hurry, probably in dire need of a huge flask of coffee or something.

While ripping through some tunnels he encounters a hitch hiker who must think “hey what better way to get someone’s attention than to stand in the middle of the ro-h shit!” while investigating his new friend, the lights suddenly cut out and he is nowhere to be seen. Alan Wake decides he didn’t care for the fellow too much and decides to head for his intended destination, a lighthouse anyway. On the way there his new friend comes back with an axe and a chip on his shoulder. After a brief tutorial Alan wakes up on his way to a nice holiday to Bright Falls with his lovely wife. After taking in the local colour and getting his key, he then makes his merry way to his log cabin, where his wife confesses that she intended to bring him to Bright Falls to cure his writer’s block. After a brief domestic Alan storms off, only to come sprinting back when his wife screams in terror. The game then follows Alan on his journey to figure what the hell happened to his wife, with plenty of twists, turns and quite frankly underwear staining moments along the way.

Gameplay

Alan Wake is as close to a good horror game we’ll see ever since Resident Evil became a pants ‘House of The Dead’ knock-off or some racially insensitive run and gun game. The game play of Alan Wake is akin to Silent Hill had it been more action orientated. The main enemy of the game are a bunch of rowdy country bumpkins (think Deliverance but worse) who think that just because they’re possessed by Dark Presence they can do whatever they want to whoever they want. So there you are, in the middle of nowhere armed with the world’s most advanced weaponry, a flashlight/torch/stick of holy light and a six shooter. It doesn’t exactly put the Terminator to shame. Of course more weapons are made available as you progress through the game, like a shotgun and a hunting rifle but the game remains fairly low key in its arsenal, which helps to build the tension nicely. You’re not going to be mowing through dozens of enemies with heavy artillery and explosives here, a more cautious and realistic (considering the weaponry on offer) approach will be needed to defeat the opposition.

Since the darkness has inhabited many of the citizens of Bright Falls you need to whittle down the surrounding darkness that emanate from them like a dirty unwashed aura, only then will conventional gun fire effect them. This can however get a little irritating as it sometimes seems like an age before the dark shield thingy ma-gig dissipates and whilst you’re doing your utmost to add a little light to the situation; their friends take it upon themselves to attack you relentlessly with sharp metal objects.

As you can expect you get different flashlights throughout the game ranging from standard light bringers, which by the way are plastered with Energizer logos, to massive batman style spotlights. While traipsing through the wildness, which takes up the majority of the game, you will come across a few collectables which for a avid achievement whore is a must have, for example there are coffee thermos’ and manuscript pages scattered about as if some caffeine book fiend had a camping adventure and didn’t clear up there camp properly afterwards.

There are different aspects of travel as you are needed to reach certain locations via auto-mobile (or car as us normal folk call it), this is especially fun as you can run-down the light diminished horde which little effort, which feels justified after the hard time they give you when you’ve been running around taking them on with little more than a book of matches for half an hour.

Graphics and Sound

There isn’t much to say about graphics, but fog, fog and foggy fog. Followed by mist and some incredibly thick, low lying cloud. When running around in the woodland areas its dark, gloomy and tense which adds to the atmosphere very well, the mist itself is a character and is always handy as a hiding place for those pesky mindless rednecks, who seem to take great pleasure in sneaking up on you and introducing a flying axe to your face.
The game however is beautifully built, in the daytime the developers have added an enormous amount of detail and colour. Landscapes are picturesque and the characters are nicely rendered.
The soundtrack of this game is simply amazing. The music also helps to heighten the sense of impending doom when surrounded by a herd of disgruntled hicks. At the end of each chapter you’re treated to a somewhat relevant or otherwise awesome song. Also every chapter starts off with a recap like in one an episodic drama (think Lost or Heroes).