Game: Alan Wake
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Genre: Horror/Shooter
Price: $59.99
Pros: Creepy atmosphere, very well put together in all respects
Cons: Kinda short, a bit confusing; how long will we have to wait for a proper sequel?
Alan Wake has been in pre-production and production since 2001 and was announced officially at E3 2005. Seeing as how it is now summer of 2010, that is a long frickin’ time for a game to be worked on… like approaching on a Duke Nukem Forever time frame. Alright, maybe not that bad, but still, you see what I am getting at. Alan Wake is the brain child of Remedy Entertainment, who you may have heard of before. They were the fine folks that brought you the oh so moody Max Payne games.
The game puts you firmly in the shoes of Mr. Wake as he is arriving in Bright Falls for a little rest and relaxation. The purpose of his trip is to try and rekindle those creative juices. You see, Alan is a writer. He writes novels, but hasn’t been able to write one in about two years. His last book “The Sudden Stop” was a best selling book of crime fiction, however he ended up killing his main character. Now with a full blown case of writers block, his wife Alice decides that they need to get away so that he can try and write again. They head to a little out of the way logging town called “Bright Falls” and rent a cabin. Alice tells Alan that the area is known as a place to help artists create and be inspired. Unfortunately Alan doesn’t like the idea of being “tricked” into coming to this place just to write. In a fight, Alan leaves their cabin and Alice falls into the dark water, from which Alan is unable to recover her.
As the story progresses it is revealed that Cauldron Lake is indeed a very special place. Artists create things here to be certain, but when Alan starts to find pages of a manuscript that he apparently has written but has no recollection of, the real mystery is discovered. Why is it that he can’t remember writing this? Why is everything that he has written come true? Why is Alan missing a weeks worth of time and more importantly, where is Alice?
So as to give away as little as possible, I will keep the rest of the story as vague as possible.
Darkness. Darkness is both the answer and the question at the same time. Someone or some thing is controlling or had control over Alan, making him write, while also giving him a bad case of the blackouts. Barry, Alan’s agent shows up in town and hopes to try and help Al get back to his senses, potentially finding Alice along the way. The rest of the cast is just as much intriguing as they are bat shit crazy. It takes all kinds to run this one horse town, and you will meet quite a lot of people that you are never quite sure if they are friend or foe. By the end of the game you get a slight bit of closure, however, the proverbial door is left wide open for the already announced DLC.
Let’s talk game play now, shall we? On the surface, Alan Wake seems like it would be some sort of survival horror, adventure game. You might think that you will spend the majority of your time fumbling around in dark, claustrophobic hallways, waiting for a monster closet to open and scare the piss out of you. This is not the case at all. Alan Wake is surprisingly a shooter at heart, and a damn good one at that. With Remedy having gotten their start making the Max Payne games, it’s to be expected that they would put their previous talents to good use. The shooting mechanics all work very smoothly.
Your biggest ally in the game is light. What better way to fend of the darkness than with light, right? All of the enemies that you encounter, both living and inanimate, are drenched in darkness. While they are protected by the cloak of night, they are basically invincible. In order to hurt these unseen menaces you must first remove the darkness. This is done by shinning a light on them, be that from your flashlight, overhead lamp, or more satisfying flash bang grenade. Once the shroud of darkness is gone it’s just a couple shots and they are done for. Your flashlight is basically your pointer in the game, where its light shines is where you will be walking. In battle, squeeze down on the left trigger and it focuses the light on your enemy and begins to burn away the darkness. Once that is done, squeeze on the right trigger to shoot them with one of several different weapons you will acquire during the game. Should you need a bit more “breathing room,” you can tap on the right bumper to use either a road flare, or said flash bang grenades (which are extremely fun to use).
Every now and then Alan gets himself into a situation that he will not be able to use a weapon, or has simply run out of ammo. This is where, once again, Remedy shines (no pun intended) at the control scheme. If you are facing several enemies, or just don’t have anything to defend yourself and an enemy takes a swing at you, while holding a direction, tap the left bumper. This will make Alan dodge the blow with a very slick looking version of Remedy’s own “Bullet Time” animation. If done correctly you can get out of the way of damn near anything, and as I said before, sometimes you are left with no other choice.
So, if Alan Wake’s controls are decent, if not spot on, how does it look? In a word: Creepy. Seriously… this game creates some of the most creepy set pieces I have seen in quite some time. It’s not that creepy like blood oozing from a wall, or severed heads singing children’s songs kinda creepy though. Bright Falls itself with the sun up and people on the street, is your average everyday town. Happy, everyone knows everyone, and things feel pleasant. Once the sun goes down, Bright Falls is a very different beast. Walking through the woods, alone, with nothing but a flashlight as protection is bad enough, but the ambiance makes it ten times more terrifying. Wind blows around real time fog that has an effect on the real time shadows it casts. Tree limbs move and more than once you will catch yourself spinning around with your flashlight stuck straight out like it is Excalibur, warding off a dragon. Every time I had to venture into the woods, or caught myself off the trail, I felt extremely tense. That’s what this game does best, tension. You have the overwhelming feeling that EVERYTHING is out to get you, and by the end of the game, it is.
Sound and Music don’t really play a big part of the game. They are very subtlety used, with one exception, (Think Midnight Riders) but I think that almost adds to the tension of the game. If there were big crescendos just before fights, you probably wouldn’t feel the same levels of tense anticipation. Though I will say that the stuff the people in town say to you when they are covered in the darkness are rather odd and sometimes down right hilarious. There are several licensed songs for the game, but I could really only pick out one during my play through.
The game itself is laid out in episodes. It’s kinda like sitting down with your favorite TV show and having them explain what happened last week so you are ready for this weeks installment. The way it is done feels much more concise and succinct than the likes of Alone in the Dark. By the end of each episode they leave you with just enough of a cliffhanger that you want to keep on playing, just to see how it turns out. However, should you not have all day to spend playing a game, it is a great way to do the “one chunk at a time” play style, so that when you are ready to play again, you know your past and possibly what lies ahead.
I purchased the Limited Collectors edition of the game, and I have to say that it is probably the BEST packaging I have ever seen for a game. The box looks and feels just like a linen bound hard cover book. It came with the game, soundtrack, and DVD of several different behind the scenes type movies. Not to mention another book called “The Alan Wake Files,” detailing the events that lead up to and happened after the game. No real spoilers involved in reading it, however it did give me a better appreciation of the characters I was about to meet.
Over all, I have to say that granted I wasn’t on the edge of my seat with anticipation for this game, it did end up being a great package. If you are looking for a game that will give you a fun trip through a creepy, albeit strange story line, that’s more shooter than survival horror, I highly recommend Alan Wake. Remedy has also already laid out two different DLC packs that will apparently extend the story even further, and possibly explain the ending more. I never want to tell anyone it’s a “must buy,” but this game is for sure a “must play” for anyone a fan of creepy shooters.
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