Horror Game Reviews: Alan Wake

The game which I am reviewing today is called Alan Wake. This game is a 3rd person adventure/horror game that came out back in 2010, which was developed by Remedy Entertainment and then published by Microsoft Windows. Only on rare occasions will you find a game like this which tells it's story so perfectly that it gets to the point where you feel slightly heavyhearted once you've run through it and uncovered everything that there is to knowing the story. Something else that aids the games story would be the entertaining gameplay that's included. As the graphics themselves are quite pleasing to the eye, and the gameplay mechanics are also quite good which I'll go into later. I originally played this game a lot on the xbox 360, but have recently ran through it on my laptop using a controller adapter, so that is the version I'll be reviewing. There shouldn't be much of a difference on versions, but YMMV. 

The game itself is broken up into six different episodes, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger or revealing a revelation for the most part. After each segment of the game, a recap begins so if you take a break for a little while, you won't be too lost when you boot the game back up. Our main character of this game is best selling thriller/horror novelist named Alan Wake. Unfortunately, he has been suffering from over a two year long case of writers block. You're quickly introduced to his wife, Alice, as they travel together to the quaint town, Bright Falls. From there, our characters demented journey begins. 

Before you even make your way into town, Alan has a nightmare involving shadowy figures trying to attack him, before an ethereal figure intervenes and teaches him how to use "The Light" to fight off the shadow creatures. Shortly after he wakes up, they finally arrive into town via ferry, and retrieve keys and info to get to their rented cabin. Before Alan and Alice can even get their things fully unpacked, Alice gets taken by some sort of force which ends up dragging her away into the lake with Alan chasing behind until he blacks out midway during the chase. 

From here on out, you start trying to piece together what you can't remember, figuring out what exactly is going on and what's happened to your wife. You accomplish this by finding scattered pieces of a manuscript laying in areas throughout the game, which you yourself have apparently written without any memory of doing so. These pages begin to explain what is happening to Alan and foretell events which he's going to have to face through the game, of course only in bits and pieces. You'll also want to explore around each area checking behind every tree, rock, and bush because there's notes, collectibles, and a very neat TV series you can find in the game during your playthrough. 

The game doesn't take much time before it starts showing you that it can be quite scary and unsettling. There are a lot of moments where you'll feel very tensed up. You might be watching something on the T.V. while playing, or be searching for items in a dim area, and just barely catch a silhouette of a possessed axe wielding psychopath passing by in the distance while he silently attempts to creep up on you so he can kill you in the darkness. At times, you may feel somewhat lost while running from the wind while it whips around your surrounding and makes the tree's rustle ever so loudly, all the while trying to fight off possessed enemies who can only be harmed by bright lights. This kind of stuff only helps to amp up the tension and give you a feeling of unease while you play.  

While it might sound a bit overwhelming trying to fight off the darkness which has suddenly come alive and is everywhere around you, the game does give you an adequate weapon for combat in the game...Namely, anything that can produce light. There are multiple things you can use for shedding away the dark force that stalks you. The flashlight being your main option, as well as flash bang grenades, flare guns, or even vehicle headlights which will burn the darkness away from the possessed enemies called the "Taken" long enough for you to inflict fatal damage. The games level designs also make you feel fairly creeped out when you're venturing further into the woods looking for collectibles, to the point where you feel like you should just stick with the main path and forget about collectibles. 

Most of pretty much all of the combat within this game has the same sort of basic pattern to it. You burn the darkness away, shoot at the enemy, then retreat a safe distance and repeat until you've defeated the enemy. The nice thing about this, however, is that it never feels old or repetitive (at least on the first playthrough), due to the game having a good balance of enemies with your offensive capabilities. There's a lot of other aspects of gameplay that you'll use besides running and combat. There's plenty of parts of the game involving you having to do a good amount of talking and investigating, exploring areas for items or NPC's, as well as some puzzle solving to boot.  

There will be times where you have to work together with side characters in the game as well, which can provide some interesting and entertaining banter to help lighten the mood. It's also nice that the AI for your allies doesn't tend to get in your way or make things difficult, they'll wait for you while you search around the area, they don't get stuck while trying to move, and they can actually be somewhat useful in combat. Another small but nice aspect of gameplay is that you get to get behind the wheel and drive at certain points which can be a nice change of pace for a few minutes. Everything blends in together really well, and for the most part you feel pretty immersed into the game. Though playing in the dark does help a bit with this as well. 

The level designs are gorgeous, and the surroundings of Bright Falls honestly reminds me of the woods of Maine with how it's been designed. This combined with the colorful, interesting, strong willed characters and the unsettling feeling you get makes me want to say this game is similar to a fusion of Twin Peaks with a Stephen King novel. I think this is pretty fitting, considering how the game is organized to be showcased as similar to a T.V. series, in a way. I feel that it being set up that way helps the game keep going strong with the horror aspects as well as the emotional ones. 

There are only a few things I can really say that I dislike about this game at this point, and none of them are really that big of a deal. One is that the facial animations have definitely become dated, which is something to be somewhat expected since the game was released quite a long time ago now. And, there are some low res textures which become quite noticeable in the daylight sections of the game. Occasionally you might experience some smaller glitches which can be a bit annoying with trying to stay immersed in the game, but they really aren't that big of a deal where it ruins the immersion entirely. Things like vegetation popping in again during the daylight sections, and at worst you might experience some screen tearing which is noticeable, but nothing that will ruin the game by any means. 

Overall, I think that Alan Wake has a brilliantly told story which can be mindbending at times and has a wonderful atmosphere through the entire game. The combat can be frantic but definitely has some depth to it which I think is something needed with a 3rd person style game, and it blends its genres quite well. Although this game had a lot of issues with getting off the ground originally, and it took quite a long time to make, it definitely delivers on everything it possibly could have in the long run. Although it has some minor shortcomings, I can only say you'd be missing out on a great game if you skip this one and don't at least give it a try. 

Thanks for taking a look at my review! Hope you've enjoyed it and maybe it's gotten you interested in checking out the game!