I have a bit of a rough relationship with Microsoft. Despite me being a long time Xbox fan, their services and exclusive games have left me with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, its why I went back to Sony and bought my PS3 a few years back. Despite MS having two of my favourite franchises, Halo and Gears of War, I never really looked at their other exclusives because they all seemed to blur together into some kind of uninteresting attempt at getting my money. But then I played Alan Wake.
Alan Wake's story is a bit of a mindbender when you first hear about it, and that lasts for the majority of the game too until all the pieces fall together. You play as the games titular character, Alan Wake, who is a best selling author. After ending a series of books that had taken him 7 years to write he is left with two years of writers block. It begins to destroy his mind and his marriage. In a last ditch attempt to get him writing again and save their marriage, his wife Alice takes them on a vacation to Bright Falls, hoping that the change of scenery will give him inspiration for his writing. However after an argument, Alice disappears into the lake at the centre of town. Alan then awakes to find himself in a car accident and having no memory of an entire week and writing his newest novel, Departure, which stars Wake and several of the towns inhabitants being plagued by a dark presence known as the 'Taken'. When the events of the pages begin coming true Wake begins a fight for his life as he tacks down the missing pages in hope of finding his wife.
The story is a lot to take on board at first and it does throw you in at the deep end pretty quickly, however due to the games episodic format its just like watching a TV show, having it slowly explained to you piece by piece, episode by episode. But more on that later.
Alan Wake's story is a bit of a mindbender when you first hear about it, and that lasts for the majority of the game too until all the pieces fall together. You play as the games titular character, Alan Wake, who is a best selling author. After ending a series of books that had taken him 7 years to write he is left with two years of writers block. It begins to destroy his mind and his marriage. In a last ditch attempt to get him writing again and save their marriage, his wife Alice takes them on a vacation to Bright Falls, hoping that the change of scenery will give him inspiration for his writing. However after an argument, Alice disappears into the lake at the centre of town. Alan then awakes to find himself in a car accident and having no memory of an entire week and writing his newest novel, Departure, which stars Wake and several of the towns inhabitants being plagued by a dark presence known as the 'Taken'. When the events of the pages begin coming true Wake begins a fight for his life as he tacks down the missing pages in hope of finding his wife.
The story is a lot to take on board at first and it does throw you in at the deep end pretty quickly, however due to the games episodic format its just like watching a TV show, having it slowly explained to you piece by piece, episode by episode. But more on that later.
The character of Wake himself is a tough one to get your head around, he comes off as arrogant, self important and generally a bit of a dick for the first couple of episodes making you question whether you like him. However this attitude ends up making him incredibly likeable during the course of the game, making you question choices you make, helping you understand the deep psychological stress he is under and ultimately making you question whether he is the villain to all of this. I never ended up liking Wake, however I never disliked him either. The entire game I felt as though he was someone I couldn’t trust, but you both share the common goal of wanting to find out how the story ends, kind of like when you got paired with someone you didn’t want to work with at school; you might not want to work with them, but you do and end up enjoying it more than you thought. As for the supporting cast, they are more likeable. Barry, Wake's agent, brings the comic relief to the story and is someone that from off the bat you enjoy having around with you. The residents of Bright Falls are great too, each one unique and adding something different to the story, however it almost seems like the story forgets about them once you are done with them.
The game seems to dabble between two genres and never really deciding what one it is which doesn't exactly go in its favour for people undecided on playing it, but it works very well. It takes from both the 3rd person shooter and horror genres but Dead Space it is not. Instead you end up with a story that is never scary, but instead tense and unsettling; and combat that never takes the limelight and is very slow and methodical, requiring you to think about things before you go wildly emptying rounds at enemies.
Light plays a huge part in the game, enemies are vulnerable to light and so you carry a torch with you the entire game. In order to kill an enemy you must first weaken it with light, how much abuse it can then take from gunfire depends on enemy size. You never have too much ammo and your torch will eventually run out of battery requiring you to be aware of resource management, though you are never placed in a situation where you don't have ammo or don't have any batteries left easily, however you don't ever have as much ammo or light as you would want making combat slow and strategic. Having to rely on dodging enemy attacks whilst you reload or change the batteries in your torch before picking which enemy to take out first, doing so and then repeating until the area is clear. You are very weak compared to the enemies, however they aren’t unbeatable and the game isn’t overly difficult if you can quickly grasp how to correctly manage resources and fight correctly making the game challenging but never unfair.
As for the episodic format, the game is split into 6 parts which are separated by a TV show style 'Previously on Alan Wake' cutscene. Though this is a nice touch and really helps the storytelling, its execution could have been better. If you are having a long play session you will go through perhaps 2 or 3 episodes in a row and just feel as if you are being forcibly taken out of the world due to the structure of it. Plus the recaps only play at them points, if you quit the game and come back at a later time you get no recap which seems a little odd. It just makes you question whether there was any point in making it episodic and whether it would have been better just having it laid out in a non-episodic format.
The game seems to dabble between two genres and never really deciding what one it is which doesn't exactly go in its favour for people undecided on playing it, but it works very well. It takes from both the 3rd person shooter and horror genres but Dead Space it is not. Instead you end up with a story that is never scary, but instead tense and unsettling; and combat that never takes the limelight and is very slow and methodical, requiring you to think about things before you go wildly emptying rounds at enemies.
Light plays a huge part in the game, enemies are vulnerable to light and so you carry a torch with you the entire game. In order to kill an enemy you must first weaken it with light, how much abuse it can then take from gunfire depends on enemy size. You never have too much ammo and your torch will eventually run out of battery requiring you to be aware of resource management, though you are never placed in a situation where you don't have ammo or don't have any batteries left easily, however you don't ever have as much ammo or light as you would want making combat slow and strategic. Having to rely on dodging enemy attacks whilst you reload or change the batteries in your torch before picking which enemy to take out first, doing so and then repeating until the area is clear. You are very weak compared to the enemies, however they aren’t unbeatable and the game isn’t overly difficult if you can quickly grasp how to correctly manage resources and fight correctly making the game challenging but never unfair.
As for the episodic format, the game is split into 6 parts which are separated by a TV show style 'Previously on Alan Wake' cutscene. Though this is a nice touch and really helps the storytelling, its execution could have been better. If you are having a long play session you will go through perhaps 2 or 3 episodes in a row and just feel as if you are being forcibly taken out of the world due to the structure of it. Plus the recaps only play at them points, if you quit the game and come back at a later time you get no recap which seems a little odd. It just makes you question whether there was any point in making it episodic and whether it would have been better just having it laid out in a non-episodic format.
Alan Wake looks truly fantastic. One of the best looking games on the 360 by a country mile. Light is not only a major factor of gameplay, it also makes the game look drastically different and really helps set the tone. During the daytime light bounces off every surface and shows off just what the 360 can do, during the night-time you're lost without your torch, shadows paint themselves across the dark ground and you feel utterly helpless when its just you and your torch. Characters look good, lip sync is a little off but besides that they are very good and animation is also great. As for audio, the soundtrack is awesome and really makes the game something special. Being alone in the woods with nothing but an eerie string orchestra playing is unsettling enough until you begin to hear twigs breaking or unexpected instruments pop in. Voice acting is also great, sometimes though it feels as though the actors are ignoring punctuation and just reeling off lines without stopping, though these moments are few and far between its really off-putting and makes understanding them difficult.
So should you play Alan Wake? The short answer is yes, absolutely. The long answer though, much like the games plot, is a lot more complex than it first seems. The story and gameplay to Alan Wake are great but will only appeal to people who put in enough effort to explore and understand them to their fullest extent. Plus there is little replay value, besides higher difficulties and finding the 3 types of uninteresting collectibles (TV sets, Radios and Thermos Flasks) and the one interesting set of collectibles (The pages of Departure) however these have to all be collected in a single playthrough. Plus the game is not without its problems as highlighted above, with its odd episodic format and character likeability issues.
So should you play Alan Wake? The short answer is yes, absolutely. The long answer though, much like the games plot, is a lot more complex than it first seems. The story and gameplay to Alan Wake are great but will only appeal to people who put in enough effort to explore and understand them to their fullest extent. Plus there is little replay value, besides higher difficulties and finding the 3 types of uninteresting collectibles (TV sets, Radios and Thermos Flasks) and the one interesting set of collectibles (The pages of Departure) however these have to all be collected in a single playthrough. Plus the game is not without its problems as highlighted above, with its odd episodic format and character likeability issues.
STORY: 9/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
PRESENTATION: 8/10
LIFESPAN: 7/10
SCORE: 8/10
For those of you who are willing to put in the effort, Alan Wake is an extremely enjoyable and unpredictable 15-18 hour thrill ride that should be a reason to own a 360, for everyone else you're missing out on a great game because of a few small problems that do little to hinder the overall product.