Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a fairly good game.   The best things about it is the story telling and the lighting.   Light plays an integral part to the game, so it makes sense that it is what they spent the most time on with the engine.   The shadows are very dynamic and their shapes look realistic.   When you shine a flashlight on a chair, a shadow appears on the floor that looks like a chair's shadow.   The game’s shadows do not look fully real for whenever there is an object in a light source’s path, it totally blots out all light in the area behind it.   It looks black.   Which is not realistic as the area behind an object should be dimly light, not pitch black.   But that is a pretty amazing looking graphics engine in terms of lighting if that is the worst thing that can be said about it.  

As for the other good part, you’ll note I said the story-telling was good, not the story itself.   I think I am about 70-80% through the game and unless there is some mind blowing twist at the end, the story seems like something pulled out of Stephen King.   And his work, for me, is best for how he crafts his stories, not the plot.   Without giving anything away that is not on the box: Alan Wake is a writer suffering from writer’s block.   He and his wife go to , an isolated logging village akin to , in order to recharge.   Alan’s wife goes missing and he has to find her.   As he first starts to look for her, he finds pages from a manuscript from a book that he hasn’t written.   And what is written is starting to come true.   The exposition in the story largely comes from manuscript pages that are found strewn throughout the game.   Unfortunately these are collectibles so it is possible to miss many of them.   So this means that a player may go through the game not knowing why certain people did something or what happened to them while Alan was not with them if he missed some of the pages.   Sometimes the pages foreshadow what will happen (like the aforementioned bulldozer encounter).  

In addition to the manuscript pages there are also televisions and radios scattered about.   Each of these contains a short 3-5 min audio track or video file.   This gives the world some depth much like it did in the Max Payne games (other Remedy joints).   The TV shows are primarily episodes of Night Springs, a television show that is eerily similar to The Twilight Zone and do not really have anything to with what is going on in Bright Falls.   It is quite a feat that Remedy was able to convey what would used to have been 22 minutes of drama into three or four.   The radio shows are more connected to the story in that they tangentially reference what is going on in the town while Mr. Wake is out in the woods shooting flares and dark zombies.   They take the format of a radio DJ who takes calls from the townsfolk between songs.   The town’s residents might comment on seeing a bunch of cops if the police are responding to something.   This makes what is happening to the protagonist seem real and not just something that he is dreaming up.

As for the combat, the part where Alan Wake is a game, check it: did you play Resident Evil 4?   Well, they took that and added the ability to move and shoot, but they took away all the interesting enemies and cool guns.   The controls are similar to the new Resident evil games, in fact they are closer to Dead Space, Alan walks around and can shoot at will but can focus by pulling the left trigger.   The flashlight serves as both a means of illumination as well as a targeting reticule.  The levels are essentially paths and the woods around said paths and occasionally some buildings that need exploring.   There are also driving sequences which feel sluggish and unnecessary (although it is a little fun running over the enemies that were bullet sponges moments before).  

Our everyday hero writer has a flashlight and the standard load out: shotguns, rifles, pistols.   The Taken are the main stay of the game’s enemies and they have a few flavors, light, normal, heavy.   The light Taken will actually run in circles around Alan and attack when he is dealing with other enemies.   I am torn between whether this makes for a scary and surprising experience where all enemies must be accounted for at all times or whether they should make some kind of snarling noise when they are about to attack from the rear.   In order to defeat these enemies you first have to shine light on them, their darkness level - or shield - is represented by a circle that shows up on their body and goes away as you shine the light on them.   For a quicker effect the flashlight can be focused on an enemy, but this uses up the battery power.   Sorry, I meant to say it uses up the Energizer lithium batteries shattered throughout the level.   The batteries are an interestingly appropriate instance of product placement.   There are a few other enemy types, but nothing thus far that is extremely memorable.   Some of the combat sequences are noteworthy, but this is not a game that you’re likely to play again and again because it is so much fun to shine and shoot the Taken. The game is fairly challenging on Hard and I can only imagine that it is a cakewalk on .   Only in large battles did I run out of ammunition and rarely got low on batteries.  

This game is likely going to clock in at 10 or so hours.   There are supposed to be a total of two downloadable episodes that will come out by the end of the summer (one is already out).   I will likely rent it again to play those and get 90 points that I am not going to get on my first play through.   Most of the achievements will be gotten naturally as you play through the game, but there are 3 worth 90 points that require a certain actions be taken that a player would not normally do (i.e. going through a forest with a gun and not shooting any Taken).   In addition to these, several of the achievements require the player to get all of the game’s collectables.   There are a lot but some achievements unlock after several are found, not just one achievement for each type of collectible.   One of the collectibles, coffee thermoses, add nothing to the game other than a reason to leave the path.   They are unnecessary as the manuscript pages serve this purpose.   I get the feeling like they had tons of places to put hidden objects, but did not want to write the additional pages.  

In short, Alan Wake is fairly good and certainly worth a rental.   However this title was announced at E3 in 2006, its disappointing that this is the sum total of what they were able to do with all that time.    If a game has had that long to cook, I expect it to be amazing.  This is a good, moody, survival-horror game with funish shooting.  But thats it.  Unless you are flush with cash, this is not a sixty dollar game.