Fun, but man Alan Wake is a douche
Alan Wake is a dark, moody, foreboding, ominous psychological action thriller third-person shooter for Xbox 360. The game is held up by its involving and constantly twisting story, unique visual style and gameplay mechanics that make it a lot of fun to play. However, there is one glaring thing about the game which severely tarnished my overall experience with what is otherwise a very nicely made game. Alan Wake is a douche.
The story starts off with novelist Alan Wake and his wife Alice going to Bright Falls which is a small and remote Pacific Northwestern town more than a little inspired by David Lynch’s famous series “Twin Peaks.” Alan has been suffering from writer’s block for two years, and his wife thought it’d be a good idea to go on vacation to get his creative juices flowing. Alan is more intent on just not thinking about writing at all.
It’s not far into the game when Alice is mysteriously abducted by some unseen force and Alan finds himself in a car crash with no memory of what happened during the entire week prior to the accident. From here the game tells its story in episodes like in a TV series complete with cliffhanger endings and also recaps at the beginning of each new episode. This storytelling conceit actually works very well to create interesting story beats and drive the narrative and player along. Also the game has a constant narration by Alan which is kind of cheesy horror novel in tone.
Alan Wake is a very dark game. The very design of the game is all about light and dark. Your enemies in the game are possessed locals who appear covered by a living shadow which must be burned away via flashlights, flares, flash bangs or environmental light sources. After that, they can be dispatched by shotguns, a revolver or hunting rifle. The ultimate weapon being a flare gun which has light and explosions built into one.
It seems kind of silly the idea that a flashlight can be “boosted” to increase its light, but for the purposes of the game it works well and is a lot of fun to do largely because of the great special effects, controller vibration and sound effects.
The graphics in the game work masterfully in combination with the gameplay and themes of the story. Alan spends the majority of the game in very very dark woods with constantly moving shadows. You’ll feel very claustrophobic if you find yourself going off the beaten path with only your narrow flashlight beam illuminating your way.
There are a few driving bits which are all right to mix things up a bit, but most of the time you’ll find yourself using your flashlight, guns, flares and flash bangs to take care of business. There are some particularly tense moments when you have no ammunition and are forced to run and dodge your enemies until you can get to the safe haven of the closest street lamp where you replenish your ammo and items.
There are a lot of collectible of achievements. There are over a hundred coffee thermoses to find, also radios to listen to, TVs to watch and also pages of a manuscript that you pick up along the way. The manuscript is part of the story in Alan Wake and actually predicts events that haven’t occurred yet, so it’s up to you whether you read them or not. I opted not to which might’ve hurt the story a bit, but kept things more surprising.
A lot of work was put into the sound for this game, and it really shows. The amazing atmosphere is owed to the graphics, but the sound is really what clinches it. This is one of those games where I wished I had a surround system because I’m sure I’m missing out on all sorts of things going on behind me, whether it’s an enemy or just some ambient sound effect. When Alan shines his flashlight, there’s a deep going underwater shift in audio and the burning of the shadows has human voice samples in it almost like people riding a rollercoaster.
The voice work of the other actors is mostly good, but the character lip sync is what really throws it down into the uncanny valley. There’s a good deal of original music for the game that really sets the tone, but most of the time it’s probably working on a more unconscious level where you don’t realize that it’s manipulating your emotions. There are a lot of little details like the sound of light bulbs popping, the buzz of electricity, and creak of floorboards that sound great. The guns also sound appropriately satisfying when shooting them which I always look for in a game with guns.
The light effects in the game are absolutely gorgeous with street spotlights so bright you can barely see a thing around you. The light bloom and effects are really pretty whether it’s from your flashlight, a spotlight or the red glow of handheld flares. There aren’t many games out there where light plays such a key function for the gameplay, and the attention that has been given to the visual presentation is very much appreciated. There’s also very judicious use of slow motion in the game that gives nice visual flair whenever you pop a flare, kill an enemy or dodge an axe swipe.
With all that said, there still lies one big problem which I mentioned at the beginning of this review. Alan Wake is a douche. I blame the writing, voice actor and voice director for this one. Alan is constantly very stand offish, hot headed, and sometimes petulant and childish.
In one scene, a character asks Alan if he’d like to fix the fuse box or go and find a key. He says something like “oh no, I’ve been electrocuted once already today. You take care of the fuse box and I’ll find the key.” Written down you can give your own intonation to it. It could be said in a comedic way or it can be said the way it appears in the game. As it is in the game, Alan sounds like a dick who’d rather risk someone else getting electrocuted rather than himself, so he chooses to take the path of least resistence.
The worst example is when Alan is having a fight with his wife and chooses to leave the cabin knowing that her fear of the darkness will prevent her from running out of the house to continue the argument. Seriously, that’s a dick move.
Almost every line he has sounds borderline angry, arrogant, stuck up and generally unlikable. Like I said, the voice direction is a big part of this because many of the lines would sound totally different if they were just acted differently. Voice actor Nolan North is rather overexposed for this sort of everyman character, but I could see liking Alan Wake if he was the voice actor.
The other faults of the game involve overuse of the “I lost my gun” conceit which happens a few too many times. There are certain story related reasons for Wake losing his gun, but there are some scenes it feels like they did it to make the next scene more difficult. The game also at times has some serious pacing issues.
The middle section has a lot of gameplay and very little story, and the very end of the game starts feeling like a grind as you move from place to place with no story and fight the same enemies over and over again. Compounding the sense of monotony during the end, you’re told what your ultimate goal is, and you can plainly see that where you’re trying to get to is really far away. The last section of the game could’ve very easily been trimmed by at twenty minutes to half an hour.
In terms of graphics the only thing I would say is that the cutscene character models and facial animation can look downright creepy at times. The lip sync is off, and some of the mouth animation is just plain weird. Alan Wake’s wife in particular looks like she’s had too many shots of Botox in her lips and she just looks wrong. There are times when the human characters in Alan Wake find themselves at the very bottom of the uncanny valley.
Ultimately the strengths of the game overcome its weaknesses. Alan Wake is still an action game worth playing especially because you can get it for $30 or less either in stores or on Xbox Live Games on Demand. The story is interesting, the gameplay is fun despite the grindy last quarter. How much you sympathize with Alan Wake will vary depending on your perception of his dialogue delivery. Even if you do think he’s a dick, the story is still interesting to go through.
