Alan Wake

Remedy's Masterpiece

Alan Wake is definitely well worth at least a single playthrough. It is an experience with few flaws that can be overlooked in comparison with how superb the game is overall. 

I started playing the game on its release date and finished it after 11 hours of psychological thrills dispersed over almost 2 months. The reason for this is how I chose to play it: as a TV series. The game consists of 6 episodes to be completed sequentially and I played through them with a week (on average) between each episode playthrough. Before each episode there is an intro that plays “Previously on Alan Wake” that reminds you what happened in the episode prior so if it's been a week, it works out perfect. 

 The story of Alan Wake deserves a lot of praise because each episode manages to feel like its own story with a beginning, a middle, and end, while all six form a thrilling story arc about a writer, a kidnapped love, and a fight between the light and the dark. The setting is well realized thanks to the detailed environments, the gorgeous vistas, the characters that feel real when you approach them, and the radio and TV shows scattered through the levels. 

 

It's hard not to admire the graphics of Alan Wake because as soon as you begin playing, you are completely immersed in the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls. The music is chosen brilliantly all through the game, with licensed tracks (with fitting lyrics) providing a sense of familiarity in an otherwise foreign world; and the score composed by Petri Alanko throws you deeper into Alan's abyss. 
 

Most importantly Alan Wake is not simply a euphonious piece of visual eye-candy; it is a game with clearly established mechanics which do not change as the game progresses. You do not learn new skills or powers, although you do get upgrades to your most important tool for fighting those Taken by the Darkness: your flashlight. Throughout the game you're faced with possessed bodies that you must strip of any darkness before dispensing of them with a revolver, a rifle, or a shotgun. Sometimes you'll be attacked by flocks of birds and it's really helpful to have flares on you; and sometimes you'll be attacked by possessed objects (including tractors) and then flashbang grenades are your friend. 

 

Although the game shines in many ways, the facial animations may have been ahead of its time several years ago but feel dated when compared to excellence of Uncharted 2, for example. The combat may feel repetitive by the end of the game as you're doing the same thing over and over (except when you realize that it's much better to just make flee for the light rather than fight) and the driving segments, while providing diversity, feel out of place in this game which once featured open-world gameplay but came to be strictly linear.

That's not to say it isn't fun because Alan Wake was a wonderful, albeit frightening at times, experience from the creepy beginning to the weird end (weird in a good way, mind you). You will encounter pages of a manuscript you don't remember writing and soon realize those pages offer foreshadowing glimpses of the future events and it's the anticipation of that chainsaw-wielding Taken that makes you uneasy in your seat. It's a almost a disservice to the game to play it in the company of others or during the day or with light in the room because everything about this game is about immersion. 

While the game at least warrants a rental, I highly recommend the limited collector's edition of the game because it comes with a book containing Agent Nightingale's field notes and other literary oddities that, while not required to fully enjoy the game, certainly augment the experience. 

If you haven't started playing it yet, then go play it soon. If you have started, then go finish it.