Variety is Key
I began playing Alan Wake because I am a big horror fan, but the problem is, I don't find too many games all that scary. With that said Alan Wake is pretty creepy. It uses it's atmosphere to great lengths and overall it adds to the experience. Hell, I'd say it is the experience. I feel the first few episodes and the last few are great bookends to a mediocre middle. environments need better variety and combat gets tedious pretty quickly, but to Remedy's credit they tried to keep it varied enough, there just isn't much you can do with point light at enemy and shoot. I found running from the "darkness" was much more effective at creating tension. The way the story is told is fantastic. I didn't really find a worthwhile moment for finding story pages around the game world but I though the episode recaps really hit the spot for the tone of the game. I want to play another Alan Wake game I just hope they had a bit more variety, in combat (or noncombat) and environments next time.
