“My name is Alan Wake, and I’m a writer”

Alan Wake is a psychological thriller with the most intricate, complex story line and presentation I have ever seen. Produced by Remedy, the Story centers around the famous Author Alan Wake who has come to a small rural mountain town called Bright Falls to escape the pressures of being a number 1 best selling author.  However what he finds in this tranquil backwater hamlet is a lot more then  he bargined for, Nightmares, Shadows, and Human like Creatures  a Novel he doesnt remember writing and a missing wife.

Alan Wake is a Game about an author who writes a novel that is coming true and changing the reality around him. It is presented in  6 part TV episodic (with two DLC episodes) fashion. From the outset this Game is just pure magic. The creative approach to how the game is displayed is just a small indicator as to what you are in store for.  This is not the only clever mechanic the game uses, at points throughout the game Alan will provide narative over the game play, such as “ i walked to the window outside i could see crows” etc but this will happen as you are looking out said window. I know that some other  reviews have dismissed this as annoying and a crutch the game uses for force along the plot. I disagree i think this is very cleverly done, and adds to the ambience and the suspense of the game as a whole. Not that Alan Wake needs any more suspence.

The game follows a very simple age old story, Light Vs Dark. Alan has the usual assortment of weaponry , Revolver, Shotgun, Hunting rifle. What this game does is take what other games and the industry as a whole considers to be secondary equipment, and turns them into your primary defence. That is of course, anything light emiting. The humble flashlight becomes your best friend. You are frantically looking for Flares, Flashbangs Flare Gun ammo and working lights. As we all know, usually these are secondary items and most of the time ignored for heavy firepower. But the games mechanic is such that running out of said light emiting items can spell doom and hair pulling for you. To clarify what this means a typical fight consists of Alan fighting off possessed people called “The Taken”, Now i hear you say, Shotgun to face will work here! Not so fast says Remedy these “Taken “ have a protective barrier of Darkness that surrounds them and protects them so bullets dont work. But thats cheating i hear you say.  Ah says Remedy but Light can burn away this Darkness and then they are vulnerable to bullets.  That right there is the games main selling point. The use of the Flashlight for combat. Personally i thought it was genius. All enemies need to have their barriers removed.

Visually it was well worth the decade or so of development . everything has that realistic touch of class to it. Leaves falling, blades of grass moving independantly of eachother. The only problem i have is with the facial expressions and lip synching at times. But you can forgive that to a certain extent. The voice acting is top notch.. well most of it. The best part i think is each of that characters are modelled after a real person, i.e There is a man out there who looks exactly like Alan Wake. Same for the rest of the cast too.

Game play is creative and Alan responds well, you have your basics, Shoot walk run. But the dodge funtion was a great addition. They swing an axe and you press LB and a direction, you get a slo mo cinimatic of Alan getting out of the way at the last second. the Enemies having an assortment of tools for your destruction, Axes Sythes, and the dreaded CHAINSAW!! theres always one in a horror title isnt there. but you have levels of enemies too, from grunts to heavies. and then bosses. grunts are quick but require less bullets to take down. Mid levelers are tougher requiring more shots but can also do more damage. the Heavies are where the game really trys to mess with you. requireing almost an entire battries boost charge and a massive 12 rounds of a handgun on nightmare mode these bad boys mean business. and you ahve the bosses. who can zoom around the area and vanish at will. on normal Grunts take one shot of a revolver. Mids take 2 and heavys take 4. on nighmare, grunts take 2, mids take 4 and heavies take 8 or more. but the shotgun does twice the damage of the revolver, the pump action shotgun does more then that and the hunting rifle does the damage of four revolver shots so you can work out how screwed you are if you run low of ammo. in that case RUN TO THE LIGHT! its also worth mentioning that flash bangs will one hit kill all Taken BAR the chainsaw ones. they need like three! its horrifying, and flare gun is a one hit kill too, but they are like gold to find in game.

what i didnt like is that between chapters Alan discards all weapons and ammo from previous missions. i know this is to have the difficulty curve for each chapter rise evenly. but from an realism perspective, it makes no sense as to why the main charatcer knowing how bad this are would decide "gee i'll leave my rifle here, whats the worst that could happen" and im also shocked at how bad gun control in bright falls is! with all these rifles and things going missing... (inb4 fictional nightmare. i know i was being smart)

whats great about the game is that along with the enemies you have to feel that the Dark Pressense is in itself a bad guy, manifesting itself as a tornado it can spawn these Taken at will. and a lot of the time you wont see them coming until its too late or you get a slow mo approach to frighten the pants off you before your bludgened to death. all in all very cleaver game mechanics and a great feature. Alan wake does suspence in games like Stephen King does it in Novels. (which is why S.K was referenced in the opening cinematic)

With three difficulty settings this game goes from very simple to mildly chalanging to OH DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE. Nightmare mode is horrific. Not in the sense that its bad but in the sense that Enemies take more bullets to kill, which there are less of. And shadows take much longer to burn away, same for possessed items like barrells and such. Nightmare mode really makes you have to same ammo and power and use it only when necessary, you will find yourself running for your life more often then not. 

With the inclusion of “The Signal” and “The Writer” this part of the Alan wake story is concluded and has been masterfully done.

We look forward to the next installment, the Sequel to Departure :

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Alan Wake