Alan wake is a 3rd person adventure/horror game that came out back in 2010, developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Windows. Only on rare occasions will you find a game like this which tells it's story so perfectly that it gets to the point where you feel slightly heavyhearted once you've run through it and uncovered everything that there is to the story. And, the entertaining gameplay that's included along with the story just makes it even better. I originally played this game a lot on the xbox 360, but have recently ran through it on my laptop using a controller adapter, so that is the version I'll be reviewing.
The game is broken up into six different episodes, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger or revealing a revelation for the most part. After each segment of the game, a recap begins so if you take a break for a little while, you won't be too lost when you boot the game back up. Our main character of this game is best selling thriller/horror novelist named Alan Wake. Unfortunately, he has been suffering from over a two year long case of writers block. You're quickly introduced to his wife, Alice, as they travel together to the quaint town, Bright Falls.
Before you arrive into town, Alan has a nightmare involving shadowy figures trying to attack him, before an ethereal figure intervenes and teaches him how to use "The Light" to fight off the creatures. Shortly after he wakes up, they finally get into town, and retrieve keys and info to get to their rented cabin. Before Alan and Alice can even get their things unpacked, Alice gets taken by some sort of force which ends up dragging her away into the lake with Alan chasing behind until he blacks out.
From here on out, you start trying to piece together what exactly is going on and what's happened to your wife. You do this by finding pieces of a manuscript which you yourself have apparently written without any memory of doing so, explaining bits and pieces of things happening in real life. You'll also want to explore around each area checking behind every tree, rock, and bush because there's notes, collectibles, and a very neat TV series you can find in the game during your playthrough.
The game doesn't take much time before it starts showing you that it can be quite scary and unsettling. There are a lot of moments where you'll feel tense. You might be watching something on the T.V. while playing, or be searching for items in a dim area, just barely catch a silhouette of an axe wielding murderer passing by in the distance while he silently creeps up to kill you in the darkness. At times, you may feel somewhat lost while running from the wind whipping and tree's rustling while trying to fight off possessed enemies who can only be harmed by bright lights. This kind of stuff only helps to amp up the tension and give you a feeling of unease while you play.
While it might sound a bit overwhelming fighting off the darkness which has come alive and is everywhere around you, the game does give you an adequate weapon for combat...Namely, anything that can produce light. There are multiple things you can use for combat. The flashlight being your main option, flash bang grenades, flare guns, or even headlights which will drive the darkness away from the possessed enemies called the "Taken" long enough for you to inflict fatal damage. The games level designs also make you feel fairly creeped out where you feel like you should just stick with the main path.
Most of pretty much all of the fights in this game have the same sort of pattern to them. Burn the darkness away, shoot at the enemy, then retreat a safe distance and repeat until finished. The nice thing about this however, is that it never feels old or repetitive (at least on the first playthrough), due to the game having a good balance of enemies with your offensive capabilities. There's a lot of other aspects of gameplay that you'll use besides running and combat. There's plenty of parts of the game involving you have to do a good amount of talking, exploring, or puzzle solving as well.
There will be times where you have to work together with side characters in the game as well, which can provide some interesting dialogue. It's also nice that the AI for your allies doesn't tend to get in your way, they'll wait for you while you search around the area, and they can actually be somewhat useful in combat. Another small aspect of gameplay is that you get to get behind the wheel and drive at certain points which can be a nice change of pace for a few minutes. Everything blends in together really well, and for the most part you feel pretty immersed into the game.
The level designs are gorgeous, and it reminds me of the woods of Maine with how everything looks. This combined with the colorful, interesting characters and the unsettling feeling you get makes me want to say this game is similar to a fusion of Twin Peaks with a Stephen King novel. I think this is pretty fitting, considering how the game is organized to be similar to a T.V. series in a way. I feel that it being set up that way helps the game keep going strong with the horror aspects as well as the emotional ones.
There's very few things I can really say I dislike about this game at this point in time. One is that the facial animations have definitely become dated, which is something to be somewhat expected. And, there are some low res textures which become quite noticeable in the daylight sections of the game. Occasionally you might experience some smaller glitches which can be a bit annoying with trying to stay immersed in the game, but really isn't that big of a deal. Things like vegetation popping in again during the daylight sections, and at worst you might experience some screen tearing which is noticeable, but nothing that will ruin the game.
Overall, I think that Alan Wake has a brilliantly told story which can be mindbending at times and has a wonderful atmosphere. The combat can be frantic but with depth to it which I think is something needed with a 3rd person style game, and it blends genres quite well. Although this game had a lot of issues with getting off the ground, and took quite a long time to make, it definitely delivers on everything it possibly could have. Although it has some minor shortcomings, I can only say you'd be nuts to not give this game a try!
Thanks for checking out my review! If you liked it at all, then I would greatly appreciate it if you could upvote and resteem it to help me out. Hope you've become somewhat interested in the game at least! Again, thanks for reading!
I used to play Alan wake a lot, those images made me remember those days.
Upvote and a Follow from my side, Loved your post. :)
Thank you! Appreciate that :)
I love this game, i've played it 4 times and let's don't talk about music isss amazingggggggggggggg, and yeh the "sequel" let's say was good (Alan Wake's American Nightmare) unfortunately Alan Wake can be bought anymore :(
I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Wake back in the day. Remedy is a talented developer and I've been excited to start playing Quantum Break since i just bought it recently
Waooooo, excellent story.
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