I can honestly say this is one of the best games I've played in a while. The style and game play didn't disappoint and the storyline was fantastic.
This is one game like any mystery thriller game that relies heavily on a good story. I mean let's face it anyone can shoot someone without a reason but if you're gonna let a game get under your skin there has to be something more then kill or be killed to allow that to happen and this did a good job of that.
The story is deep, almost too deep. If you're paying attention it's about halfway through before you get a good understanding of what's going on but for good reason. The story definitely takes you for a ride of doubt, emotion, anger, and just flat out confusion at times all of which just pushes you towards that next voice over narrative or the next cut scene.
Graphics are stylized but they started with a very solid base established graphics before taking the lighting and shadows to the nth degree. Add a little blur effect when the camera spins to fast and you've got a pretty good idea of how this thing looks. There's an awful lot of smoke throughout the game and just for the sake of overkill we actually turned on the smoke machine while we were playing through the first level and it matched the game perfectly.
Controls are simple enough and they added mechanics that allowed for their shortcomings. For instance you don't play the most agile of characters and you could never escape an enemy without help but with the correct controls (and this actually had correct controls) you're able to dodge attacks if you see them coming if you get your timing down. Is it foolproof no but it probably made the difference between this being unplayable and fun.
The music in the game is eclectic to say the least. There are radios laying around that aside from talk and more talk do play some odd ball songs every once in a while which is a nice change from the typical "dark ominous tones" that the basic soundtrack is made up of. The screens between missions play random songs some you may have heard depending on what decade you were born.
If I had to describe this game to a friend in brief I would compare it to a rock band from the sixties or seventies. You all know the ones I'm talking about to where they were ahead of there time but not without the help of certain extracurricular activities that are frowned on by the parents of the kids who want to buy the album.
The game does have it's faults which become evident. The enemies don't change much throughout but your handling of them changes as the story progresses. I don't want to give away to much but it's a very creative way of making the little guys easier in the later levels. The controls weren't quite as agile as I'd like and having to find ways to weaken someone with the light only to have to shoot them after you've got enough light on them just seems odd after a while. Especially once you find out a flash-bang can one shot the smaller enemies.
The game as a whole really comes together nicely but I will warn if you just want to run and kill this game is not for you. It's a bit of a slower game and plays similar to Resident Evil in as much as having to conserve ammunition so you aren't completely worthless if something unexpected comes up. A little strategy goes a long way and it's just fun to watch fragmeplz get sliced and diced like he's in the blender with the iPhone getting ground into a fine powder.(editors note: You died just as much as I did, I don't want to hear it. -FragMePlz)
The game is open ended as you may have heard from others by now and the storyline is definitely enough to keep you going. This really manages to take the idea of a video game and turn it into an interactive movie without two hour long cut scenes (I'm talking to you Metal Gear). The story leaves a lot of openings for some truly original stuff to come along as the story progresses and I didn't mind enemies it just kind of becomes the norm by the end of it but if it's going to have a sequel or sequels it needs to not get bogged down in what it's already made and use the truly sandbox world that they have available to them in the next game.
Replay value on these games as always is close to nil but with a few collectibles scrounge up it's not a bad reason to give it a second run through if you liked it enough. There's no multi-player, online anything, or split screen but there really isn't any need for it either. Not to repeat myself but with everything in the game going hand in hand between story, graphics, setting, music, and so on the game really shows that the team working on it had a great sync on everything else that was going on during production and it all compliments each other wonderfully.
I have to give Alan Wake 9.5 out 10
Up next: Aliens vs Predator
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