Alan Wake

After playing games like Afro Samurai and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand I can honestly say I was really looking forward to playing through Alan Wake.  It didn’t disappoint.  Since it’s a recent game, it felt great to be playing and reviewing a game that’s still fresh in the minds of gaming society.  Especially since the majority of our project is going to be playing and reviewing games that are several years old and have been out of the limelight for quite a while.

The story was gripping, as any game based on a mystery author and set up like a TV series should be.  The episodic nature of the game did nicely to break up story points and motivate you to take the occasional break to reestablish your grip on reality, as the story was deep, dark, and often a bit disturbing.  They did an amazing job of giving you just enough story information to keep you playing so you can find more, while not making you feel completely lot and hopeless when it came to that aspect of the game.  I’ll give you the quick run-down of the story.  You’re an author who is suffering from a two year long streak of writers block.  Your wife finally manages to get you to take a vacation to a mountain town to clear your head.  Things quickly take a turn for the worse.  Your wife, who has an intense fear of the dark, is kidnapped and a dark entity is eclipsing the town at night possessing the townsfolk and taking control of objects.  You have to get your wife back and defeat the darkness.

The controls are basic third person shooter/mystery game movement and camera.  Where the game breaks away from the mold is your weapons.  You get the standard revolver and shotgun throughout the game, but in order for those to be effective you need to break the cloak of darkness that surround your enemies, to do this you use a flashlight, which is subtly upgraded in steps as you play through.  Once the cloak is broken, take a few shots and your enemies are dust.  They did an amazing job of having weapon upgrades that don’t obviously make it feel like you’re upgrading your weapons.  You never feel like you need to find the high powered lanterns, it felt more like they were there to make things a bit easier, but didn’t have such a massive effect on gameplay that you’re desperate for it.  The dodge mechanic was a nice addition, though it often failed to deliver unless you timed it absolutely perfectly and even then it was hit or miss.

The graphics and sound are above par for games that have been coming out recently.  They did a great job with the lighting.  Since darkness and shadow is the centerpiece of the action it was a must.  Environmental effects felt a bit overdone.  Fog is a notoriously good vehicle for shadow and light to mingle, but there were times where it felt forced.  To accent the creepiness of the game, we played in the dark with a fog machine going, which was actually a bit fun and helped with immersion.  I highly recommend doing this if you have the resources.  The ambient sounds do nicely to keep you on your toes.  The music and score choices are good enough to make me want to buy a sound track.

My only major gripes are the enemy types, they don’t vary often, and the hardest fights, in my opinion are the most boring.  The big boss fights tend to be against animated objects, tractors, trains, that sort of thing.  Fighting the humanoid enemies only offered a real challenge when they were in large numbers trying to zerg you, or when they catch you off guard.

Overall I enjoyed the game and would give it another play through if we weren’t on a limited schedule for the project games.

Overall I give it a 9.5 out of 10 for “I just fought a train.  I don’t want to hear about your chainsaw enemies. I killed a train.”

Up next: Aliens vs Predator