 Game Review - Alan Wake (Xbox 360)
By Christo van Gemert
Living Nightmare
Alan Wake was in development for more than five years. We first saw it in 2006, when its makers promised an ‘07 release after demonstrating their latest technology to an impressed crowd. Now it’s time to see if the proof is in the pudding, with the game finally hitting the shelves.
First impressions are good. It starts off with the titular character, Alan Wake, talking about his job. He’s a novelist. And he’s been having a hard time getting his latest book done. The opening scenes and first bits of gameplay see Alan’s car breaking down on the way to a lighthouse, where he has to be but can’t remember why. As he gets out, a hitchhiker appears in the distance – one with an axe, and a supernatural disposition.
It’s here where players are given a quick little tutorial on the intuitive controls and how to deal with the enemies in the game: shine a flashlight at them. In a very metaphorical twist, the game’s main baddie is the darkness, which has to be fought off using light. Of course, this darkness (and its axe) can inflict some serious harm, so a neat, but not overbearing, selection of weapons is also used to give Alan a fighting chance.
After this short introduction to the game, Alan’s subconscious and the controls are woken up. It was all a dream. He’s in a car, with his wife driving, and she tells him that they’re almost there. “There” being Bright Falls, a small town where they’re planning to spend a few days to escape the hustle and bustle of city life, along with giving Alan a chance to escape his agent’s incessant nagging.
Alan and his wife make their way into town to arrange some accommodation, and finally get the keys to a cabin near Cauldron Lake, in the camping park where most of the action occurs. They check in and as night falls, the “creepy” dial gets turned all the way to 11. Shadow creatures appear out of nowhere, the lights dim for unexplained reasons and the kind of stuff you’d expect to happen in a horror novelist’s mind start becoming a reality.
Alan Wake isn’t as terrifyingly atmospheric as Dead Space or any of the Silent Hill games, which is both good and bad. Good, because the game is enjoyable, with a fantastic storyline, but bad because it lacks some of the bigger scares that make for memorable gameplay moments. There are a few huge setpieces in the game, and the atmosphere does get more tense when your flashlight dies and the dark fog creeps in, but there isn’t one “holy crap, remember that!” moment that gets folks talking.
One thing that does get a thumbs-up from us is the episodic storytelling. Each level of the game ends with a dramatic cliffhanger ending, followed by a title screen and some “The End” music. The next level starts with a narrator saying, “Previously on Alan Wake…”, which really helps set the scene – and ties in to the plot’s conclusion, which we don’t think we’ll reveal here.
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