Alan Wake
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After thousands of years of spinning similar yarns, you would think that, by now, the old tussle between the forces of light and darkness would be a little out of fashion. Alan Wake disagrees with this statement emphatically, making the war literal in more ways than one. Over the five years it spent in development, the game has been at the centre of a tug-o-war in itself, its protracted birth being so drawn out that it even led to an internet myth that the game was actually nothing more than an elaborate hoax. While this particular rumour was quickly debunked, the scars from the many facelifts Alan Wake received have remained. The large, open woodland environments and strangely empty driving sections offer hints of the one-time open world game that Alan Wake was meant to be, while the use of batteries in the torch, and cumbersome movement system show the survival horror path was once walked down. Ultimately, the game became an action thriller in the mould of Resident Evil 4, which was presumably the benchmark Remedy were aiming for with Alan Wake, which would have been in its? infancy when Capcom?s revolutionary actioner was unleashed upon the Gamecube half a decade ago. Alan Wake seems happy to sidle up to this (admittedly still lofty) benchmark, and given the game?s tumultuous development, this is both a praise and a criticism.
While some aspects of the game may suffer as a result of the development issues, Remedy deserves some credit for getting the game?s story straight, if nothing else. The previously mentioned conflict between the light and dark forces surrounding the titular writer is the key focus of the entire game, as Wake finds his holiday ? an attempt to cure his infernal writers? block ? rudely disrupted by the events of one of his own novels that he is yet to begin writing. His wife is kidnapped, and he soon learns that the ?Dark Presence? (as it becomes known) is possessing villagers (among other things) and is trying to kill him. He must use his flashlight to cut through the forces of darkness, recover the pages of this mysterious novel and piece together the mystery of what happened to his wife. Anyone who has read a Stephen King novel in their life will feel right at home here, and although the story occasionally gets dangerously close to being too hammy for its own good (one of the manuscript pages is titled, without a shred of irony, ?Wake Attacked By An Axe Murderer?), there are just about enough disguised contrivances, twists, turns, shocks, and, surprisingly, laughs to keep any self-respecting horror fan interested until the end. There are also nice little touches that add to the game?s overall feel, the most notable being the corny Twilight Zone riff called ?Night Springs?, which you can watch on any televisions you find.
http://www.el33tonline.com/images/cache/6346.jpg
Simply describing what the story is does it something of a disservice however, and Alan Wake?s greatest achievement is perhaps in how it tells its story. The game is divided into chapters, with each chapter beginning in daytime so the game can show off its lighting engine and draw distance, and with a cheesy ?Previously on...? sequence recounting the events of the previous chapter. As you wander through the chapters, you will pick up manuscript pages from the story that Wake is trapped in. These pages can be from the perspective of any character, and can make you think twice about something you?ve seen, toying with your impressions of what just happened. More chillingly, they can also provide a glimpse of what is to come, dropping hints and then either brutally living up to them or gleefully subverting them ? watch out for one page that seemingly describes a grisly murder, and prepare to be pleasantly surprised when the truth unfolds in front of you. The voice acting and dialogue is also bang on the money, and although much of it is purely functional, some characters, such as the overprotective agent Barry, really shine. This combines with some solid graphics which fit perfectly with the atmosphere the game attempts to create, and it certainly looks impressive when you watch the Dark Presence wreak havoc on the scenery around you. The lighting, as touched on previously, is also stunning and helps create a real sense that the darkness is encroaching on you and your puny torch beam at all times. In a game such as this, it was absolutely vital that Remedy get this spot on, and thankfully in this instance they delivered. The only real immersion- breaker is the soon-to-be-patched facial animations, which at times are comical. If the rest of the game looks so nice, why shouldn?t these?
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_new_alan_wake_screenshots-8825.jpg
It?s a shame, though, that the action can never quite keep up with the twists, turns and atmosphere the plot tries to create. Much of the gameplay is focused on combat, and as a whole, it?s fairly satisfying. The chief enemy you face is the horde of Taken, possessed humans shrouded in the Dark Presence. You need to shine a light on them, whether it be from your torch, flare, flashbang or any other light emitting object you can find, before shooting them. As there is no melee attack, when the Taken get too close, the most you can do is to dive out of the way. It makes for suitably intense encounters, particularly when you find yourself ambushed by large groups of Taken. Wake, being an author, isn?t exactly the most proficient with firearms, so when you find yourself surrounded by Taken, there?s an extra degree of satisfaction in igniting a flare and pushing towards the Taken in front of you, Wake cinematically holding the red flame above his head as the demonic monsters recoil, the light burning their raised, protective arms, before dropping the flare, and systematically picking off the horde with a torch and a revolver. It?s incredibly cinematic, and it?s these terrific, atmospheric moments that save Alan Wake from its many flaws. And flaws there are, with the combat, entertaining and flashy as it is, being one of the main offenders. As fun as it is to blow away encroaching hordes, that is literally all there is to combat. There are no nuances, no sneaky techniques to master, and there is certainly very little variation. You shine your torch on an enemy until you are able to shoot it. Then you shoot it. The use of flares and flashbangs are about as varied as it gets, a fact which is worsened by the fact there are only three types of enemy to kill. There?s the Taken, flocks of birds that swoop down at you and need to be burned away with a blast of the torch, and Poltergeist Objects, possessed objects which behave almost identically to the birds (apart from the really big objects, which don?t swoop down at you but rather trundle impotently along the ground) and are killed in exactly the same way. Couldn?t Remedy have made the Dark Presence a little more creative than this? Maybe more possessed animals, like a bear mini-boss, perhaps. Maybe, instead of just having Poltergeist Objects mindlessly fly at you, they could interact with each other and form a larger enemy that requires actual thought to take down. Not the greatest ideas ever by a long shot, but Remedy had five years to think of something better. The lack of invention shown in the enemies is tragic, and certainly something that needs to be looked at in future.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/988/988786/e3-2009-alan-wake-screens-20090601012341788_640w.jpg
This lack of variety also means the game gets rather easy, as the difficulty never increases in any way apart from more Taken being thrown at you. You could probably finish it once in a weekend, depending on how obsessive you are over collectibles and Achievements, which, again, is disappointing for a game which took so long to develop. It?s not the only glaring flaw in the game. Why, after five years in development, could Remedy not avoid having you go into the menu to read manuscript pages? Wake reads them aloud anyway, couldn?t they be played over the action? Granted, the use of audio diaries and the like wasn?t commonplace when work on Alan Wake began, but after the likes of Bioshock, to see them handled in such a clunky manner here really grates. Why are the driving sections still here at all? Why not include more outlandish set pieces before the last couple of chapters, the sort Resident Evil 4 thrived on? One set-piece, involving an outdoor heavy metal gig being hijacked in order to defend the stage against waves of Taken, is a shining blip of creation and verve in a game that otherwise lacks it. Why are the puzzles so dismally bland as to barely warrant the name? Why is the facial animation so comically dreadful? Such easily avoidable niggles threaten to spoil the experience and you wonder why, when the development was so long anyway, they didn?t take a few more weeks to fine-tune the game.
Ultimately, Alan Wake is a solid game, but for all the hype, it leaves you wondering what might have been. It?s atmospheric enough, and the story is interesting and worth investing in, but the years of protracted development have taken their toll, and they leave Alan Wake on uncertain ground, an action-focused chiller that hasn?t quite recovered from all the chopping and changing it was put through. As a result, what should have been a Game of the Year contender is merely a recommended rental. There isn?t even anything to go back for once you?ve finished it, besides a handful of inconsequential manuscript pages and other collectibles for the completionists. Now Remedy has laid the groundwork, the best we can hope for is that they now know what they want to do with the reported sequel and hopefully the upcoming DLC, because there is much potential evident in Alan Wake, but as it stands, it is just another Summer release that failed to live up to the hype.
<spoiler=Other reviews><url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.122501>Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.128226>Killer7
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.131835>Inglourious Basterds
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.162027>Avatar
http://evavhost.com/i/press/alanwake-box-le.jpg
After thousands of years of spinning similar yarns, you would think that, by now, the old tussle between the forces of light and darkness would be a little out of fashion. Alan Wake disagrees with this statement emphatically, making the war literal in more ways than one. Over the five years it spent in development, the game has been at the centre of a tug-o-war in itself, its protracted birth being so drawn out that it even led to an internet myth that the game was actually nothing more than an elaborate hoax. While this particular rumour was quickly debunked, the scars from the many facelifts Alan Wake received have remained. The large, open woodland environments and strangely empty driving sections offer hints of the one-time open world game that Alan Wake was meant to be, while the use of batteries in the torch, and cumbersome movement system show the survival horror path was once walked down. Ultimately, the game became an action thriller in the mould of Resident Evil 4, which was presumably the benchmark Remedy were aiming for with Alan Wake, which would have been in its? infancy when Capcom?s revolutionary actioner was unleashed upon the Gamecube half a decade ago. Alan Wake seems happy to sidle up to this (admittedly still lofty) benchmark, and given the game?s tumultuous development, this is both a praise and a criticism.
While some aspects of the game may suffer as a result of the development issues, Remedy deserves some credit for getting the game?s story straight, if nothing else. The previously mentioned conflict between the light and dark forces surrounding the titular writer is the key focus of the entire game, as Wake finds his holiday ? an attempt to cure his infernal writers? block ? rudely disrupted by the events of one of his own novels that he is yet to begin writing. His wife is kidnapped, and he soon learns that the ?Dark Presence? (as it becomes known) is possessing villagers (among other things) and is trying to kill him. He must use his flashlight to cut through the forces of darkness, recover the pages of this mysterious novel and piece together the mystery of what happened to his wife. Anyone who has read a Stephen King novel in their life will feel right at home here, and although the story occasionally gets dangerously close to being too hammy for its own good (one of the manuscript pages is titled, without a shred of irony, ?Wake Attacked By An Axe Murderer?), there are just about enough disguised contrivances, twists, turns, shocks, and, surprisingly, laughs to keep any self-respecting horror fan interested until the end. There are also nice little touches that add to the game?s overall feel, the most notable being the corny Twilight Zone riff called ?Night Springs?, which you can watch on any televisions you find.
http://www.el33tonline.com/images/cache/6346.jpg
Simply describing what the story is does it something of a disservice however, and Alan Wake?s greatest achievement is perhaps in how it tells its story. The game is divided into chapters, with each chapter beginning in daytime so the game can show off its lighting engine and draw distance, and with a cheesy ?Previously on...? sequence recounting the events of the previous chapter. As you wander through the chapters, you will pick up manuscript pages from the story that Wake is trapped in. These pages can be from the perspective of any character, and can make you think twice about something you?ve seen, toying with your impressions of what just happened. More chillingly, they can also provide a glimpse of what is to come, dropping hints and then either brutally living up to them or gleefully subverting them ? watch out for one page that seemingly describes a grisly murder, and prepare to be pleasantly surprised when the truth unfolds in front of you. The voice acting and dialogue is also bang on the money, and although much of it is purely functional, some characters, such as the overprotective agent Barry, really shine. This combines with some solid graphics which fit perfectly with the atmosphere the game attempts to create, and it certainly looks impressive when you watch the Dark Presence wreak havoc on the scenery around you. The lighting, as touched on previously, is also stunning and helps create a real sense that the darkness is encroaching on you and your puny torch beam at all times. In a game such as this, it was absolutely vital that Remedy get this spot on, and thankfully in this instance they delivered. The only real immersion- breaker is the soon-to-be-patched facial animations, which at times are comical. If the rest of the game looks so nice, why shouldn?t these?
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_new_alan_wake_screenshots-8825.jpg
It?s a shame, though, that the action can never quite keep up with the twists, turns and atmosphere the plot tries to create. Much of the gameplay is focused on combat, and as a whole, it?s fairly satisfying. The chief enemy you face is the horde of Taken, possessed humans shrouded in the Dark Presence. You need to shine a light on them, whether it be from your torch, flare, flashbang or any other light emitting object you can find, before shooting them. As there is no melee attack, when the Taken get too close, the most you can do is to dive out of the way. It makes for suitably intense encounters, particularly when you find yourself ambushed by large groups of Taken. Wake, being an author, isn?t exactly the most proficient with firearms, so when you find yourself surrounded by Taken, there?s an extra degree of satisfaction in igniting a flare and pushing towards the Taken in front of you, Wake cinematically holding the red flame above his head as the demonic monsters recoil, the light burning their raised, protective arms, before dropping the flare, and systematically picking off the horde with a torch and a revolver. It?s incredibly cinematic, and it?s these terrific, atmospheric moments that save Alan Wake from its many flaws. And flaws there are, with the combat, entertaining and flashy as it is, being one of the main offenders. As fun as it is to blow away encroaching hordes, that is literally all there is to combat. There are no nuances, no sneaky techniques to master, and there is certainly very little variation. You shine your torch on an enemy until you are able to shoot it. Then you shoot it. The use of flares and flashbangs are about as varied as it gets, a fact which is worsened by the fact there are only three types of enemy to kill. There?s the Taken, flocks of birds that swoop down at you and need to be burned away with a blast of the torch, and Poltergeist Objects, possessed objects which behave almost identically to the birds (apart from the really big objects, which don?t swoop down at you but rather trundle impotently along the ground) and are killed in exactly the same way. Couldn?t Remedy have made the Dark Presence a little more creative than this? Maybe more possessed animals, like a bear mini-boss, perhaps. Maybe, instead of just having Poltergeist Objects mindlessly fly at you, they could interact with each other and form a larger enemy that requires actual thought to take down. Not the greatest ideas ever by a long shot, but Remedy had five years to think of something better. The lack of invention shown in the enemies is tragic, and certainly something that needs to be looked at in future.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/988/988786/e3-2009-alan-wake-screens-20090601012341788_640w.jpg
This lack of variety also means the game gets rather easy, as the difficulty never increases in any way apart from more Taken being thrown at you. You could probably finish it once in a weekend, depending on how obsessive you are over collectibles and Achievements, which, again, is disappointing for a game which took so long to develop. It?s not the only glaring flaw in the game. Why, after five years in development, could Remedy not avoid having you go into the menu to read manuscript pages? Wake reads them aloud anyway, couldn?t they be played over the action? Granted, the use of audio diaries and the like wasn?t commonplace when work on Alan Wake began, but after the likes of Bioshock, to see them handled in such a clunky manner here really grates. Why are the driving sections still here at all? Why not include more outlandish set pieces before the last couple of chapters, the sort Resident Evil 4 thrived on? One set-piece, involving an outdoor heavy metal gig being hijacked in order to defend the stage against waves of Taken, is a shining blip of creation and verve in a game that otherwise lacks it. Why are the puzzles so dismally bland as to barely warrant the name? Why is the facial animation so comically dreadful? Such easily avoidable niggles threaten to spoil the experience and you wonder why, when the development was so long anyway, they didn?t take a few more weeks to fine-tune the game.
Ultimately, Alan Wake is a solid game, but for all the hype, it leaves you wondering what might have been. It?s atmospheric enough, and the story is interesting and worth investing in, but the years of protracted development have taken their toll, and they leave Alan Wake on uncertain ground, an action-focused chiller that hasn?t quite recovered from all the chopping and changing it was put through. As a result, what should have been a Game of the Year contender is merely a recommended rental. There isn?t even anything to go back for once you?ve finished it, besides a handful of inconsequential manuscript pages and other collectibles for the completionists. Now Remedy has laid the groundwork, the best we can hope for is that they now know what they want to do with the reported sequel and hopefully the upcoming DLC, because there is much potential evident in Alan Wake, but as it stands, it is just another Summer release that failed to live up to the hype.
<spoiler=Other reviews><url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.122501>Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.128226>Killer7
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.131835>Inglourious Basterds
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.162027>Avatar
