Review: Alan Wake

It's occasions like this where you both feel sympathy and empathy for a developer. Remedy had four years to create an exclusive, so whatever happened, considering the hype that was built over, it was always going to be accused of disappointing or feeling lacklustre. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what took Remedy so long to finish it. Maybe it could have been the lighting, or textures, because it seems like this could have easily been put out last year, maybe even in 2008. If Bethesda can make Fallout two years after Oblivion, Remedy could have done this quicker.

Alan Wake is set in an episodic format (think Siren: Blood Curse for the PS3) and is six episodes long, lasting roughly ten or so hours. It's a rather enjoyable psychological action romp, with some startling scenes, some 'WTF' scenes, some scenes that really get inside your head and some that are meant to be epic, but end up falling slightly flat. Basically, Alan Wake pretty much represents the average TV series - even including 'Previously' scenes and voice overs. It's set out very much like a movie in the style of Stephen King but ends up feeling like a mix of Misery and Lost.

To put the story simply: Alan Wake and his wife Alice go on a holiday to Bright Falls, as a get away planned by Alice to get her husband out of his two years writers block. When Alan finds this, he's not exactly happy and storms off - giving the villain just enough time to steal his wife and send Mr. Wake on a rescue adventure. It turns out that it was all a trap - it was part of a story that he doesn't remember writing, and it's coming to life in front of him. The trick is to give the villain more and more power - this is the first of Alan Wake's flaws. The villain is un-interesting. She's just generally rather bland, with no real depth or complexity, and she generally doesn't pose much of a threat. She's holding Alice, but that's no match for your torch.

The game is mainly set around a day and night cycle - at day, you're fine and free to travel around...as uncommon as that is. At night (which it is 85% of the time) you'll be attacked by Taken, the dark forces that can only be repelled by light. The enemies however are also slightly bland - they're all defeated in the same way and barely any pose more of a threat than any other. There are no real boss monsters to talk of, no real major enemies - just a succession of samey dudes, attacking you with worktools and being destroyed by brightness.

Alan Wake's biggest problem by far is repetition. Virtually everything in the game is repeated at least once - the enemies, the driving sequences, the birds that seem to have a remarkable similarity to the Kryll from Gears 1 - but surprisingly, it's only a little niggle in the game. The repetition is no where near Borderlands level - whilst it is all pretty samey, I can't really think of how else the game could have changed it. There's only so much you can do with a day and night cycle and a writer - but as I said, a boss fight wouldn't have gone a miss.

Due to all of these 'problems', you may be surprised to hear that I actually really enjoyed Alan Wake. It's not the horror psychological ride it could have been, but my comment at the start deems that irrelevant - some bits are generally just jumpy moments meant to give a quick 'AH!' before resorting to normality, but some are brilliantly timed and give a great psychological spook. It's fun to play, and whilst I was going through it, I barely put the game down during the weekend I played it for. I recommend you at least rent it, even if for just a few days, just to see Bright Falls - if you take nothing else away, at least you'll agree it's interesting.

THE VERDICT:

Alan Wake - 8.5/10