Alan Wake Review - Xbox 360

8.5

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 10
Audio: 9
Innovation: 8

Come one, come all, a mystery is unfolding. Alan Wake journeys to Bright Falls with his wife for a break from the New York lifestyle, and a break from his writing - what could possibly go wrong? Remedy Studios, developers of Alan Wake, have been working on this game for the better half of the last decade, and we have been impressed time and time again by what has been displayed in preview trailers. Releasing the game alongside Red Dead Redemption may go down in history as bad timing, but Alan Wake is something else. Something different. Something you don’t want to miss.

Gameplay

If you like a game that plays out like a book/TV show/movie, Alan Wake is for you. It reminds us most recently of Heavy Rain on Playstation 3, and the spiritual predecessor of Heavy Rain, Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy, depending on where you live). Albeit, Alan Wake does offer a bit more gameplay than the above mentioned games, but the story is all there, and the amount of twists and turns you go through in this six episode installment are staggering. Remedy makes it quite hard to follow the story fully if you don’t spend time absorbing the atmosphere, and for this reason Alan Wake is a game that isn’t for everyone. It’s no run and gun, yet it has a strict path to follow. Alan Wake is the most non-linear linear game this generation.

You begin the game in the town of Bright Falls, grabbing the keys for your holiday house on the lake. After meeting a couple of weird and unforgettable characters, you head off to the lake to begin your retreat with your wife. Things go wrong faster than you can say “I am A.Wake.” As the game takes your wife away from you, you’re thrown in to a deep and dark mystical world of zombie-like creatures and poltergeist experiences. As you search for answers as to why your wife has been taken from you, a truly epic tale is told. So grab your flashlight, and let’s head in to the forest.

After equipping yourself with a trusty pistol and a torch, Alan treks through the national park surrounding Bright Falls. The first enemies you come across are known as the Taken, and are usually armed with some sort of metal objects. The enemies in Alan Wake only come out at night, and for this reason they don’t like torches. Shining your torch at them makes them blind, and if you keep it on them long enough they’ll get hurt by it. Finishing the Taken off with your gun can take anywhere from two bullets to a full clip, depending on how good your aim is. Don’t worry though, there are plenty of other weapons throughout the game and at some stages you’ll feel unstoppable.

Remedy has ensured that Alan Wake maintains a high level of conservation, and you’ll find yourself using the weakest of your supplies against the simple foes, saving the heavy artillery for the larger ...