It’s been a very long time coming for Alan Wake to finally hit our Xbox 360s. Finally, at last, it’s here. Shame then that it still feels all too rushed in places despite its five year development time. Alan Wake feels more like a game that would have been stunningly brilliant two or three years ago. Now, while still enjoyable for the most part, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as innovative nor as exceptional as we all hoped it would be.
The main protagonist of the piece, suitably, is Alan Wake. A writer with a severe case of writer’s block who travels to Bright Falls with his wife Alice in the hope that it’ll re-ignite his creative fire. This turns out to be a very big mistake as it’s not long until Alice mysteriously vanishes and things turn distinctly creepy.
Alan finds himself up against the Dark Presence and its minions the Taken, innocent souls from Bright Falls who have been possessed by the evil spirit. Throw in some other peculiar oddities that if explained, would spoil the story, and things are very bizarre. Alan Wake is clearly strongly influenced by Stephen King novels with a healthy dose of The X-Files and Twin Peaks thrown in for good measure. It’s even presented in a series of six episodic chapters, each with their own end sequence music and a ‘Previously on Alan Wake’ recap.
The annoyance of this early on is that it borrows a little too heavily. Right down to the point that Alan Wake seems to be constantly mentioning the references just in case you hadn’t noticed them yourself. It doesn’t help that he isn’t a very sympathetic character. He’s miserable and grumpy, understandable given the circumstances maybe, but he’s like this even amongst friends such as his agent Barry and his interactions with his wife Alice. It’s hard to feel sorry for his situation when he’s being so dour and monotonous about everything. Fortunately while Wake himself is far from likeable, the rest of the game is quite enjoyable once it gets going.
Much of your time will be spent exploring woodlands with nothing but a gun and your trusty flashlight. Light plays a huge role here with the Taken only defeated if a sufficient amount of light has been shone on them. It’s a nice combat mechanic which adds a slightly new element to proceedings. It also makes you quickly appreciate seeing a light in the distance as you explore the increasingly desolate woods. The lighting effects are very impressive to look at which is very handy as throughout the game you’ll come across more than just a flashlight. Besides improved flashlights, there’s also a steady array of flares, flashbangs, searchlights and the best weapon of them all: the flare gun. It’s immensely satisfying to use all these weapons, even if it is surprising to see Mr Wake be such a good shot despite presumably never having combat experience. Slightly annoying is that at the end of each of the six episodic chapters in Alan Wake, your weapons are stripped making ammo conservation pretty pointless after a while. For the most part, this does tie in with the story’s progression, but not always. Chapter 5 felt particularly flawed as it made no real sense why Alan would lose all his weapons.
While Alan Wake is a dab hand with a gun, he’s not very good at anything else physically. Bizarrely he only seems to be able to jump clumsily a very short distance and he runs like an asthmatic, heavy smoker. Running is a particular irritant as the run button is also the dodge button which in a few cases caused much annoyance.
The real strength to Alan Wake is its storyline which really builds up pace by the mid section of the game. It’s a shame to see that the likes of Chapter 3 felt particularly weak and repetitive as the further the story progresses, the more interesting it gets, to the point that it almost feels like an entirely different direction was pursued by the developer. I’m glad they did though as the further I progressed the more impressed I was by the game. While it doesn’t do anything new exactly, its set pieces are particularly enjoyable. Again, avoiding spoilers, all I can say is that some of them provide great, tense experiences which will reside in your memory for a while to come. It’s just a shame that they don’t feel as frequent as they could have.
I’m a wimp typically when it comes to horror games but Alan Wake only made me jump a couple of times. Thanks to its clichéd nature, each threatening moment feels a little too signposted. Whether it be because the game suddenly offers you a plentiful supply of ammunition or because the game invokes its terrifically haunting music a moment or two before the threat emerges, it never really makes you jump out of your skin.
Thanks to such oddities, I was always very conscious that I was playing a game, not just participating in a story. The numerous collectibles to acquire encouraged this with coffee thermoses and manuscript pages to collect. The manuscript pages are an interesting touch, suggesting what is about to come in the story but the fact that you have to pause the game effectively to view them takes you away from the experience and removes any sense of threat.
That’s not to say that Alan Wake isn’t enjoyable. It is. Despite its slow, repetitive beginning, it picks up speed reasonably quickly and ends leaving you happy with your purchase. It could have been so much more though if it wasn’t for the irritating niggles which detract from the experience. It’ll leave you with questions as to the meaning behind the game’s ending, but it’ll also leave you questioning just why the game couldn’t match the hype even after so long in development. It never quite wanders off the beaten horror game path; it’s always just what you would expect from the genre and nothing more. Fortunately that’s an enjoyable experience but not a mind blowing one.
VideogameUK verdict: 8/10
