REVIEW: Alan Wake (xbox360) -

The Charge:
In darkness, fight with light.

Opening Statement:
It’s been near a full 7 years since Max Payne last graced us with his presence in 2003. Remedy have finally returned, bringing with them a new protagonist in Alan Wake. Trading rain soaked New York streets for fog enshrouded pines, and two-fisting colt 45’s for heavy duty Maglites and road flares, does Wake live up to Payne’s pedigree?

Facts of the Case:
Alan Wake is a writer. He’s had several hit novels, and is generally a well regarded Stephen King-like figure. Unfortunately Alan is suffering from some severe writer’s block, and his public image is less than perfect. Alice, Alan’s wife, takes him to the sleepy little Midwestern town of Bright Falls, her plan is to get Alan’s creative synapses firing again. Unfortunately for Alan, Alice has disappeared, he’s missing a week, there’s an FBI agent in hot pursuit, and he’s awakened behind the wheel of their crashed vehicle with one hell of a nasty bump on his noggin. On top of that, he’s finding pages from a manuscript he supposedly wrote, and the weirdness on the page has a way of bleeding into reality. It only gets stranger from there.

"I wonder if the diner has Cherry Pie?"

The Evidence:
Hype is, without a doubt, the most double edged of swords in the video game industry. All too often, games with years of pent up fanboy hype explode onto the scene and vanish in a whirlwind of nerdrage and biting negative critiques. When something is trumpeted as the next big thing, and arrives as anything but, hype can kill an otherwise solid (or even excellent) game and turn it into a social and critical pariah. Alan Wake arrives at the tail end of a hype train that has long since left the station, perhaps a little too long after to completely capitalize financially, and perhaps it’s for the better. Y’see, Alan Wake is not the mainstream blockbuster that Microsoft’s E3 press conferences from the last few years would have you believe.

First and foremost, unlike many of its peers, Alan Wake endeavours to tell a good story, and for the most part it succeeds. The twisted tale is one part Stephen King, and one part Twin Peaks. Wake narrates our tale, and his dialogue is superbly written stuff. You can tell that the guys at Remedy put a lot of focus on telling their tale, and outside of one or two side roads that serve more as distraction or padding (damn kidnapper subplot), everything remains pretty effective throughout. Sure, some of the notes the plot hits are predictable to those who’re familiar with the game’s inspirations, but everything is handled with finesse.

Alan Wake pours on the style with its TV series style presentation. Each level is treated as an episode, complete with series recaps and title and closing sequences. Each episode ends on a great sort of reveal or cliffhanger that drives you forward into the next chapter, and there are some great music choices capping each episode. The menus are simple but elegant, and the games HUD doesn’t eat much screen real estate, and works well.

"Welcome... to... Silent Hill? Who put that sign there?"

With all the talk of narrative, you might be forgiven for thinking Alan Wake is a slow moving title, geared around exploration and fear, but in truth, at its core, it really is built on an action game framework, and the action is every bit as tight as the storytelling, save for a handful of driving sequences that aren’t completely terrible, but don’t serve much purpose. The majority of the game finds you alone in moody forests, with a flashlight in one hand and a weapon, be it a revolver, shotgun, or a hunting rifle in the other. The game’s enemies are impervious to harm until you use whatever light sources are at your disposal to burn the dark murky shadows away from their shifting forms. Action will usually consist of flashlight torching using the left trigger, followed by frantic trigger pulls with the right. It’s really a pretty brilliant mechanic, made all that much more brilliant with the use of road flares (which you can carry around with you to repel the baddies, or drop on the ground at your feet to create a temporary safe zone), and flare guns (which are about as effective as any rocket launcher). When more than two or three of the possessed locals comes out of the treeline, things will get quite intense. Ammo, while fairly common, is also not something you want to waste, as I’ve found myself running for my damn life on more than one occasion with not a bullet to be had and crazy axe wielding maniacs on my arse. Speaking of these axe-wielding maniacs, they are a potent crew, capable of making short work of you, and oftentimes they have a knack for popping up right behind you. To say that the action is intense is an understatement. It is white-knuckle, chest-pain inducing suspense that will leave you sweaty and swearing. The fact that there’s a lot of it also means you may want to keep some pills, or a defibrillator handy.

The mechanics of using light as a weapon is at the very core of Alan Wake, and the lighting effects in this game are easily it’s biggest star. I’ve never seen lighting this good, from the beam cast by your flashlight (which also cleverly serves as your crosshairs) to the eerie porch lights of nearby buildings shining ominously through fog enshrouded trees. The shadow effects match up perfectly, with deep pools of black that respond amazingly realistically to the light sources. Combining the amazing light and shadows with some incredible environmental animation, and Wake definitely makes for a damn beautiful first impression. It is a gorgeous looking game (with some issues – see below) that creates a wonderful feeling of dread. The first time the wind comes up, and you see shadows cast by clouds moving rapidly over the forest floor, while pines sway and swing in amazingly realistic fashion, lets just say you may want to stay out of the woods after dark for a while. Sound is up to the challenge as well, with some great voice acting, ominous noises, and excellent music. I tend to find myself cranking the volume a bit when I’m playing this one.

"This tweed jacket sure does fit the country aesthetic!"

One final note about the Collector’s Edition: More often than not, Collector’s Editions are full of superfluous fluff and knick-knacks that serve no real purpose other than taking up space. Alan Wake, on the other hand, is a gorgeous package that fits the game enclosed very well. The outer packaging is a faux hardcover novel that contains the customary soundtrack CD and making of DVD, both of which are welcome and well made extras, but the real gem is a hardcover book called “The Alan Wake Files”, which is a collection of evidence gathered by FBI Agent Nightingale regarding the Alan Wake case. There are some interviews with the residents of Bright Falls, some background info on Wake, and even some samples of his fiction (including the first short story he ever had published). It’s a great, sharp looking collection of goodies that’s both well thought out and well executed. If you have the extra cash, i strongly recommend ignoring the bare bones version of the game and splurging for the Limited collector’s edition, even if it’s something you wouldn’t normally do.

A look at the (awesome) collector's edition

Rebuttal Witness:
There are some issues, albeit minor ones lurking beneath the hood of Alan Wake. While the lighting and environments are incredible things to behold, character animation, both in game and in cut scene, is definitely substandard. Facial features are cold and robot-like, and lip synch is pretty much terrible throughout. If the game had been released in 2006, this probably wouldn’t be an issue, but after amazingly life-like characters have made appearances on both consoles in the last few years, it does leave the game’s cast as looking a little Alone in the Dark-like. Stiff hand gestures and floaty movement definitely take one out of the game, but the game’s strong atmosphere and excellent writing often compensates.

"Forget Maine... next year i'm going to Oregon!"

Beyond that, once you hit the later episodes, a certain sense of “haven’t we been here before” starts to set in. The action scenes begin to all run together, and while the story continues to ramp up, and definitely works a narrative propellant for the player. You’ll essentially be looking at the same collection of spooky lighting, clouds, and wind blown pines. It seems like nit-picky stuff for sure, but maybe a 9-10 hour experience with a little less trudging in the first half might have played out a little better than a 12-15 hour trudge through the same mossy forest trails.

In truth, while these may sound like serious flaws on paper, they are hiccups at worst, tiny little potholes on an otherwise scenic road trip through heebie-jeebie town, USA.

Closing Comments:
It’s been far too long since a game really and truly gripped me with fear. Alan Wake does so, and does it effortlessly. It’s not often that a half a decade of hype results in a satisfying conclusion for gamers, but thanks to some fantastic technical merits and wonderful writing, Alan Wake shatters expectations. It not only soundly thumps all previous efforts (Max who?) from Remedy, but it carves a large chunk out of the ‘horror niche’ for itself, earning a seat of honour above peers that have long since fallen into mediocrity or obscurity. I’ll remember this one come December, when everyone starts kicking around top 10 lists.

The Verdict: