Review - Alan Wake
“The average gives the world its durability. The unusual its value.” (Oscar Wilde)
Remedy Entertainment precisely enriched the world with their newest game – Alan Wake. But what is it that makes a Horror-Thriller-Shooter – a pure singleplayer experience – special?
It’s the love for detail, possibly owed to the not quite short development time, that gives every aspect of the game its final touch. It’s that difference, that separates a quick developped sequel of a great series from something that brings a personality, which would balance every little lack. Not to say that Alan Wake has much of those.
Let’s start the review with the world of Bright Falls. By this time I think everybody knows, that the story takes place in the woody rockies, somewhere in the northwest of the USA. Whoever has been lucky enough to visit this area, quickly realizes , that the ideas of the developpers did not only depend on postcards, but they also did experience the mixture of wild nature and irrespressible beauty to vividly capture them insomuch.
The night literally bounces out of the screen, the sounds of the DTS-mix entirely catch you and thanks to an elaborated engine every spot in this world appears natural. Recurring patterns can hardly be identified, every tree, every cottage seem to be unique.
Not only the world in this game but also the residents seem to have their own life, without showing much of it. This just is not necessary for the story at all, but for the reliability of the world they’re indispensable. This honor is not only given to the main characters,with almost every person, that you meet in Bright Falls you get the feeling that there is a life behind each one. It is the gestures, the details, the hints, that nearly unnoticed integrate themselves in the game and exactly those are the things that most games are missing and that makes Alan Wake extraordinary.
As for the story it is a bit difficult to find any games to compare with. I’m not going to reveal or spoil anything. Davi Lynchs Twin Peaks for sure had bearing on the game, and not only on the Location. Other mystery-authors also leave their marks. To these belong King, Lovecraft and a bit from this and that. But there’s also a touch of own creativity on the story and the result leaves a happy gamer after 10-15 hours. Once again you’ll find passion for detail. The plot is divided into six chapters and each chapter has a marvelous cliffhanger. Many camera settings are inspired by modern TV-series. The look is polished, the lighting of the scenes and game segments is well thought out and again the long development time makes its presence felt. Luckily that can also be said about the graphics engine. Sure, in spots there is a light tearing, in extreme cases the frame rate sinks a little bit and the switch between cut-scenes and game graphics could be a bit smoother. But none of this is a real drama, but after such a long wait you can critisize details. Nonetheless I think it is very tough to find a more beautiful and detailed game for the Xbox 360. A game, that brings a distinguished independent complexion with it.
Most of the time Alan Wake seem to be essentially fresher than other games. It just isn’t the same shading all the time, that you saw so often, not the everlasting narration, that has been on tube literally a hundred times. There’s always something unconsumed, something extraordinary.
That was the last time I’m using this word with enthusiasm for Alan Wake, because now we’re getting to the actual game. Not to say, that Remedy didn’t work with the same passion on it like on the other parts. Not any aspect of the game makes an unfinished impression. But that can not belie the fact, that the game didn’t reinvent the wheel. The combat system is a classic survival-third-person-shooter, that has one advantage over Resident Evil: while your aiming and shooting, running is possible, not only that it’s also essential.
Apart from that you have to direct the streak of your eternally attending flashlight towards people or objects possessed by evil. Examined you have to kill every enemy twice. The vicious darkness of Bright Falls has to be burnt out of their possessed victims first, before it is vulnerable at all. Via the left trigger you focus your lamp’s streak, which literally eats up most of your batteries. The lamp quickly regenerates itself, but in many situations it is better to have some spare batteries with you. It’s just another kind of ammo. The traditional ammo goes into the revolver, the shotgun or the hunting gun. That’s the arsenal you’ll found in the game. Military weapons aren’t present, but you will not need them anyway. Once the darkness left its victim, even the toughest lumberjack doesn’t take more than four or five bullets, no matter how insane he is. The idea of the adaptive difficulty level has been cancelled. There are three different degrees of hardness: normal, hard and nightmare. Experienced gamers should at least start with the mid-level, cause it’s not that hard.
There is no loading screen in the entire game. Instead of it you watch cut-scenes, that you don’t want to miss or interrupt. As a result the game seems to be completely rounded and it also emphasizes the film-character of the game.
So lately the game with the light is just a little variation of the usual, but also an enjoyable one. Thanks to a brilliant staging with decent slow-motions, rich sound effects and a very naturally touching aiming control system it is still funny and thrilling to encounter the evil, burn the darkness out of these bastards and shoot them afterwards.
Thereby the sense for your weapons is right – amazing in regard to the rather unspectacular selection. There are military shooters, where big guns don’t feel so reliable and satisfying like these small calibers.
Nevertheless the proper bringers are flares, flash grenades and especially flare guns. The afflicted bodies don’t bear such a luminous blast and most of the enemies burn up by such a rather unusual weapon. The use of the same varies dependent on the situation. The preset starting situation is marked by a handful fanatics, but what the game defines are the huge, rememberable encounters. Those, that literally get out of control.
But the game also controls the small heart-stopping moments very well, especially where actually not much happens. The woods are perveded by creepy swirling swathes and you know, that something will happen at this moment. But then however nothing happens. Hardly relaxed, it really get going. Certainly this all is scripted, there is a default path, the trace of the breadcrumbs is constructed only for you and you have no other choice than following it.
There also exists the possibility to move to the left or the right of the way but there is not too much to be found. With the flsahlight you illuminate mysterious signs, that lead you to places of hidden weapons, but apart from that the huge endless landscape remains uncharted.
A real action-adventure indeed is none without some puzzles and at this point Alan Wake falters like Uncharted 2. Both games obviously bank on action, tension and timing. Puzzles become rather a barrier and apart from little switch searching there isn’t much along these lines. It’s also sad that the sections in the daylight are very short. Of course the evil attacks in the dark and besides the occasional rising of the sun has a positive side effect. It occurs more obviously.
The sound also plays an important role. At nighttime dominate the usual noises of the forest, that were transformed with so much pleasure for details, like everything in this game. If the evil appears darkness rustles around your ears, but the silence and normality of the day is a clear reminder that it will not allways be like that.
Up to this point everything sounds good, nearly perfect. It truly is. But only for the first play through. Ten hours, maybe twelve, fourteen or also fifteen. Then your done and experienced an ending that leaves doors open - and that is a rarely feat. There is no second ending, no variation, no inviting multiplayer and no open-end-mode that lets you walk through Bright Fally as a tourist. There are some extras like artworks, small movies from the TV-sets, that Alan found and all the songs from the soundtrack, what is very praiseworthy. But that’s all.
Therefore Alan Wake is a book, that you read, flip through the pages, breathlessly devour it till the last one and then put it back into the shelf.
Doreen
Reader Comments (7)
I'm sorry... but you cannot review a game that is 6 months old. I suggest taking this down... it was a nice review though!
Danny- Why can't he review a game that isn't days old? Some of the best reviews take time to make. I think it is well done and should be left up. Nice job Doreen.
I'm sorry for being bias, Doreen... could you please email me? DLuksa@gmail.com. I have a few things I'd like to ask you. :)
Sean, it just struck me as... weird to write a review for a game that has been out for a while. I'm extra bias when it comes to this sort of thing, I operate my own gaming website. http://www.buttonmasher.tv
Danny, seriously?! Teksocial nor you with ButtonMasher are professionals in the tech field (no disrespect to either site). This site has articles written by almost anybody willing to submit an "application" to write here (as it is with ButtonMasher). There are no high standards to be a contributor to this site and I'm willing to bet that most of the contributors for Teksocial are under 25 years old. And, I'm also willing to bet the contributors for your site are even younger than the contributors for this site.
So, please don't spill any of your criticisms on here because frankly, it doesn't do much justice. You really aren't in any position to be criticizing somebody on the quality and/or timing of an article on a mediocre blog (and yes, this is a blog, not a tech-reviewing site). You arguing on this site is like a baby taking candy from another baby. There's just no adults around who have authority to judge.
Telsa, I'm not trying to start anything but you are really in no position to talk about professionalism between two sites. I'd say that the content on both ButtonMasher and TekSocial are extremely profesional. And about rejection and acception, I really cant talk about TekSocial, but ButtonMasher has received about 20 applications and only accepted about 5.... thats a 1/4 chance of getting in. As for age, you are indeed correct. I'm 12 years old.... but don't you think what I'm doing is above and beyond what most 12 year olds do?
Please respond.
Danny, anybody with a strong head on their shoulders is in a position to talk about anything he or she would like to talk about. Who are you to say that someone can't talk about professionalism?
You may be thinking that I'm contradicting myself by saying I should talk about professionalism and you shouldn't but the difference between what I'm saying and what you said is that you're criticizing somebody else's work when your own visible work is no better, and not in a professional scene either. There's no need for what you said plain and simple. I definitely know the type of "work" you do with ButtonMasher, as I've seen the content on your site and it's truly not professional (no offense yet again). But, by me saying that you're not being professional doesn't mean that you aren't talented. Like you said, you're 12 years old. You have a long way of education to go before you can develop skills and experience to be professional.
Furthermore, having a professional stance in journalism has nothing to do with knowing a website's statistics. If you're going to leave the writing up to a group of people, you had better have a select group of good people because what they write and what you let on to your site will make you or break you. So, visitors and hits really don't give anybody the title of "professional".