Alan Wake

Alan Wake is an overlooked classic, similar in style to Dead Space, with a fantastic atmosphere, and clever game mechanic, and a very engaging story. One of the few games I got all achievements for on Xbox, and the PC version is even better, well worth buying, especially if you can buy it on offer! Still looks great today, and still creepy as heck! Still hold out hope for a sequel one day!

Positive: - Good graphics - Good Sound; - One of the best plots; - Complex and rich storyline; - Carismatic characters. Negative: - Gameplay can be repetitive (not for me though)

"This update removes the song Space Oddity from the game due to changes in licensing, and replaces it with a new original song by Petri Alanko, Strange Moons. Alan Wake Remastered (2021) will not be affected by the update."

Back when it was released for the Xbox 360, was repeatedly compared to the Playstation 3 exclosive Heavy Rain, again and again. Judging them by their covers they may seem somewhat similar, but in truth they have little in common. Alan Wake is an enjoyable experience with an intersting plot and simple, but solid gameplay mechanics. You're Alan Wake, a succesful author currently suffering from writer's block. Using various sources of light, you must defeat the evil (and quite literal) darkness that has possessed the small town of town of Bright Falls. The game is surprisingly action-packed and while the game mechanics of banishing darkness with light become rather monotonous near the end of the game (somewhat similar to the limb-dismemberment of Dead Space, but much more tedious), they, along with the interesting (if somewhat convoluted) story make this game quite enjoyable. What is much more memorable and commendable than the gameplay and plot, is the atmosphere which throughout the entire game is absolutely astonishing; the juxtaposition between Alan's frustration and the evergrowing darkness around him is well pulled off. Note, however, that this game is labeled as a 'psychological action-thriller', meaning it is not so much a horror game (although it does have a few spooks and eeriee moments), but rather an action game with small puzzles, a good story and the occasional boogeyman.

.. almost ruined it for me. This game have great atmosphere and graphics (even on intel hd 520). The basic gameplay might lack some variation but is still fine imho. What I didn't like though is that after you've gotten better equipment you start from scratch over and over again. While it might be designed to create a sense of danger, it felt cheap after some time. I play with mouse and keyboard. This sometimes is okay while sometimes feels unnecessarily clumsy. Yes, I understand that "Al" is not your standard military guy... Also the leveldesign sometimes is quite annoying as you tend to have little space crawling with enemies. So might get stucked somewhere or being killed from behind because you can hardly see what's going on. Also there are several checkpoints which force you to watch mini-cutscenes time and again or pick up several items once more. I'm okay with checkpoints and also with using them to make the game more challenging or suspenseful. However in this game I had to do some passages a dozen times or more which in my book doesn't equal fun. Would I still recommend the game? Try it out on sale if you don't mind to probably get annoyed here and there. At least because it is rather a unique game.