Alan Wake

The survival horror genre is dying out. Games like Dead Space are just becoming actions shooters. It's nice to see a game that is fun and scary.

I played this on the 360 and loved it. Was going to get it from steam for my PC but prefer DRM free so thanks GOG. I will be getting American Nightmare when released as well. The game is far from a FAIL and those that say it is probably have little fun in anything they do. It's good gameplay and a good story rolled nicely together. That fits well with how OLD games were made and few games today are created.

Alan Wake is Remedy Entertainment's first production since 2003's Max Payne 2. A lot has changed in the gaming world since, and there's a decidedly old school flavor to Alan Wake's rather simplistic game play. It's an action shooter dressed as a survival horror adventure, and it often succeeds in the former, but sometimes, it fails. Combat can be exceedingly frustrating. Particularly later in the game, there are sections where it is preferable to escape than fight. Enemies will outnumber you; Alan cannot run very far without stopping for a breather, and when enemies do catch up to you (they are much, much faster), you will get stun locked. This leads to frequent reloads until you understand what the game wants from you: to run more often than not, despite the liberal sprinkling of ammo throughout the forest. With that said, this is a gorgeous game. Remedy has a reputation for pushing the technical state-of-the-art with their titles, and Alan Wake is no different. The PC version of this game is wonderfully optimized, and plays smoothly while loading quickly on my mid-range PC: AMD Quad Core @ 3.0+ Ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 460 1GB, 1920x1080 with everything on High and AA at 4x running off a 7200RPM SATA 2 drive. The game engine is a marvel at creating palpable shadows interspersed with vibrant light and colour. Character models and animation are not top-notch, but photo realistic textures go a long way in looking nice. The environs of Bright Falls are serene and lush when they want to be; harrowing and foreboding when they needs to be. There's a great sense of world building that rings authenticity throughout: from the small details in the immediate space to the bigger picture of scale and unity in design. The Pacific Northwest never felt so believable. This visual splendor is coupled with a generous soundtrack featuring classic jukebox tunes to contemporary alternative rock tracks (Remedy collaborators Poets of the Fall return) which bookend each "episode". The heart of this title though, lies in the story. It's a bit of a convoluted mess all throughout, and slightly cliched, but its gripping and clever as well. Borrowing stylistic and thematic influences from the creepiness of vintage Twilight Zone; the novels of Stephen King; David Lynch's Twin Peaks; and even John Carpenter's 'In the Mouth of Madness', Alan Wake maintains Remedy's penchant for post-modern, pop-culture referencing pastiche, served up in a pulp fiction that's a bit undercooked, but fascinating all the same.

greate game but somethimes gamplay is repetitive

The game is already good as it is. I know you play this for the story, not the graphics. No need for unnecessarily large installation files when this version already do.