Alan Wake

Good atmosphere, interesting reading. And that's it. This is another console port that controls miserably with a mouse and keyboard. It's playable but has the typical post-GTA4 "inertia", the character speeds up/slows down as he feels like. Plus the direction of travel isn't centered in the screen, or rather the character isn't, meaning you can't intuitively walk straight and have to correct every 2 seconds. Bad idea for a horror shooter where quick reaction and passing through narrow places is required. Also, how dare you take money from me and then abuse me as an advertising opportunity? Energizer & GM amongst the most in-your-face egregious examples. Downvote also specifically for this.

Woud be an excelent game but three scenes makes me rate as trash. Scenes have intros up to 30 seconds that is impossible to skip.

So, first, GAMEPLAY: I’m sorry to say that I think the base gameplay loop is boring as hell. The base mechanic is as such: you shine your light at the enemies for long enough to pierce the supernatural darkness that covers them, and then shoot them. Done. Repeat a couple hundred times through the game. The main gimmick with the darkness wears off pretty quickly, because here’s the thing: there are three types of enemies, total. Regular Taken, strong Taken and fast Taken. There are also Taken birds, but I don’t really count them as you encounter them only a couple of times through the game, and you only have to shine your light at them to destroy them quickly. The repetative gameplay is exacerbated by the repetative LEVEL DESIGN, too. It’s not an overstatement to say that about half of Alan Wake takes place in the samey-looking dark spoopy forests and logging camps. They are cool and atmospheric the first couple of times, what with the foggy foreboding trees, but in the end they all blend together and there’s nothing to do in them anyway, apart from just fighting the same repetative enemies. So that leaves the story. It wasn’t horrible or anything, but it was okay. It kinda lacks memorable characters, too. Alan Wake himself is a boring protagonist and a bit of a douche, but not in a way that’s particularly fun. The only real highlight of the game is the soundtrack, it features a number of songs that not only sound nice, but also tie into the plot. My favourite is the Poet and the Muse, which re-tells backstory of important events and serves as plot clues all in ballad-like form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSUvoY2oUk If you would would like to see someone trying to explore everything and experience the story for the first time, you can see a blind playthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh3yieVJjpM&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWW3jmaWqeX2qNFTozXvLLwc

Pros: + Good, dark atmosphere of King-like horror. + Graphics have held up very well! + Voice acting is decent. + Runs well on modern systems. + DRM-free. Cons: - Gameplay is very shallow with little to do but move forward. - Both story and dialogue is hit and miss. - Controls feel kind of clumsy. - Dodge mechanic doesn't work well enough. - Cutscenes haven't aged as well as the graphics. - The lipsyncing is pretty bad. - More movie-watching than game-playing. Summary - How much you enjoy this game depends highly on how much you'll love the story, characters, dialogue and atmosphere, because there's not much of a game here to play otherwise.

This game's got great graphics, cool sound and one little problem: it's absolutely boring! Nothing to do but always running down a forest path and shooting at kind of hillbilly ghosts. I gave this game two tries but always had to quit after 1-2 hours beause of deadly dullness. No comparison to Resident Evil or Silent Hill. So if you're looking for a thrilling survival horror action adventure- stay away from this botch and spare your money!