Alan Wake

It's like the best TV show that you can actually play! The intense atmosphere, desperate near escapes and gripping plot you will not forget soon.

I don't play many games all the way through (I bore easily of repetitive gameplay these days), but the story kept me coming back, even if the action wasn't the most engaging. Fun game that didn't drag on excessively but kept me playing long enough to warrant the cost, for sure!

A narrative driven third person shooter that tells of the story of author Alan Wake's bizarre adventure in a cosy American town. The plot is interesting enough but the distinctive way the story is presented does a lot to enhance its intrigue. It also still looks pretty good for its age. The dark presence thing is a cool concept for a villain and means the game has plenty of reason to put its impressive visual theme of darkness contrasted by the light of Alan's flashlight on display. The combat involves using light sources to expose enemies that move in to attack you in close range and shooting them dead. Feels reminiscent of a zombie shooter like Dead Space or Resident Evil 4 even if not as refined as those (notably, enemies don't take more damage depending on where you shoot.) Enemies do show an impressive sense of self preservation (more variants would be nice though) and the shooting is satisfying, so combat is fun overall. Your arsenal isn't too flashy, you'll use Alan's trusty revolver the most, but it is a good weapon. Fun to watch and play, I strongly recommend it want a good story and action.

Unlucky that Epic Games have to lock Remastered version on their launcher (and you need connection to play it too lol). Hopefully it will come to GOG after release of Alan Wake 2, overall game is good, but blurry, you have to workaround graphics setting through file manipulations (you don't have motion blur setting).

What an interesting game! I really liked the story and presentation a lot. Visually it was great. It did, however, perplex me that a game featuring a main character so unsuited to combat was such a combat oriented game. Almost every sequence of this game is advanced through combat. And the combat mechanics really aren't very good. There is never enough ammo and the controls are pretty jerky. And the combat in a lot of ways doesn't really make sense either. It's just endless repetition of fighting the same villains over and over and over without any real reason to it. But, outside of that, the game is really interesting and compelling. I like how the story doesn't really resolve itself. It's well written and the voice acting is good and the atmosphere is excellent.