Alan Wake

Title says it all, the story and environment present themselves as interesting and unique, beautiful forests and spooky imagery. But, the fact of the matter is, the gameplay is the same song and dance every time. focus flashlight, shoot two-three times, rinse repeat.

Alan Wake is just short of being a classic. Its atmosphere, notably, is a highlight, and a good enough reason to revisit it. The game is all about getting lost in dark woods and dilapidated farms, and the world it depicts is definitely pretty unique and a ton of fun to explore. The level design is solid and consistently rewards you for going off the beaten path. Visually, while the textures are not always great for 2010, it’s compensated by the believable environments and stellar lighting / smoke effects. Generally speaking, while it’s not a particularly scary horror story, the plot is enticing and fun: it finds a good balance between being a dark tale full of mysteries and a more tongue-in-cheek adventure with eccentric characters. Yet, Alan Wake has one major issue: the combat is surprisingly awkward, and overall quite disappointing. In fact, I feel it lacks basic features: for instance, in the absence of camera lock-on, precision aim, or even a crosshair, the beam of your flashlight is used to aim, which I never was 100% comfortable with. Using light sources is necessary to make foes vulnerable to your attacks, which is an interesting gimmick at first but more often than not makes the fights tedious. There is no melee option, even though all enemy types (of which there are few) love to get up close and personal. And sure, since it’s a survival horror game I guess combat is meant to be somewhat harsh and better kept avoided… but I don’t think this fully excuses how clunky the controls are. That being said, the guns all pack a good punch, the slow-mo effects never get old, and the game is fairly generous with ammo: the combat can sometimes be lots of fun (the first half of chapter 5 and the second expansion are awesome), but actual good fights are few and far between. Alan Wake thus end up being one of those games you mostly play for the atmosphere: there are better horror shooters out there, but if you can live with janky mechanics, it’s definitely worth a try.

Played thru many times on many platforms. Never gets old.

I can recommend this game to everyone who likes interesting and thrilling stories, action and most importantly great atmosphere. Few advices: After you complete the game don't forget to play The Signal and The Writer episodes which continues after the main story. And if you want to find out more about the story, play the game on nightmare difficulty and make sure to read the Alan Wake Files book (which was originally only with the Collector's Edition). For 15$ it's a steal. Buy it ! Enjoy it ! Thank me later :)

After having read some reviews in magazines I was a bit sceptic. But Remdey did deliver, what I was hoping for. Like in the case of Max Payne 2 they created a kind Computer Game that can count as a work of art. That is mainly due to the great storytelling, the great characters, the incredible atmosphere and the aesthetically astonishing graphics and music. Having said this I have to note that the actual core of the game play (Like in Max Payne 2) is good, but not something new. But it is its embodiment within the other aspects that makes the game amazing as a whole. Highly recomended!