Honestly, this is really a great game... but I don't know why it needs to be so spooky. It doesn't deserve the 5th star because of it : the spooky obscures the story.
I remeber when this game was being lauded by the Devs as some kind of incredible step forward in immersion and gaming. I looked really forward to getting it, but due to work, etc, never did. Then I got off GOG about a year ago. Now I know this game has been superseded by many others, but it still isn`t very good by itself.
The opening scene is graphically nice and you plod along waiting for the good stuff, but then (it seems always at night) the game turns into a boring shooter these wierdos that have been possessed and flashing them with a torch, while wondering around trying to see where next to go.
You realise soon that it`s really a very linear shooter with a mystery horror story tagged on. There really isn`t much interaction with anything and soon you even notice that the graphics aren`t as good as at the start. I didn`t even see any horror really. I got bored, then got annoyed when the game just decided to throw weird possessed enemies constantly until my character died. Again and again. I quit and haven`t returned.
I`ve seen other games do a far better job of putting a story and game together.
I suppose for a couple of quid it`s acceptable, but that`s all it`s worth.
Not what it was cracked up to be at all.
Based on "Alan Wake" on Epicgames.
I had big expectations for this game considering all the hype I had read about it. And I liked and loved A LOT in the game: The references to other writers, the mini "Twilight Zone"-episodes, the original story, the basis of the game, the sound and music, and so on for example. The graphics are a bit dated now even in 4k, but it was OK.
On the other hand, I hated a couple of thing in the game: I hate when it is impossible to save games when you want to as in this game. It forces you to replay and watch cut scenes time after time after time after... when you struggle with areas of a game.
Another thing I hate is when I FINALLY have enough weapons and ammunition to begin enjoying playing a game, and then suddenly looses it/gets it taken away from me. This happens time after time after time after... in this game!!
I guess the two previous choices by the developers are done to make Alan vulnerable to increase the feeling of danger and thereby make the game more frightening. But to me it only made the game more annoying and frustrating to play.
Controlling Alan was challenging: Watching over Alan's shoulder from an angle makes it difficult to maneuver accurately. He usually goes where his flashlight lights. But when running it is "all over the place" and to no help! When fighting you are slow and clumsy against several enemies at once that are more powerful, and at times MUCH faster than you. Shining the torchlight on the enemies and then shooting them without much variation quickly became a little bit tedious...
All the product placement, not just the batteries should almost make me deduct an additional star, but I did not do that.
All in all, these things made the game fun at times, but mostly boring and annoying for me to play.
My i7 7700 with a GTX 1060 ran the game smooth in 4k without a single crash.
Yes it is a little bit scary., but nothing more. The torch requires constantly new batteries and without them you can not kill the ghosts so easily and ammo is never enough. 3-6 enemies appear in the forrest from nowhere at once and that sucks... cos the torch batteries do not last even 30 seconds...
The writing in the game isn't very good an is purposely a cliche of Twin peaks and other horror shows. It doesn't really have much of its own idenity. the consent narration is also a very annoying creative descison. The game also isn't really scary and has very limited enmey varity. The controls are really janky and the games camera is frusturating. level design is very linear and railroaded mostly having to do with this game orginally going to be open world then changed to be a linear game because of the 360s technology restrictions . The games combat really sucks and there seems to be only three or four different guns in the game. Also the game just feels poorly designed. I also was bored most of the time because the writing and Just the character of Alan Wake is bland and has little personality. The gunplay is probably some of the worst in any horror game I've played and this is coming from the devs that made max panye that made gunplay one of its main focus with bullet time. Alan Wake 2 looks 10 times better from the gameplay I've seen and its probably best to just skip this one and play the sequel as Alan wake 1 feels like a waste of time as its kinda boring.