The is the most repetitive and uninspired game I have ever played. If you have read a book ever, you will be able to spot about one cliche every 30 seconds.
beautiful game, wonderful sound and what seemed to be a great story... but the controls in this are just god awful. Dodging feels useless at times and even then the ability to be able to run away from all the enemies till you get to a safe haven is laughable. If they would have put more focus on the fine-tuning the controls at the end, this game could have been great... but because of how the controls are, i have to give this game a low rating. Cant enjoy a game if the controls feel broken.
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.
Bad: allows not to save free
Bad: only one savegame
Bad: Starting "New game" kills the one and only savegame, so "New game" = "Begin new"
Bad: alltime console flair