Hello Darkness my Old Friend: XBOX 360 Review: Alan Wake

To anyone over the age of 30, the term "interactive movie" will send shivers down your spine. Memories of horrific minutely-interactive FMV games from the early 90's when CD-rom was in its infancy and developers struggled to harness to good effect its massive storage power scarred
even the most thick-skinned gamer, wowed at the time by impressive tech demos and screenshots.

These days things are a bit different; games are able to offer far superior visuals that more closely match real life than ever before, and offer a fully interactive world to boot. So the only necessary requirement is a plot that simply doesn't serve as a device to forward the game from one shooting gallery to the next. Alan Wake tries manfully to fulfill this requirement.

Alan Wake was a long time coming to the 360 and as a result anticipation for the game was high. This is usually followed by disappointment, but as I have only recently become interested in the XBOX 360, I took the game purely at face value. And alas, this still incurs some disappointment...

Playing the eponymous writer, your task is to locate and rescue your missing wife, Alice. The game is a complex maze of dreams and the turbulent, writers block wrought, mind of Wake as he wanders through the small town of Bright Falls, chased insessantly by the "Taken", normal people possessed by The Dark Prescence, a malevolent being whose sole purpose appears to be to torment the struggling novelist. The Taken hate the light, which is not so much of an advantage as most of the game takes place during the night!

Likes

1.The Plot
OK, it can be construed as meaningless nonsense, but at least it keeps you on your toes with a few twists.

2.Combat
Simple and easy to get the hang of, despite the dual dynamic of flashlight plus weapon.

3.Atmosphere
Wake has it in bucketloads. Whenever the Taken are about to attack the area takes on a windswept, ethereal quality which really cranks up the tension.

4.Music
Sparse, but highly effective. The tunes at the end of each episode (Nick Cave!) are also very apt.

5.It's 3rd Person
I'm no FPS hater but always prefer this perspective.

6.The Poltergeists
I thought this was a really neat addition - inanimate objects would suddenly take on a life of their own and start flinging towards you. Creepy.

Dislikes

1.The Plot
I really struggled to know what was going on sometimes. I think it was unnecessarily complicated. But then maybe I was just not paying attention enough. Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

2.Combat
It never really varies a great deal, neither do the enemies. There are very few weapons as well.

3.My guns and torch kept getting taken off me!
Just put them in your blinkin' pocket, Wake!

4.The general gameplay could have done with a bit more complexity.
Alan Wake is hardly a challenging game but considering the effort that has gone into the plot, I think a bit more brain-action would have fitted well.

5.Wake gets knackered really quickly.
...and usually has to pause for a breather just as some nasty is about to stab him in the back...

Conclusion
We shouldn't be too harsh on this game as it tries to do something different from the myriad of FPS or TPS that exist today. By essentially designing the game around a plot, it's a fine effort at
building an effectively eerie atmosphere that anyone brought up on Resident Evil and the like will certainly find considerable enjoyment from. As it can be picked up really cheaply now, I'd heartily recommend it to any fan of Survival Horror games.