Alan Wake
14 May 2010
All releases
14 May 2010 - Xbox 360
18 May 2010 - Xbox 360
20 May 2010 - Xbox 360
16 Feb 2012 - PC (Microsoft Windows)
Tags
Time to beat
Main story
Main story + extras
100% completion
Alan Wake is a psychological horror action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment. The narrative centres on Alan Wake, a bestselling thriller novelist experiencing writer's block. He travels to the small town of Bright Falls with his wife, Alice, seeking a change of environment. Shortly after their arrival, Alice vanishes under mysterious circumstances. As Alan searches for her, he discovers pages of a thriller novel he does not recall writing. The events described in these pages begin to manifest in reality, and Alan encounters hostile supernatural entities known as the "Taken," who are controlled by darkness. The gameplay involves navigating Bright Falls and using light to combat these dark forces. The storyline explores themes of reality and fiction, along with the influence of the written word.
When the wife of the best-selling writer Alan Wake disappears on their vacation, his search turns up pages from a thriller he doesn’t even remember writing. A Dark Presence stalks the small town of Bright Falls, pushing Wake to the brink of sanity in his fight to unravel the mystery and save his love.
| Audio | Subtitles | Interface | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Korean | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Chinese (Simplified) | ✓ | ||
| Chinese (Traditional) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Polish | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Russian | ✓ | ✓ | |
| English | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Spanish (Spain) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| German | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| French | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Italian | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Having said that, Alan Wake had the setting and premise to be something amazing, however I was immensely disappointed by everything that was not the story.
The biggest issue of this game is the gameplay. It is what I like to call a peak gen 7 game (360/ps3 era) where every game at the time wanted to be a linear corridor shooter.
Alan Wake's gameplay is pretty much call of duty but in 3rd person with a gimmick where you need to flash your torch at an enemy before you shoot them. That's it. That's all you're doing the whole game, no exploring, no puzzles, no interesting set pieces, just going in a linear path shooting the same enemy types over and over again going from checkpoint to checkpoint.
The only thing that kept me playing was the compelling story behind it all, but the gameplay really made this hard to digest. I also have nothing against corridor shooting if the shooting mechanics are fun, but this game was more frustrating than fun.
I really hope the sequel changes this because I really do like the world of Alan Wake and it is a game with a lot of potential.