Crazy Gamers Podcast

May 30th, 2010 — crazygamers Alan Wake
Xbox 360
Microsoft Game Studios
Remedy Entertainment
Release Date: May 18, 2010
Presentation—> 5/5
After its initial reveal way back in 2005, Alan Wake progressively devolved into “that game,” so to speak. The one that may or may not exist, that had many people talking, and had generated lots of excitement for a bulk of most gamers. Eventually, gamers began to lose hope and time continued to pass with no Alan Wake in sight. Just recently, the game finally released after much delay, and after devoting roughly 15 hours of my time to see what it had to offer, I’m confident Remedy’s long awaited masterpiece was well worth the wait.
Remedy did a marvelous job of marketing this title in recent months, with video close-ups which described the style of gameplay and the experience, if you will, that gamers could anticipate. It was promoted as a highly psychological, cinematic, and action-packed game, and everything we saw seemed to impress. The 6 “prequel-esque” webisodes uploaded to Xbox Live in the weeks leading up to release also gave gamers a chilling, seemingly ambiguous peek at what was to come. All we knew going in was that it was inspired by the likes of the old TV series Twin Peaks, with a little bit of Stephen King thrown in the mix. As a passionate English major, the story-driven approach certainly intrigued me, and I can say with no reservation that even if you’re not into the whole writing/novel aspect the game portrays, there’s something beneficial you can take from playing this breathtaking exclusive.
Everything about Alan Wake’s story from a presentation perspective is artistically compelling and brilliantly designed and executed. The game opens with one of the most chilling and intense levels I’ve played in recent memory, as it places the player in control of Wake as he experiences a particularly disturbing nightmare. Guided by a nebulous beacon of light, Wake is incessantly pursued by shape-shifting antagonists cloaked in shadows, armed with daggers, hatchets and scythes with the worst of intentions. The pace is frantic and the atmosphere is positively striking; my introduction to the world of Bright Falls, WA as a setting for this game made me reminisce with a grin as I recalled the first timed I played the original Bioshock.
Throughout the course of the impeccably paced narrative, Wake has traveled to the aforementioned town accompanied by his wife, Alice, who urges him to find a place where he can find peace of mind and overcome his ailing case of writer’s block. Wake is a successful writer who has stumbled upon troubled times, as he lives with demons that are either revealed over the course of the game or, simply put, never explained outright period. He must stay on the run and fight the evil and mysterious Dark Presence in Bright Falls, as the secret power it possesses takes control over the inhabitants of the town and turn them against him as he races against the clock to save Alice, who early on is conveniently consumed by the Darkness. It’s a classic damsel in distress scenario, however the player learns as time goes by that they may want to reconsider exactly who it is that requires saving.
This title offers perhaps the absolute best lighting I’ve seen in a game. Not only is light used as a weapon, which is an original mechanic on its own merit, but the lighting itself is so perfectly blended visually into the environment. The majority of the game occurs at night, but unlike many other games, such as F.E.A.R., (which almost made it too dark for the player to navigate) Alan Wake allows the player to enjoy the creepiness of a dark atmosphere while still incorporating this tricky twilight effect so the player can still always be fully conscious of their objectives and grant them time to enjoy the visuals of the engine Remedy designed. The in-game engine looks marvelous, and level design is magnificent at best and overall appropriately scary at worst.
The developers selected many licensed tracks directly for the soundtrack, and each level ends just like the old episodic TV dramas whom the game wishes to pay its homage (they’re even labeled as Episodes on-screen and in the menus if you wish to replay them) with a song to listen to which always sets the perfect tone and mood. I was particularly impressed with the inclusion of the track “War” by Poets of the Fall, as well as “Space Oddity” by David Bowie. Each subsequent episode begins with a brief recap of the most important set piece events from the prior episode, and I’m glad to see someone seems to have a firm grasp on doing episodic content properly. It really is very refreshing and new for a video game, and I’d dare anyone to argue they’ve seen something exactly like it previously.
Voice acting is aptly handled by all members of the VO team, and Wake himself (who naturally carries most of the workload as the main protagonist) was so convincing that I really struggled to put the game down due to how the pathos of his lines kept me connected to his character and that much more anxious to absorb the game’s next big twist…and boy, there are many.
Fun—> 5/5
Although I would categorize Alan Wake as survival horror for the most part, it certainly doesn’t hide from being a third person shooter when it all boils down. The light mechanic works like magic, as the player uses the left trigger to aim in the direction of the enemy with their light of choice (flashlights, high powered flashlights, lanterns, etc.) and the beams auto-target to a degree so one doesn’t have to strain too hard to eradicate the shield-like shadows the enemies bring to battle. The right trigger characteristically handles the shooting, which functions similarly with auto-aim but never gets convoluted due to the variety of weaponry and general level of effectiveness they pack (pistols, shotguns, pump shotguns, hunting rifles). Wake also can equip himself with flash bangs (a godsend), flares and flare guns to disrupt the efforts of the Taken, and the game almost always leaves you barely escaping by the skin of your teeth, just when you thought you surely would have perished. That, in my opinion, is flawless survival horror game design, and while it may be something Resident Evil or Silent Hill have done suitably in the past, Alan Wake definitely gives both a run for their money while also making the experience wholly unique in its own right.
As stated earlier, pacing is phenomenal. The game never put me into a state of boredom, and the intense, jump out of your seat set-piece moments were very consistent in ensuring that I stayed attentive and hanging around to witness what Remedy wanted to show me next. The game in general is rather linear, however I for one was surprised at the level of branching off the beaten path the player was granted to pursue. The game has a bevy of collectible items: coffee thermoses, secret chests, manuscript pages, signs, etc. The player must go off the main path, and unless you’re a God at video games you’ll most likely require a second playthrough or replay of a level to acquire them all. However, it’s a genuine rush to face the high risk decision of seeking the shadows for these items, without knowing exactly what evil you’re likely to find. All in all, this game is a blast and if you appreciate the well crafted mythos of Stephen King inspired, horrific events of the unknown, you’ll come into the experience with even more of an incentive.
Replay—> 4.5/5
Thankfully, Alan Wake doesn’t include the recently common, tacked-on multiplayer or co-op modes, but this is ultimately to its advantage. This is such an isolated, singular experience that such a proposition would surely besmirch the effect it has on the player, by crowding other online goons into the cinematic roller-coaster of a game they’re controlling. That being said, two playthroughs at most will most likely satisfy the average gamer, so it’s by no means a 40-50 hour RPG like experience, nor does it have the lasting “squeeze a few matches in” appeal of a Modern Warfare or Halo, if you will. However, the game lasts roughly 10-12 hours as it is, and beating it on Nightmare mode (which I am proud to say I achieved) is no cakewalk and can potentially extend the playtime even further. Add in the desire to OCD collect the various items, and you’re looking at a solid spin of the disc for many a day inside your 360. Also, to reiterate, individual “chapters” within episodes can be replayed at any time, with the only caveat being that any prior progress is lost. Assuming one has already beaten the game before doing so, this should rarely present problems. A number of the narrative driven in-game manuscripts one collects are also given exclusivity rights within the Nightmare mode, so if you really want to ingest all of the Alan Wake lore that you possibly can, you’ll need to play it at least twice to ascertain every juicy morsel.
Production Value—>4.5/5
Admittedly, no game is absolutely perfect per se, and Alan Wake comes as close as it can but has a few flaws that the player could take issue with. For one, the character models in the rendered scenes and to an extent the game engine itself do appear dated, perhaps due to the game being under development for a total of 5+ years. This was noticeable, although never distracting, nor did it ever take me out of the experience. In the same manner, controlling Alan Wake can seem a little janky at times, with the “A” button given its usual dedication to jumping. Alan Wake tends to leap as opposed to jump with a single press of the button, and some of the gaps Wake must cross tend to lead to tedious deaths, due solely to the shaky nature of the jump mechanic. These are minor and infrequent, however, so I’d be hard pressed to put up too much of a fight complaining about it. Moreover, I did notice a couple questionable design choices that became briefly irritating, such as contextually interactive objects popping into view just prior to an unavoidable cut-scene, which later disappeared due to my character moving on to a different location. I had to go back in my second playthrough to hear the little quip Wake would utter when he interacted with that object. Furthermore, some loading sequences occur at inopportune times, most notably during an intense and busy violent affair with an out of control bulldozer. The game chose to load while I was fighting said vehicle, in addition to facing a tumultuous wave of Taken, which temporarily put a soft freeze on my game. Other segments of the game with just as much, if not more, on screen action played without a single stutter, to be fair. Finally, some characters’ dialogue tended to clash with Wake’s inner monologue, and even with subtitles on I failed to simultaneously digest what both Wake and the NPC had to say. This happened a few times during Episode 4 with Dr. Hartman, but otherwise didn’t rear its ugly head too often.
Aside from the descriptions above, Alan Wake is an impressively polished game, with solid shooting mechanics, an easily adaptable means of sprinting and walking, graphics that shine with beautiful textures devoid of pop-in, and a consistent frame rate even during sequences when objects such as school buses, ships and portions of trains come falling from the sky or rocketing with voracious force towards the player. NPC’s are tough and challenging, and despite them being possessed by a supernatural presence, I sometimes felt like I was legitimately being flanked and strategized upon, so no fault of the AI exists based on my experience. Everything from beginning to end is almost as smooth as can be, and even the flaws that do inevitably show up from time to time never took me out of the fun that kept me busy moment-to-moment otherwise.
Creative Innovation—5/5
Alan Wake is a survival horror game that doesn’t rely on blood and guts like many other games in the genre, or spanning other genres in general. The game was granted a “T” rating by the ESRB, and it is one of the most unsettling and genuinely scary games I have played without being branded with that big menacing “M” on the box cover.  It has the classic jumpy moments and unexpected attacks from shadowy enemies, but even more so it is psychologically disturbing and terrifying. It relies on the theme of the unknown, or lack of explanation, that we as humans can attribute to our fears, our ghosts, and our demons. Much like Stephen King did with the Shining, and more recently The Blair Witch Project, the idea that we cannot see or explain what the true horror is, in itself is the most terrifying aspect.
In the same way, this is also a game that because of how there is no right or wrong way to make sense of what happened, a nod to a narrative literary technique known as unreliable narrator, it’s the video game equivalent of The Sixth Sense. It’s that memorable feeling of standing by the watercooler the next day and playing chatty Cathy with your co-worker about how mind-blowing the film was, and how it has left such an impression on you that you’re still piecing it together hours, days, even weeks after seeing it. Alan Wake is the first game, personally, to have such an effect on me, but unlike movies like the Sixth Sense there is no resolution that you can just make sense of afterwards. Remedy completely removes any definitive resolution entirely, and leaves the speculation and theorizing strictly up to the player. This is a brilliant concept not only from a video game perspective, but structurally it co-exists with equal brilliance with its intentionally mind-bending dichotomy of relation to other mediums, whether it be film, TV, or print novelization. Find me another video game that utilizes any or all of these things, while also doing it so damn well that it literally gives you chills as you watch the final scene play out (the best climatic finale in a video game I have seen, even if it can’t be fully explained.) The entire cinematic presentation is pure bliss, and the inclusion of the spine-tingling, goosebump inducing dodge mechanic in the game only adds to the total package; I thoroughly enjoyed dodging enemy advances just at the right second as the game slows down time on a whim, fully controlled by the player and giving them the sense that they’re Neo from the Matrix. For further elaboration, Google “Max Payne.”
This game has already received an announcement for post-launch DLC, and kudos to Microsoft and Remedy for making the first batch free to those who purchased the game new. I, for one, cannot wait to dive headfirst back into Bright Falls and continue to observe further illuminations of what Remedy has compiled into Mr. Wake’s story. Alan Wake most likely will be my game of the year, if not most certainly still in my top five, and with subjective English major bias consciously left by the wayside, I can still objectively tell any hardcore gamer the following with utmost honesty, devoid of any and all fabrication: Alan Wake is one of the best video games, if not THE best video game, I have ever played.
Consensus:  5/5
-Tom, a.k.a. BEATZ/GTBEATDOWN