Alan Wake

Alan Wake was a Remedy Entertainment game released in 2010 by Microsoft Game Studios. Initially released for Xbox360 and later PC it enjoyed a later remaster for all 7th & 8th Gen consoles. Despite being overshadowed when it launched against Red Dead Redemption, the game surged via word-of-mouth marketing and enjoyed several boosts over the years. Two DLC's, a per-eminent sequel called Alan Wake's American Nightmare, a modern remaster, and most recently the critical acclaim of its sequel Alan Wake 2. The game follows mystery writer Alan Wake, while he and his wife Alice are on vacation at the serene town of Bright Falls. Their very first night in town, at their cabin on Cauldron Lake a Dark Presence in the lake abducts Alice. The entity forces Alan to free it, writing it into reality. What follows is a psychological thriller that borrows from various corner of the horror genre. Alan must unlock his own memories, investigate by day, and by night battle the Dark Presence's foot soldiers; the Taken.

Numerous small mechanics where innovative or innovated upon in Alan Wake but to me the stand-outs are the games story telling, lighting, and its two-pronged combat system.

Combat in Alan Wake is tied up with both its narrative and its lighting. The Taken all have a layer of ephemeral darkness that protects them from damage including gunfire. To defeat the Taken the player needs to dispel the darkness with their flashlight, flares, flash bang grenades, or whatever the environment has to offer. Only then can the Taken be destroyed. In this way the story reinforces the implementation of lighting.

Alan Wake's tutorial section efficiently teaches the player all the basics, as well as the nuances of combat with the Taken via a dream sequence, a classic hitchhiker murder story. It also jump starts the intensity of the game. Alan Wake's actual prologue is a slower, more contemplative affair that takes its time before the player sees any action. The tutorial drop the player into the action and makes the prologue more a reprieve than a slog.

Alan Wake doesn't rely on many gimmicks. Pulling its player back in is ostensibly through the power of its captivating story and solid gameplay. The game's substantial single player campaign is a compelling mystery that is crafted in such a way that there is a lot of fun to be had when going back for a second play through with all the facts and seeing all the subtle story allusions woven in by the writers. The game boosts several difficulties and collectables to enhance replay ability. Notable are the special collectables only available on the highest difficulty.

The Game uses a very simple interface that plays well on all platforms. With a minimalist overlay during the majority of the game the U.I still has decent density and that contributes greatly to keep the player in the game. Alan Wake was developed with top of the line graphics for the time and it was an excellent example of the 7th generation consoles capabilities.

Alan Wake inherited the solid sound and music design Remedy established themselves with their Max Payne IP. They Team at Remedyreally captured the sounds of the small town America and the eerie natural sounds of the Washington forest with their ambient SFX. Weapons sounds while varied where overshadowed by the SFX and the more contextual sounds; the flashlight burning the Dark Presence in particular was a memorable sound. The voice acting was a cut above. The distorted vocalizations and displaced dialog game The Taken an ingeniously creepy and otherworldly feel to them ratcheting up tension whenever they appeared and spoke.

The sound track was a mix of original songs including tracks from Finnish band Poets of the Fall, and several licensed songs from the likes of David Bowie, Harry Nilsson, and others. They lacked a cohesive theme to them, especially with the licensed songs but were all excellent in their own right.

All the characters have a grounded quality to them that diffuses the otherwise fantastical elements of the games narrative.

Alan Wake himself was an interesting character. Rather than a gun slinging detective like Remedy Entertainment's previous protagonist Max Payne, Alan is a city bound writer and a bundle of stress and anxiety for most of the game's runtime. This is reflected in how easily Alan gets winded when running and the complete lack of melee combat.

The story; while split into "episodes", has day and night sections that give the game a good tempo. During the day the narrative surges forward with many cutscenes and paced setup of the next story sections. For the majority of night sequences of the game Alan is on his own fighting off The Taken in increasingly vicious swarms and ever increasingly environment.

Unfortunately for Remedy Entertainment Alan Wake launched behind the curve. It was overshadowed by Red Dead Redemption (2010) a competing game in the same vein; 3rd person shooter.

Alan Wake has a variety of gameplay extended feature. Besides several difficulty setting the game has an unlockable Nightmare difficulty that comes with an extra set of collectible to sweeten the deal. The collectibles come in a few flavors with the most obvious being manuscript pages that accentuate the story by adding more context to story beats. There are also poster and signs scattered around that fill out the history and lore of Bright Falls. There are also more carefully hidden collectibles like thermoses, televisions showing episodes of "Night Springs" a Twilight Zone-esque short videos.

the game has no multiplayer or additional modes. It is the very model of a single player experience. There are two Downloadable Content expansion to Alan Wake; The Signal and The Writer which abridge the plot of Alan Wake to its next game, more on that later. Both DLC introduce interesting mechanics and twists to the story. All in all both had good value and are nice additions to the cannon.

In its early development stage the game was apparently going to be an open world concept which is an intriguing idea and it is unfortunate that the concept was cut and that neither of Alan Wake's sequels included it either. Speaking of sequels, Alan Wake has two sequels at this point. In 2010 Alan Wake's American Nightmare a digital download only sequel was released, followed by Alan Wake 2 2023. Both sequels where significant departures from the original, American Nightmare added an arcade-style survival mode as well as adopting a groundhog day inspired narrative.Alan Wake 2 on the other hand pushed the limits of graphical fidelity and deepening its narrative and mechanical elements.

Alan Wake's achievements are split along three lines; basic progression achievements, collectibles, and a handful of mixed achievements centered performing special tasks or using certain weapons to defeat X number of enemies. Nothing ground breaking here. Now the DLC embrace a more playful array of achievements and up the difficulty a bit by including a timed challenges and no death challenges.

So lets take a closer look at Alan Wake's combat. It's a fairly straight forward system so we'll mix in a few more features that aren't strictly necessary but will make the system more dynamic than a pure prototype;