Yorith
Christopher   United States
 
 
:Eye_tv: I see you :Eye_tv:
:DS2_Unitology:
:GRKATANA:
:cryptothink:
Currently Offline
Favorite Game
139
Hours played
26
Achievements
Screenshot Showcase
At least it's not Sharks in this Tornado.
Review Showcase
20 Hours played
"It was wild and dark and weird, even by my standards."
-Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a 3rd person Action/psychological thriller game (with a dab of Horror) developed by Remedy Entertainment and released in 2010. This is a fantastic game that blends 3rd person shooter gameplay, a gripping and compelling narrative, and a large cast of characters. The game follows the titular bestselling author Alan Wake as he and his wife Alice take a vacation to a serine, quiet, and deceptively typical lakeside town of Bright Falls where things quickly get out of hand and you find yourself fighting against the ominous forces of Darkness. Crammed full of lore, quirky townsfolk, and interesting environments, Alan Wake may leave you wanting more after it’s finished. A full play-through with a bit of exploration and screenshots took about 14-16 hours on "Normal". This includes the two DLC chapters found in the Chapters menu. With obvious influences from many other fictional works such as the television show Twin Peaks and the works of author Stephen King, you are in for an exhilarating if not somewhat inconsistently paced ride of LITERAL Light vs Dark.

Released in 2010 it hasn’t aged perfectly (i’m talking about you poorly rendered cut-scenes and mouth animations), the gameplay, characters, and worldbuilding hold up even in 2020. You can tell Remedy put a lot of love and thought into this game. The environments are all well crafted to give off an eerie and melancholy vibe that just frames the feeling of “Things aren’t quite right here, is this really happening?” Backed by amazing sound design that mixes an eerie soundtrack with excellent sound design and voice acting, I fully and wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone who loves a good story in the vein of Stephen King and is okay with the game being 10 years old at the time of this review.

Story and Characters

This is where Alan Wake truly shines. A game about an author who directly quotes Stephen King as an inspiration, this better have a good story and interesting characters, right? Your damned right. The story follows Alan from the moment he arrives in Bright Falls with his wife Alice. You get your keys to your rental cabin and take off to settle in. Things quickly go south and after some creepy, mysterious, and disturbing events you wake up behind the wheel of a crashed vehicle. Confused and unsure what happened, Alan finds out he’s missing a week’s worth of time and and takes off into the nearby darkness drenched forest towards the neon glow of a distant gas station to find help. Almost immediately attacked by locals covered in some kind of shadow, you realize right away not everything is right here. With a clear and blatant theme of Light vs Dark throughout, the story is told through gameplay, collectable manuscript pages of Alan’s latest book "Departure", and through Alan himself as a voiced narrator of the events.

Throughout your many different treks within the forest, dilapidated buildings, and the town itself you come across a huge variety of interesting townsfolk, both hostile and not. With a large cast consisting of, but not limited to, the local sheriff (and secret society member) Sarah Breaker, Alan’s best friend and agent Barry Wheeler, local eccentric Cynthia Weaver (Clearly modeled after log Lady in Twin Peaks), and the “Creative Psychiatrist” and local asshat Dr. Emil Hartman. Nearly every character has their own personality and story told during the game and all of them are people you wish you could spend way more time with than is given to you, even though they all feel fully fleshed out and alive.

Gameplay

Alan Wake’s gameplay is entirely 3rd person, in relatively open environments which sees you using standard weapons like a revolver or shotgun to take out your enemies, known as Taken, in mostly solid, shooting action with a twist. Before you can damage your enemies you must break down the darkness “shield” each of them possess with a light source, usually your flashlight, but also sometimes with flares, flashbang grenades, and environmental light sources such as street lamps. This system works really well and makes combat fun and interesting. You also come across inanimate objects possessed by the darkness that will hurl themselves at you in terrifying (if not somewhat silly) ways. You will come across things like freezers, cars, logs, barrels, and even machines such as Bulldozers or cranes which you must defeat with your light sources alone! There are some minor puzzles to solve, nothing you can’t easily figure out by looking around for a second (never once did I get stuck or frustrated), and many collectibles to grab, which are by far the most obnoxious and out of place elements in the game. While I enjoy the THEME of the collectibles and their pop culture references, the game pacing takes a huge hit if you take the time to look around trying to find them all. Side mention, there are also televisions that play an in universe TV show titled "Night Springs" that is a fun little nod to Twilight Zone and they should all be found and watched in full. The little platforming you have to do, which almost completely consists of jumping over small gaps or onto platforms, is serviceable despite the Jump function being mostly useless any other time. Nightmare mode, once unlocked, has additional manuscript pages you can find and this world is interesting enough to play through a couple times for those that find themselves drawn to it.

Performance
I ran across zero crashes and little to no frame stutters. I encountered one bug that I noted and it wasn’t that big of a deal. At one specific point of the game I found when I used the turret all enemies just stood in place and didn’t attack or do anything. This is likely not intended but hardly game changing. I played with both an Xbox one controller and KB/M and had no issues playing any parts of the game with either. Preferred controller. Video Options are basic, but include most of what people could ask for, including FoV. I played in 1080p resolution.

Graphics and Audio
For a game that came out in 2010 this game LOOKS GOOD. There are a lot of repetitive and reused textures and a lot of the gameplay takes place in the forest area, and while it’s not the most visually stimulating or interesting of places, it is well designed and never feels or looks terrible. Character models are excellent although mouth animations both in game and in the separately rendered (but in engine) cut-scenes are really really bad. Normally this bothers me however for some reason in Alan Wake it takes on an almost B-movie or early 90’s Television show vibe and doesn’t detract from the immersion much at all. This is all made even better by the games sound design. Weapons, sound effects, footsteps, enemies, and interactions all sound amazing for the time. The Voice actors are top notch, especially Matthew Poretta as Alan Wake and Fred Berman as Barry Wheeler. Backed up by an amazing soundtrack, the eerie and chill environmental music perfectly matches each scene and the excellent end of episode tracks that play between chapters such as “Up jumped the Devil” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Anomie Belle’s cover of How Can I be Sure by The Young Rascals. I found myself pulling up these tunes on Spotify and adding them to various playlists of mine.

SUMMARY

Overall score: 8.5/10
Made great by: Story and Characters
Biggest Detractors: Collectibles and mouth animations are bad

Thanks for reading and please let steam and I know if my review was helpful at all!

-Yorith
Review Showcase
'Ello Humie.
Dis gam aint forz ya. Did game is fo da orkz, cuz' dis is da best game, and orkz is da best.
Orks game don't cost ya lot's of silly umie' moneys.
Dis game don't charge ya for da hatz and da gunz.
dis game just let ya blast da stoopid umiez' and ave' a good time see?
Dats' why dis game not for ya umies'. Cuz it don't follow ya umie rulez!
It just works, and it just iz fun.
So unless you'z a big green git like me den avoid at all cost
cuz dis game iz da biggest and da bestest... and you'z a tiny little umie' gamer.
WAAAAAAAAAGH!!
Awards Showcase
x44
x21
x76
x4
x6
217
Awards Received
12
Awards Given
Comments
Alex Darkly Nov 25, 2022 @ 2:56pm 
:COCrune4: :COCtentacles: ᴘʜ'ɴɢʟᴜɪ ᴍɢʟᴡ'ɴᴀꜰʜ ᴄᴛʜᴜʟʜᴜ ʀ'ʟʏᴇʜ ᴡɢᴀʜ'ɴᴀɢʟ ꜰʜᴛᴀɢɴ :COCtentacles: :COCrune4:
Robert Dec 31, 2018 @ 8:09am 
Happy New Year ! I wish all of you to be loved and happy. Stay cool !:BEheart:
Yorith Jul 12, 2013 @ 11:16pm 
COMMENT RESPONSE