Nukezilla Review: Alan Wake (Xbox 360)

Not many games connect with you on a deep personal level. Sometimes works of art reach an audience and expand their meaning past the creator’s initial intent. One of the core conceits of any piece of art or entertainment is the audience’s participation. What you bring to the experience is your attention, thought, memory, interaction and once it’s over, reflection. Flower was one game that touched many gamers with its artistic expression and green message. Braid turned expectations on their head with both gameplay innovations and an emotionally powerful plot twist at the very end.

Alan Wake is no work of art. It’s a highly commercialized video game product. That being said, I was taken in by the story, characters, location and complex and twisting plot. There are small number of things that mire down an otherwise slick presentation. Here begins my review of Alan Wake, brought to with limited (HA!) commercial interruption you by our sponsors: Verizon Wireless, Ford, Microsoft SYNC and Energizer.

Alan Wake (A. Wake, get it?) is a frustrated writer from New York City who visits the fictional Pacific Northwestern town of Bright Falls on a mission: get away from his claustrophobic apartment and breathe the fresh mountain air. The whole trip, however, has been a rouse perpetrated on Alan by his wife Alice and agent/friend Barry. You see, Alan’s been suffering from a massive case of writer’s block and they’re hoping the change of scenery will break up the mental log jam. To make a long story short, Alice disappears, Alan blacks out and wakes up a full week later with short term amnesia pursued by a malevolent darkness.

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In case you haven’t yet heard, the story is broken up into episodes, each consisting of approximately an hour of play time. The flow tends to be a daytime romp through Bright Falls where Alan meets with town folk and Barry all the while searching for clues that will help lead him to Alice. The rest of the game is set at night where an unknown force of darkness has gained control of the town and menaces Wake as he makes his way though forests, logging camps and abandoned mines. If you want to get the full experience, you must play this game at night with the sound turned up. Otherwise, you’re cheating yourself out of some genuine “Holy Shit” moments, none of which I will ruin here.

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Alan’s not a steroid-injected space marine. He’s a slow running (though shockingly agile) weakling. Your only weapons against the darkness are light in many forms and a limited arsenal of standard firearms. I completed the game on the ‘hard’ difficulty and found the combat satisfying and strategic at times, although by the end of the game I wasn’t ready to beg for more shooty-shooty. The use of light and the game engine’s ability to render light sources is the star of the show here. By the end of the game my only complaint about the combat was the developer’s seeming lack of imagination. A few more genius scenarios involving the darkness/light mechanic would have elevated this game to permanent greatness, but what they released is brimming with quality and a decent amount of depth.

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The writing and story of Alan Wake kept me hooked, chapter to chapter; eager to get to the end each night. I wouldn’t suggest playing this game through all in one night. Like a great TV show, each episode is its own miniature roller coaster. If you cut to the front of the line and ride through all 6 of them in one evening, you may feel cheated, without giving the game the opportunity to sink its teeth into you as you wait in line for the next thrill ride.

I won’t bore you with my personal connections to the story of Alan Wake, but suffice it to say the protagonist’s battle with darkness (real or imagined) is one I felt kinship with. Remedy have done something amazing here. They’ve created a game that borrows liberally from nearly all forms of pop culture: games, music, television and film. They’ve put them all into a blender and crafted something that’s neither a copy or a indecipherable goulash of references.

After discounts and “free” DLC, I figure I paid about $30 (US) for Alan Wake. I will be downloading the first and purchasing the second (and final?) DLC just to see where the story really ends, but I suspect Remedy to be classy enough to clearly separate this content from the arc of the main game. It’s no spoiler to tell you the end of the game answers few questions, but I for one welcome the next installment of Alan Wake, should the game prove to be successful.

…and now for something completely different.

My wife forbade me from playing Alan Wake without being present in the room at all times. This broke my self-imposed “rule” of wanting to play one full episode each night, as she tended to fall asleep after 30-45 minutes. Look, the game wasn’t boring her to sleep, we have two very active young kids and “mama be needin’ her beauty sleep.” My wife’s enjoyment and engagement of the game enhanced my enjoyment of Alan Wake and I hope her contribution below will do the same for this review.

Enjoy!

Of all the many games I have seen my husband play, Alan Wake is the first game in a very, very long time that I could not stop watching. I found the story to be well written and intriguing, so much so that I was driven to see how it all ended. There were a few too many similarities to Lost, but I liked the episodic format of the story.

There was a nice balance of suspense/thriller story alongside the gameplay. So many of my husband’s games are about shooting this or killing five of something else. The levels felt rich and helped me feel invested in the story. I insisted my husband read each manuscript page as we found them in the game. The pages helped flesh out the story and kept my interest progressing through each area to the next. Also, it was a time when we could take a break from the game’s more frightful sections.

There was one point in the game where I told Brett not to keep running around, but he ignored me. I told him, “Don’t run so fast”, but as I said the words, he ran right out of a dark room into a narrow hallway. One of the game’s oogy-boogies jumped out and I screamed and grabbed Brett, which made him scream. We laughed about that all night and he reminds me about it all the time now.

I was disappointed in how the game ended, but it still kept my interest. Overall, it felt like a good book that you could actively be a part of. It stands out from the rest of the major games Brett plays. There are other games out there, but other major games seem the same, God of War, Military Games, futuristic games like Mass Effect. I wouldn’t stay up until 4 AM to play these games, but Brett does.

Shadow of the Colossus was the only other game like this that felt different. It wasn’t a tired-ass story. I mean, how many military games can you play? What is so new and intriguing about Halo? What is that game even about anyway? I don’t think I want to know.

Images: Giant Bomb