Alan Wake Review

(Xbox; $59.99; Rated T for Blood/Language/Use of Alcohol and Tobacco/Violence; www.xbox.com)

(four and a half stars)

What a long, strange trip it's been.

That's what both gamers and the titular protagonist of "Alan Wake" are saying, considering the game was announced almost five years ago and finally (finally!) released last month.

Though gameplay-wise, "Alan Wake" is a fairly by-the-numbers third-person shooter, and even employs a few passe gameplay mechanics which show just how long the title was in development, the gameplay is really just the vehicle to be pulled into the story.  Though a third-person shooter, this is not on the same level as a "Gears of War."  "Alan Wake" is clearly a psychological-thriller, first; an action game, second.

Heavily drawing from influences like "Twin Peaks" and Stephen King novels, "Alan Wake" is a story about a famous horror novelist suffering a severe case of writer's block.  In order to clear his head, he and his wife take a vacation in a sleepy, Northern-Pacific/Atlantic, lakeside town of Bright Falls.  As it goes in stories such as these, Bright Falls is not all that it seems, and from the moment Alan steps onto the docks of their idyllic vacation getaway the nightmares of a shadowy, axe-wielding madman that haunts him begin to appear while he is awake.

Without giving too many spoilers away, Alan's wife goes missing and Alan loses a week of consciousness.  As he continues to search for her he begins finding pages of a manuscript from a book of his that he has never written.  The pages describe events that have already happened, those that are happening, and some which may or may not foretell the future.  All the while, the Darkness continues to pursue him.

All of the action in "Alan Wake" takes place at night when the boogeymen come out, so the isolation and dread of the darkness that surrounds Alan really plays up the nightmarish situation in which the character finds himself.  The shadowy figures that attack Alan seem to come from nowhere and from all directions.  Though Alan can dodge out of the way of their attacks, he is virtually unable to outrun them and attempting to do so will result in the classic nightmare troupe of moving in slow-motion as the creatures pursue.

Alan's ability to fend off the Darkness is to use light to his advantage- pointing a flashlight at the Darkness to wear it down before filling it full of lead, jumping under lightposts as a temporary force-field from the dangers in the shadows, and throwing down flares to keep the Darkness from sneaking up behind.  At all times during the game, players will feel on-edge about what's around the corner, and what will be sure to outnumber them.

Visually, "Alan Wake" looks great in-game.  Given that the tech of this game began way before 2005, the polish put on the game, especially the creepiness of a moonlit night, is pretty impressive.

Visuals, however, do not hold up so well in the cutscenes with character models have a marionette mouths when they speak, and the dated technology more apparent.  No great shake, but when this game was originally pitted against Sony's "Heavy Rain" in terms of visual appeal, "Alan Wake" ends up looking and playing like a game from five years ago, and "Heavy Rain" feels current.

Probably the best thing "Alan Wake" has going for it, is its overall presentation as a "season" of story episodes.  The pacing of the game is superb, with the tension of each episode drawing players into the story.  Then, like every great psychological TV show, each episode ends with a cliffhanger, followed by the "Alan Wake" logo (think: "Lost").  At which point, players can press on to the next episode, or feel that they've reached a satisfactory end point for that evening's playtime.  The next time the player starts the game, a "Previously on, 'Alan Wake..." summary starts the next episode.

This implementation is perfect and needs to be implemented more for games where particular attention needs to be paid to the story, and for gamers who can only play for an hour at a time.  For the intended audience of "Alan Wake," they couldn't have done this any better...

Not to mention, I can't wait to see what Season 2 holds for our hero.