Review: 'Alan Wake'

Are you afraid of the dark? No? Well, you should be…

Released on - Xbox 360

Alright, I’ll be honest - Alan Wake doesn’t exactly get off to the best of starts. With somewhat dodgy visuals, awful lip-syncing and a truly dire script, the opening half-an-hour of this horror story is utterly petrifying for all the wrong reasons; fortunately enough, though - as is the case with most typical chillers - things aren’t quite as they would first appear on the surface. Indeed, delve a little deeper into Alan’s gloomy quest against the paranormal and then you’ll find a true stunner lying in wait at the end of a long, exciting and dark road.

This is largely thanks to an utterly skilful, moody and brilliantly wrought atmosphere that positively seeps into every possible moment of the title, chilling and stirring the blood all at the same time as you make your way through a wonderfully gripping adventure; with beautifully rendered fog, light and shadow twisting and plunging across an eerily real and tangible forest floor, unknown assailants repeatedly and unexpectedly melting out from the darkness to assail you in the most nightmarish fashion and a phenomenally morose soundtrack setting the hairs at the back of your neck on quivering end, it’s unquestionably good fun that will keep you hooked to your seat until the very close of the game.

To make things even better, however, there’s also some great twitch combat on offer throughout the entire game relying not only on a quick trigger finger and solid reflexes but a brilliantly novel idea of ‘burning the darkness’ away from your foes with a flashlight or torch before you can get at and dispatch them, too; cutting straight to the chase this means that you can’t hopelessly run and gun your way to safety and button-mashing success, roughly boiling down to a more tactical (and immensely tense) experience than you might expect at first glance. Because you’ll be so frequently outnumbered and outgunned as well (and because you’ll have to scramble to change or recharge your torch’s limited battery power after almost every use with hot, hairy foes breathing down your neck with axes and scythes at the ready), your heart will be definitely racing with nerves completely stretched to the limit before the credits roll. This is especially true when surrounded on all sides by the deadly (and unbelievably quick) ‘Taken’ - your average grunt - enchanted beasts, a possessed environment or the Taken’s token big brother, usually wielding the customary axe or chainsaw and wishing for nothing less than to stamp your face into a finite paste.

The locations you’ll frequently find yourself trapped within are great, too; with such a palpable, detailed and highly evocative feel about them, it’s even easy to forget that these levels are almost strictly and unfalteringly linear. They are - more often than not, anyway - genuinely chilling to boot, with the likes of dank caves and abandoned warehouses practically vomiting malice and pitch-black shadow at you, adding the icing to an already sweet cake.

This is partially aided by the ‘manuscript’ pages that the player is led to collect throughout the entire adventure, for while these certainly help to flesh out the mythology of Alan’s world and to fill in any blanks where appropriate, their main purpose is to predict your immediate future (and quite possible doom) and give you an idea of what’s coming to get your blood pumping nice and early. As you can imagine this can be incredibly unsettling at the best of times, and is managed so well that you’ll be hanging on tenterhooks for most of the title fearing what may - or may not - be just around the next corner.

Nevertheless, the best part of this solid title is undoubtedly hidden within the great storyline; in a nutshell, Alan’s wife goes missing without trace while on vacation and Wake begins to question his sanity as the world - and the very darkness - seem to rise up against him. It’s really very gripping and page-turning stuff, even if it is completely, ludicrously and ridiculously goofy; with some great characters, a dazzling concept, a script that only gets better with time and an episodic format that almost borders on the inspired (even starting with a, “previously on Alan Wake” moment), this is easily the biggest selling point of a great game that is well worth a look if you’re stuck for something to play this month.

The Bottom Line

If you want a decent, enjoyable and immersive title to fill up your evenings, a story to completely lose yourself in or a break from the run-and-gunning of current online shooters then you could do a lot worse than Alan Wake; with a great (if silly) plot, fantastic action, an enviably spellbinding atmosphere and a forgettable number of niggling issues here and there, this game goes quite some way into living up to the hype that has surrounded it ever since it’s announcement some five years ago. While it may never hit the highs we were promised, it certainly comes damn close.

Rating: 78%
(Good)