Alan Wake - When's the Movie Coming Out?

I'm terrified to write Fiction now...

• Published by: Microsoft Game Studios
• Developed by: Remedy
• Genre: Action/Horror
• Number of Players: 1
• T for Teen: Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence
• Available On: Xbox 360, PC

 Holy. Shit. That is all I have to say about this game. Well, not really but this game threw me for such a loop. I didn't physically play it, Kiru did. She saw a preview for it and fell in love with the game and wanted it so we got it at some point after it came out.


So right off the bat, we were interested. An author getting away with his wife to a little town...Bright Falls. How much more ominous can you get, right? Well now it start get freaky. Your ugly, stupid, bimbo wife is afraid of the dark and basically gets kidnapped by the darkness. Alan goes back, fails at saving her, you dunno if you're dreaming or going insane or what's happening. You hit a guy in a car- and he fucking disappears then you find out the guy he hit was a hitchhiker from his OWN STORY. Let me bold that.


A CHARACTER from HIS story.

And then the Taken hitchiker tries to kill you with an axe.



Hence my previous discomfort to write anything bad to my characters in any of my stories.


And yet it gets even weirder. Alan starts finding pages of a manuscript that he wrote...but didn't write.

Yes, this shit comes true.

As if that wasn't enough for poor Alan to handle, I can tell you right now this is no "Prince of Persia". There is no "Well then fuck this, I'll deviate from the manuscript! Screw fate!" Oh no. If you deviate from the manuscript it's you dying and getting a game over. The manuscript is true to its word. So much so that this dude, who just read a manuscript page about...himself...:

....You can guess what happens next.

So while having to evade the FBI and town cops, you're being helped by a guy in an old fashioned scuba suit/space suit, battling darkness with a flashlight then shooting the undarkened dark monsters with your trust <insert gun here>, but the evil behind it all? Is an old woman.

The epidemy of evil.

Aside from the horror and "What the fuck just happened now?" moments, it has its fair share of laughs. Like this.

Your best friend decorated for Christmas.

Two old men in their 70's trying to relive their glory days as rock musicians.

And...you know. Watching yourself on a TV that's watching you talk to the Scuba-Man, Thomas Zane.

Cause watching yourself on TV is always is always fun. I mean, he's famous right? ...Well I guess it gets not so funny when the you on TV is going psycho.

Though you can also find a show on some TV's (the ones that DON'T blow out the TV after you're down watching). It's called "Night Springs" and it's the equivalent of "The Twilight Zone". Alan Wake used to write for the show, and according to Barry, it's sucked since he left.

Adding to the TV theme aside from Alan talking crazy talk to Alan and Night Springs, the whole game is set up into Episodes. There are 6 Episodes, kind of like Chapters, complete with a "Last time on Alan Wake" recap for you and at the end of each episode, a song plays that can be found on one of the many radios scattered across Bright Falls. That just SCREAMS:

"Make me a TV series!!"

Cause I know I would watch it.

Overall, the game is excellent. So much so we bought the two DLC's, The Writer

Fitting...

And The Signal:

"Greeeeat, I'm on TV again...trying to kill myself."

For the game mechanics, I can't say much since I didn't play this one hands on. I can tell you Kiru forgot the controls in her few moments of panic when a Taken popped out of no where on the rare occasions the wind doesn't warn you of their closeness.

I remember one in the bathroom, which is already creepy cause bathrooms have mirrors and if you're like me, FUCK going into bathrooms. Unless there's loot, then you brave the storm. We were CONVINCED nothing was going to pop out then the TV flicked on, Alan spoke crazy to Alan and as we left it came out at attacked us in slow-mo.

Slow mo is one of the neat game mechanisms that I did enjoy because it was another warning system and looked cool when you dodged. It did it randomly and reminded me of a TV show.

At some point I just wanted Kiru to just RUN the whole time because she kept dying. Not that there was a terrible shortage on ammo, you stay pretty stocked the whole game unless you're trigger happy on shadows that aren't the Taken.
It was just frustrating. But instead she didn't- cause Alan ended up getting tired pretty fast. And when he's hurt too he limps and your screen/his vision starts to fuck up which is bad when you're running in circles from this guy.

He can clobber you in a few hits and usually has a few little guys with him to throw shit at you and piss you off.

Or maybe some of these:

USE A FLARE. If you have one. They work wonderfully!

Or you know, dark filled tornadoes hellbent on destroying the town and its wildlife.

Hope you weren't tired before...

Still not convinced you need to buy this game?

Be convinced because this game is psychologically BALL TRIPPING. All of the questions still aren't answered so you know what that means? Sequel!!!

So let's tally this shit up.

The verdict?

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Musical Score: 7/10
Voice Acting: 7/10

Graphics: 9/10

Game Mechanics: 8/10

Story: 9/10

Replay Value: 5/10

Comments

Musical Score: You don't pay attention to the music so much, and the opening score is so blah that I want to just stab pencils in my ear, though some of the music they play on the radio is really good. One in particular I enjoyed was by Poets of the Fall and you can find that HERE. And also, Space Oddity by David Bowie plays at the end credits.

Voice Acting: It wasn't awful, but sometimes it wasn't very compelling. The voice actor of Alan Wake, Matthew Porretta, has a very sexy voice. Good thing he does most of the talking.

Game Mechanics: Based on the frustration of Kiru

Story: This shit couldn't be more captivating.

Replay Value: Based on my willingness to see it replied/play it myself. It's...low, you can tell. The story sticks with you and has no real surprise ending that makes you over think the whole game and you have to replay it to understand it from that perspective, thank god. Because some of those parts were frusting, albeit the Stage Battle on Tor and Odin's old rockstar stage on their farm has great replay value in and of its own.

Think I'm full of shit? Fight me with a comment.