Well, I was just recently able to give Alan Wake a good play through. A really good play through so I could contrast and compare between this new IP and the "older" Silent Hill IP. Was it everything it was hyped to be? Was it everything I thought it was going to be? Read below to find out.
Graphics:
Let me first start by saying that for the most part the graphics of Alan Wake are nothing to write home about. At least in today's age of "next gen" consoles. They are not ground breaking, but they are not complete and utter crap. They are just what one would expect to find on the 360.
That being said, where Alan Wake really shines, pun intended here, is in the lighting effects and fog effects of the game. Not only is it used as a weapon, but all of the light used in the game is rendered perfectly and reacts just as you would expect it to. Especially in a game where you are in the dark for a good portion of it, you would want the light to play well. Kudos to you Remedy Studios on this. This thoroughly impressed me. That and it lead to bringing up the suspense you were aiming for.
Going back to my Silent Hill comments though, I do need to say that Bright Falls looks A LOT like Silent Hill. I do mean a lot. Only, this game has a HUGE graphical increase. It could be because of the "small town" premise behind the two, or it could be from use of inspiration, but graphically, it looked like a great "next gen" Silent Hill.
Audio:
Now in a suspense thriller/horror game, just as important as the shocks and scares is the need for perfect audio. Without it, you cannot fully immerse yourself in the universe and thus lead to a real shocking experience. In Alan Wake, this was done with greater precision than most feature films. That and there was great care taken to use the full 7.1 surround sound. At times I swore I heard people in my backyard sneaking up to my house only to see a sickle narrowly miss Alan's head on the screen.
The only real issue at all with the audio of Alan Wake is that it felt really recycled. So often at times, it really felt like you were fighting the same Taken over and over. This even includes the named ones, because they had a limited vocabulary, which is funny when you look at the story of the game. Slight Spoiler You are playing out events of a manuscript written by Alan. You would think a famous writer would give the "villains" a wider vocabulary, or at least show his.. End Slight Spoiler
Actual script aside, at least for the enemies, I do want to say that the voice acting for Alan Wake was superb. It was like they took a great TV show and slapped machinima over it. Alan Wake totally gets a gold star and can legitimately sit alongside Nathan Drake. Wait a second, maybe they are the same person... I jest.
Controls:
Now with suspense thrillers that will have high action mixed in, you would expect that the controls would be tight and very copacetic. I mean, you have inky creatures of darkness chasing you; you need to be able to react quickly. At the very least, have good button mapping. For me, none of these were the case in Alan Wake.
There were many times I found myself walking along and all of a sudden it was like the ground was pulled from a Mario ice level. Even when Alan was walking on a paved street or wooden walkway, he slid around a lot. I needed to stop making him walk almost 3 seconds before he actually would. This occurred even when doing a slow creep. This lead me, and most likely a lot of you, to falling off cliffs multiple times. If it wasn't off a cliff, it was into a calm lake, which apparently, Alan can't swim in.
This plight also moved into other areas, like dodging and using weapons. There is a "Cinematic Dodge" Alan can perform by holding the left bumper and pressing the left stick away as you are about to get hit. About half the time though it would make Alan just stand still and get hit like a retardababy. The dodge motion animation occurred shortly after. This consistency also encompasses the walking delay and the delay to drop a flash-bang grenade. The only real way to combat this was to try and look ahead about 3 seconds and hope for the best.
Gameplay:
For the most part, you get what you expect out of a game like this when it comes to gameplay. If you need a reference for the general stuff think Silent Hill (again) and Resident Evil. I do want to touch on one great feature that was something small, but made me enjoy the game even more, as well as another one that kind of got irritating after the 15th time.
The bad one first. I know that one of the big features for this game was to use light as a weapon. I get that. I did that, but you could not use it as a weapon that did anything major - outside of flares and grenades. It felt like you were being forced to kill every Taken twice. First, by shining a light on them for a few seconds. Then, by firing two to four rounds into them. It felt like each enemy was to be treated like a boss or mini-boss. Weaken them to provide an opening, then you perform the damaging attack. I mean the flashlight did nothing else but slow them down after the "darkness" was washed from them. All this was possible just because you shined a bright light in their eyes after walking in the dark for so long? Just did not feel right to me.
Now the good. Like I said, it seems minor, but it is the small things like this that truly makes a game for me. The feature I am talking about is how each episode ended and began. It was like watching one of your favorite TV shows. It started out with a cinematic re-telling of the previous events so you could remember what is going on. That, and if someone comes over and watches you play, there is no need to tell them the story up to where you are. It gives the 60 second "Previously On Alan Wake" right there for them. Each episode then ends just as you would expect a TV show of this genre would. Like Lost at times, only not so many questions left unanswered. I became giddy every time I saw this.
Overview:
Circling back to my original thought before I played Alan Wake. Is Alan Wake a Silent Hill knock off? I will have to say that it is, but only as Silent Hill is a knock off of Resident Evil or any other survival horror. Visually, it does have a few similarities, but it truly is a different game. It is completely worth a full play through, via rent or buy. The story, while a re-hash of a main theme, is truly a unique and fun one to play/watch unfold. Even spectators can easily sit and enjoy. The storytelling process is a perfect rendition of a great TV show style.
While every game it has some faults - the controls being the major one I ran into - they were easily overcome and were more annoying than game breaking. It just takes a bit of practice on timing and whole a lot of looking ahead. Of course, you can play episodes over again so if you screwed up or got screwed up, there are no worries about going back at all.
Alan Wake was developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for the XBox 360 on May 18th and retails for $59.99. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. I can see how the game can be on the scary side for a lot of people, and it gave me a few startles, but I was a god about it and did not fear the dark.
