Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a man who has it all, he is best selling author and he has a beautiful wife he loves. Except for three little problems his life is perfect, his wife is missing, he hasn't been able to write anything in years and every time it gets dark a bunch axe murderer's try to axe-murder him. He is the protagonist to the video game Alan Wake, on of the best games I have played in a while.

The basic plot is pretty basic, your wife is missing, find her and anything that gets in the way, dies. This plot has been around video games since the first Mario game. However this game is proof that even with a tired old plot like rescue the girl, a compelling, interesting and addiction inducing plot can be created. I played this game through in 3 sittings, just because I wanted know what the story was. I won't go into much details on the plot, its better that you see it for your self, expect to say that if you like X-Files, Twin Peaks, Twilight Zone or the works HP Lovecraft you are going to love this.

The basic game play is divided to two parts, during the day you spend your time talking to various people and looking for clues. The second part is the night, where you walk through dark forests, scary mines and other abandoned industrial properties, its during these segments that a bunch of homicidal mines, lumberjacks and factory workers. Amongst the daylight scene's there are also flashbacks and dream sequences. The overall atmosphere is spook and foreboding at night and the world is realistically built, for example items can be found in appropriate places, like flash bangs are found in one level in the boots of police cars.

The combat in this game has an interesting twist, you have to use your flash light and other sources of light to banish the evil that possesses and protects them, before blowing them away with your revolver, shotgun or rifle. There are also flares, that help to give you space when you feel a bit crowded by the axe-murderers, flashbangs, which will destroy anything nearby and the flaregun, which will instantly kill almost any enemy it hits. Over all the combat system is easy and fluent to use and offers enough challenge to keep you on your toes, but not too much to make it frustrating. The only complaint I really have is the lack of a melee attack, it would be nice if you could atleast push the guy who is trying to stab you away. Very often I found myself desperately mashing buttons in close quarter situations vainly hoping to unlock the non-existent melee attack.

As with all games these days, there is a bunch of stuff you need to collect largely for the sake of collecting them. You collect pages of a manuscript, that shed light on the plot, read signs that explain some of the history of the place your adventure is set in, listen to the radio to hear what is going on at the moment in the game world and watch TV to find out more info about the plot. I liked these, because usually you collect stuff that has no bearing on anything in the game, in this game you collect Coffee thermoses and break up pyramids of coke cans. I hate this kind of shit, its a cheap way to increase the replayability of the game.

Overall Alan Wake was an outstanding video game experience, that once again proves that video games are as effective of a media for story telling as movies and books are. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good mystery story.