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Telling a good story can be very important to a video game. It depends on the game, of course. A sports simulation or a racing game doesn’t necessarily need a solid tale to drive it along. But when you’re going to put the player in an adventure title, and make it scary to boot, an engrossing narrative is essential. And that’s one thing that Remedy’s Alan Wake does right – it spins a yarn that, while occasionally predictable, is entertaining, engaging and quite chilling from time to time. And let’s be honest… a story that is occasionally predictable is good. It allows us to have those “I knew it” moments. Too predictable is bad, yes, but a little predictability is actually enjoyable. And Alan Wake has just the right amount of it.

The game plays out in the peaceful little down of Bright Falls, a fictional settlement in the USA’s Pacific North West. Alan Wake, a best selling author, and his wife visit the sleepy town for what Wake believes is a holiday. His wife, though, is trying to get him out of a nasty bout of writer’s block, and has researched not only the area, but a psychologist who has a practice in the area, specializing in helping creative minds. Naturally, Wake is not happy with the deception, but soon has a change of heart when his wife mysteriously disappears, and things in Bright

Falls start showing that they are not what they seem. An ancient evil, a force of darkness, has the town in its vicelike grip, and Wake must battle a seemingly invincible foe to find his beloved and piece together an old mystery that lead to the current situation.

The true beauty of this game lies in its presentation. Sure, the graphics are not top notch; they feel a bit old, and the lip-synching for the various characters is awful. But the overall package is very appealing. The title is presented in a very cinematic style, with lots of game engine and pre-rendered cut-scenes to help drive the story along. The game is broken into six episodes and

is presented in a TV series fashion, complete with a ‘previously on Alan Wake’ segment at the start of each episode (I admit, this was one of my favorite little bits of window dressing in this title). The episodes vary in length, naturally, according to the actions the player takes.

Supporting the presentation is excellent voice acting, great music, and very effectively implemented sound effects. Alan Wake is a third person action adventure with a few survival horror overtones. The game can, at times, get rather scary, but the player will never be left out

of his depth in this one; some patience, a bit of lateral thinking and steady nerves will serve anyone playing Alan Wake well. There are no invincible enemies here – rather just tougher and weaker ones. Additionally, the player shouldn’t run out of ammo too often, and better weapons are also plentiful. What’s more rare, and more important to the player, is light. See, the evil force in the game literally is made of darkness, and the town’s folk it possesses are cloaked in a sort of dark armour. In fact, little puddles of darkness sometimes lie around like bear traps, waiting for the player. That is, of course, in addition to the actual bear traps that lie around waiting for the

player. The way to defeat the darkness is with light. Light heals Wake and strips possessed victims of their armour.

It also interferes with the darkness’ ability to fling pipes, barrels, cars and locomotives at the player. Some light sources, like flare guns and flash-bang grenades, destroy bad guys immediately, while others, like road flares and flashlights, keep them at bay and strip away their armour – making it easy for Alan to put a couple of revolver slugs in their chests. Shooting your way through, though, isn’t always the best solution, and the player will sometimes find themselves sprinting for the nearest puddle of light rather than facing hordes of possessed people and farm equipment.

The darkness helps obscure some of the game’s poorer graphic elements (as well as letting it show off the excellent lighting techniques the developers used). But, more importantly, it reinforces the creepiness of the title. Being stuck alone in the dark, whether in a lumber yard, inan abandoned mine or in a thick forest, does little to calm the nerves.

This is not made any better by the awesome use of very creepy and often downright terrifying sound effects. Whether it’s a rustle in a bush, or the warped, inane babbling of a possessed dude, the sound in this game works to great effect. It helps keep the tension high, adding a lot of atmosphere to an already tense experience.

Alan Wake is not aimed at a hard-core crowd specifically, a fact which can easily be seen through the rather simple control scheme. Not that the game needs a complicated one… who needs complicated controls when you’re running away from a mob of darkness-cloaked axe murderers? But the player will be granted time to explore (if they’re brave enough) and will be able to find various objects, from useful equipment stashes through to coffee flasks and mysterious manuscript pages.

All the elements of the game tie nicely together, leading back to that all important story. The tale feels like something crafted by Stephen King at times (in fact, the famous author is quoted twice by the narrator). But the TV feel of the game, which comes complete with flash back scenes, also carries something of that other great North West tale, Twin Peaks (sans the absolute weirdness). And the story is solid enough to say that a TV series based on the game would be a great idea. The characters are well realised and rather complete (if a little stereotypical at times) and the construction and pacing of the story is solid. And (no, this is not a spoiler, it’s an obvious fact)

we’re sure to see more of Alan Wake in the future, which will be a welcome addition to our gaming collections. If you enjoy a game with a horror edge and a good story, you can do far worse than getting hold of Alan Wake.

At A Glance:

Alan Wake combines an excellent story with a solid third person adventure game… and a few frights for spice.

Developer: Remedy

Publisher: Microsoft

Distributor: Microsoft

Platform:

Xbox360