|
The designers of Max
Payne and Max Payne
2 bring Alan Wake to
the Xbox 360 console
in a fun and
haunting survival
thriller with loads
of style. The game
isn’t perfect (it’s
short), but it’s
damn fun and merges
entertainment and
gaming together as
good as we’ve seen.
In Alan Wake, you’re
Alan Wake. A famous
writer who’s
experiencing a
creative drought.
You get away from
the rat race and go
on a vacation to
Bright Falls to
recharge the
batteries. The only
thing is that when
you get there you
realize that Bright
Falls isn’t the
place to be to get a
break for a Science
Fiction writer.
There’s an evil
surrounding the
place, it lurks in
the shadows out to
latch on to anything
vulnerable to it. It
possesses people,
willing them to help
it with it’s dirty
work and giving them
super-natural
powers. When the
cabin that Wake and
his wife Alice start
their vacation in,
the darkness attacks
and kidnaps Alice.
From there Wake goes
on a restless
pursuit of his wife.
The game features a
steady amount of
narrative. That’s
how the story is
told. Wake
self-narrates the
game for you, making
observations between
cut scenes to
progress the story.
He also goes around
collecting story
pages to give you
hints at what’s
coming next in the
story. Some of these
pages are filled
with some great
writing that adds to
the story, others
are fairly weak. The
narratives by Wake
are fine, the
cut-scenes are
outstanding, but the
article pages are
hit and miss.
Alan Wake’s combat
system is unique.
There’s two parts to
combating the
darkness. Normal
weapons and lighting
weapons. Your
lighting weapons are
used with the left
side of your
control. The normal
weapons, like the
revolver and the
shotgun, are used
with the right side
of the controller.
You use the two
types of weapons
together to fight
off the darkness.
Your biggest ally in
the game is a
flashlight. The
flashlight makes
enemies controlled
by the darkness
vulnerable to normal
weaponry. It’s also
a useful aiming
technique in this
third-person game.
When you just shine
the light on an
enemy you’re aimed
at him and you can
fire at him to
vanquish him back
into the darkness.
The flashlight is
your biggest ally
but not your only
weapon involving
light, you’re also
equipped with flares
and a flare gun
along the way to
help out against
attacking foes.
The biggest flaw in
Alan Wake probably
helped pay for its
development. There’s
a large amount of
product placement in
this game that gets
to be too much. I
don’t mind
billboards in the
game, that’s fine.
You’d actually be
seeing billboards in
the real world. What
is a little much is
that tons of the
objects have product
placement. When you
need batteries for
your flashlight, you
find a fresh pack of
Energizers. When
you’re in the car on
your way to Bright
Falls, you’re in a
car featuring
Microsoft Sync. It
just gets to be a
little much. Another
thing is that the
music selection that
plays at the end of
each episode isn’t
very good. It’s
decent but it could
have been a lot
better.
Alan Wake combines
survival horror with
a stylish
presentation to
produce a quality
game. It’s a little
short and not
something that
you’re going to play
for a long time but
it’s a fun game with
some interesting
ideas.
|