Xbox 360 Review: "Alan Wake"

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer: Remedy Entertainment

Release Date: May 18, 2010 (USA)

Premise:
Alan Wake is a 2010 Action-Thriller made by Remedy, who's best known for Max Payne. The story of Alan Wake begins with Alan going on vacation with his wife to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after arriving, his wife goes missing and strange things begin to happen. He must venture through the town and the surrounding forest to find the truth.

Gameplay: 

Alan Wake is an Action-Adventure game with a Third-Person Perspective. Gameplay involves running around the town and outlying areas looking for your wife. Along the way you find Manuscript pages to a book you apparently wrote but can't remember writing, so collecting all of the pages is a daunting task that you'll have fun doing throughout the entire game.

The controls are your typical Third-Person-Shooter controls, running around shooting enemies, though driving different vehicles occasionally makes for an even greater experience. The enemies are known as "The Taken" and they're engulfed in "The Darkness" and you must use your flashlight to "burn away" the darkness before you can shoot them down with a variety of weapons and gadgets, such as flares and flare guns.

Graphics:
The character models and animations are pretty well done, and the textures of the buildings and the foliage really help to immerse you in the experience. The developers seem to have done a good job at recreating a livable, working world inside the town you explore. The facial expressions were a bit lacking, but they weren't very distracting or anywhere near bad enough to ruin the experience.

Sound:
I didn't really notice a whole lot of different sounds or music throughout the game, other than the typical music you'd expect to hear in the background of gun fire and flares burning. There were some good moments with soft, dramatic music that helped keep the tone of the game in check, and those were very welcomed additions.

Length:
The game will last anywhere from 9 hours to 12 hours or more, depending on how much exploring-off-the-beaten-path you choose to do. There is an extra game mode called "Nightmare" that unlocks upon completion of the game, which results in additional Manuscripts to get as well as a harder difficulty, thus increasing the length of the game with another playthrough.

Value:
The experience of Alan Wake is very similar to Heavy Rain; they're both amazing stories that are just waiting to be told to the player and every moment you really feel like you're connecting with the character(s) you play as. A strong story can go a long way in proving a games worth, and for this one I would say that if you have extra cash that paying the $59.99 for this title wouldn't be the worst thing you could do. If you couldn't afford that but really wanted to play it, I'd say paying no more than $30 for it would be respectable.

Purchase: Alan Wake - Xbox 360