I still remember that time when Xbox and PlayStation were agains´t each other in a fierce battle, of course I´m talking about the PS3 VS Xbox 360 era, at that time, Xbox bought a lot of temporary exclusives to give a strong message to PlayStation, one of those temporary exclusives was Alan Wake. The first time I saw Alan Wake, it didn´t catch my attention that much but as time passed, my interest on said game grew up, still I didn´t have the motivation to just play it and I think this is something that happens to anyone, maybe you have certain game that you want to play but, I don´t know, maybe you don´t feel like it´s the time to play it or you just lack motivation.
When I saw Alan Wake being ported to Nintendo Switch, I thought that could be my motivation to play it but the port ended being poorly optimized, it wasn´t until now that I managed to play it through the Xbox 360 and it exceeded my expectations, I have my problems with the game which I´ll elaborate later, so let´s begin from the begining.
The story follows Alan (duh) which is a frustated writter, and I say frustrated, because he doesn´t write anything since 2 or 3 years ago, he travels to a certain town for vacations with his wife, his wife wants him to go to teraphy and he gets angry at her and I don´t want to give details about the story but she just disappears, that´s how James Sunderla-I mean Alan, tries to search for his missed wife in a town he barely knows.
Alan Wake has two different segments, when it´s day and the sun makes its presence, there is not much to do to be honest, you can investigate a little bit through the town but said investigation is very limited, this first segment of the game is more like an excuse to let the players to catch a breath and rest a little bit, then there is the night when we have to fight shadows and always running to the light, yeah I know it sounds like your classic anime thing but it is what it is, you are really fighting shadows.
When fighting shadows, there is a cool quantity of weapons which we can fight normal guns, shotguns, rifles, flares...I think you get the idea, we´ll use a flashlight as well, it´s not like we have to shoot at the shadows and that´s it, I mean, every enemy has like a shield and in order to get rid of that shield, you have to use the flashlight, pointing the enemy until said shield is gone, now that the enemy is vulnerable, we can shoot it, we have to do this to every enemy in the game, this is why flares exist in the first place, when there is a big quantity of enemies, flares will save your night, because using the flashlight on like 6 or 7 enemies at the same time is hell. As Alan, we can evade attacks and if we do it perfectly, time will go slower for a few seconds, however, it feels a little chuncky for today standars to be honest.
Alan is a writer, and the writing stuff is not just for decoration, there is this thriller novel on the game, everything that is written on the novel is becoming real, that´s why weird things happen in the first place, it´s trully interesting, because the novel is scattered around the town, we can collect the pages and read them, that way we can figure things of the story by ourselves and we can get to know some details, you can actually read things that will happen on the game later, of course this is only applied to the chapter, don´t expect knowing the ending with just completing the first chapter of the game. Tnis is an interesting aspect of the game, but after a while feels more like a decoration, it´s cool at first but when you get used to it, it can feel more of a protocol to recollect the pages the pages and read them, even repetitive... a shame, I really think this is an interesting concept.
Sadly, I think repetitive would be a good word to describe Alan Wake, everything I´ve mentioned is what we´ll do on the game and believe it or not, it becomes easily repetitive. Sure, it sounds fun and it actually is, but once you progress a little bit you´ll see are doing the same all the time, there is no much variation on the gameplay, I mean, there are some moments when you can drive a car and I think this servers as a change of air but the driving is awful and these drivings sections won´t last that much, I think these are the only moments when there is some change on the gameplay, I´m not done yet, this repetitive thing can translate to the enemis on the game as well, I mean, it´s always the same kind of enemy, from begining to end, there are like three kind of enemies, maybe four, and I say four because I´m trying to be optimist, it´s the same pattern, the same enemies, I think you get the point.
One thing I really hate about Alan Wake is the DLC, I mean, if you actualy want to see the true ending, you have to get the DLC, I mean, this is no problem nowadays because you buy the game with the DLC included, but at that time, imagine buying the full game and then ¨well bro wanna see the true ending? Buy the DLC loser hahahahaha¨ that´s sad, I mean, the worst part is that the content of the DLC is pretty cool, it expands the base game and the story gets more interesting, you even get a psychological analysis of Alan, the protagonist, I mean, what a shame, I get nowadays won´t be problem because the DLC is included, still that´s a bad practice.
Okay, I know the game is repetitive and that´s a fact but you know it makes up for it...more or less, one thing I find cool about Alan Wake is that it´s pretty short game, it´s like 8 hours long or it could be even less, so it´s not that annoying, I mean, yeah, it´s stil a problem but not that bad considering is a short game, besides the TV show format does a lot of help to the game, this way the pacing doesn´t feel that bad either, because most of the times, every chapter of the game ends with a cliff hanger, so you know, the story is pretty good, I mean, it´s not perfect but it´s cool and interesting, the story will keep you entertained.
Yep, the enemies always the same, I´d dare to say their design suck but the whole combat system is good, not something that will blow your mind but yeah, cool enough, the game gives you many weapons so you can deal with the situation as you want, the enemies are always the same and that sucks, but when you reduce it to the combat system, it´s cool, Alan Wake is a game from the Xbox 360 era so I think you can´t ask too much either way, seems to me that Alan Wake has a good world design as well, the town feels a little too big at first but then you realize is not that much, there is only one way straight, and one or two alternative ways that led you to some reward for actually exploring.
Graphically speaking, it´s cool, but what is the most remarkable to me are the environmental effects like lighting which I found to be amazing for being an old Xbox 360 game, shadows look great as well, the fog looked awesome too, I loved how dense it was through the forest, I played the original game and I´m sure the remastered version looks as awesome or better than the original.
All of the screenshots were taken by me