Game reviews: Alan Wake

It’s happened to everyone. At some point during Twin Peaks, when a bloated Laura Palmer washes up in her plastic death cocoon, or when you’re receiving psychic advice from the Log Lady, you’ll think to yourself: Wow! This’d make a great video game!

Sadly, Finnish game developer Remedy Entertainment has beaten you to it, spending the last five years on Alan Wake, an ostensibly brainy thriller with designs on rewriting the genre.

Set in the rural town of Bright Falls, titular hero and supermegastar crime novelist Alan Wake arrives to unwind, hoping to unclog his terminal writers’ block. Unfortunately, his holiday in a creepy lakeside mansion is interrupted by the mysterious disappearance of his wife and a nasty bump on the noggin to boot.

Chastised by a mysterious dark force that appears to have overtaken the local rednecks, Wake questions his sanity as he fights for his life and, er, wife.
Wake trundles through remarkably realistic woodlands by night, assailed by smoky black figures that must be blasted with a high-powered torch, flare or flashbang before he can legitimately shoot them in the face. Meanwhile, Wake collects pages from a manuscript (you can read them like a real book!) and coffee flasks (which do nothing whatsoever).

Like Remedy’s previous noir blockbuster series, Max Payne, Alan Wake isn’t coy about wearing influences on its sleeve. The game’s episodic structure resembles a TV series, and Wake himself namechecks Stephen King as his chief inspiration at least twice within the first few hours.

But however earnestly it tries to adhere to the horror genre, Alan Wake more often comes off like a pastiche or, worse, a parody.
Wake employs a voice-over narration technique whereby he helpfully describes exactly what’s happening as it’s happening (and sometimes slightly beforehand). His ceaseless gibber only serves to spoil the tension he’s so breathlessly telling you you’re feeling.

Although ‘The Taken’ are supposed to represent an elemental force of darkness and the self-destructive urges lurking in the writer’s subconscious, it’s hard not to see them for what they are: smoke wearing a trucker’s hat.

Later in the game inanimate objects begin to haphazardly fling themselves at Wake, which I suppose would be scary if it really happened, but there’s something absurd about battling a haunted gate.

Given the importance Remedy clearly places on the role of story, the fact cut scenes are so poor is odd. The problem could simply be put down to badlip-synching and that unfortunate dead-eyed effect, but quite a few games have successfully wrestled both issues to the ground (see the excellent Red Dead Redemption or Splinter Cell: Conviction also reviewed this issue).

In terms of simply being a game rather than a TV serial, Alan Wake still has its problems. There’s no denying Remedy has done an astounding job in recreating the true feeling of the woods by night, rendering the play of light through trees and the stifling atmosphere of being lost in the forest with exceptional skill. However, trudging about in the dark is the only activity Alan Wake really seems to enjoy.

When enemies do appear, Wake handles them with the dexterity of a potato. The slow-motion dodge system pioneered as ‘bullet time’ in Max Payne is haphazard and unpredictable in Alan Wake, often landing your character directly beneath an axe blow or scythe chop. Exposing enemies to your torch beam and shooting thrice needs to be repeated ad infinitum, which can begin to feel like a chore rather than, well, fun.

In its favour the game does manage to break away from its torpor and gain a bit of momentum somewhere around the two-thirds mark, and I’m sure a lot of people will be engaged enough to play that far through. Alan Wake isn’t short on bold ideas, and Remedy should be commended for having the guts to try them out.

Given the game ends with a less-than-subtle suggestion that Alan Wake: The Smoky Redneck Strikes Back won’t be too far off, it’s far from unreasonable to hope the game’s creators might, with some judicious tweaking, come up with a truly great game. TG

PLATFORM REVIEWED: Xbox 360 PLAYERS: 1 RATING: R16 GENRE: RPG SCORE: THREE STARS