Videogame Review: Alan Wake (2010)

Technnical data:

Developed by: Remedy Entertainment

Distributor: Microsoft Game Studios, Epic Games

Director: Markus Mäki

Writter: Sam Lake

Genere: Psychological horror, adventure, survival horror

Summary (from Metacritic): Alan Wake is a psychological action thriller, a unique new take in the world of gaming. The game is set in an idyllic all-American small town and its surroundings in the state of Washington. Alan Wake, the game's protagonist, is a bestselling horror writer, who writes a novel about his darkest nightmares. In the game, those nightmares come true. As with Remedy's previous games, story and atmosphere are fundamental elements. The game features a massive, open world for the players to explore. The game design is mission based with the player as the driving force behing the action, and as with their previous games, Remedy again focuses completely on delivering the best possible single player experience. The use of light is a significant gameplay element. Remedy has developed proprietary new technology to support the gameplay of the title and to push the high definition visuals to the next level.

Review:
(This time I don't want to focus on the story, because it is so good that I want you to experience it yourselves and not to go into spoilers, because for me it has the best storyline in the history of video games).

I would like to start with the mechanics of this game, because here we must kill The Possessed, beings that are surrounded with darkness, to destroy this darkness you have to use objects that emanate light, whether flashlights, flare guns, grenades of light, etc.. But, the darkness is only a shield, since when destroying it the enemy will be exposed and we will have to kill him with bullets. This brings me to another point, which is the variety of weapons. At the beginning we will only have a revolver and a flashlight, but we can change the weapon for a shotgun or another. We can also go looking for other bigger flashlights, in addition to the luminous weapons that I already named. But we must be careful because the ammunition is scarce and we must manage it well.

Another issue is the graphics, which here are well refined, from the lighting (very important element in the game) and physics, being a perfect example the jacket of Alan Wake (the protagonist) when moving.

But without a doubt, what is better done in this game is the suspense and atmosphere, which is not based on cheap screamers that jump every two seconds, but it is much more psychological, like the visions that the protagonist has of his wife, or when we see a light, but we know that something worse is coming than what we have already experienced, although what intrigued me the most were the crows, which sometimes will appear in our path in flocks and attack us, and it makes me quite nervous to run out of light grenades or flares, added to the fact that their behavior is quite volatile and it is not easy to see them:

Another thing that makes this game great is its episodic format, as if it were a television series that immerses us in the story and we always want to know more and aspects of the story that we are told in manuscripts scattered along the way and as the actions that we perform are told in the past by Alan Wake as an omnipresent narrator.

In this game you can also feel the influences of great horror films and literature such as Stephen King (for various aspects of its plot) and Alfred Hitchcock for the aforementioned crows.

Conclusion:
This game makes us get into its atmosphere, which is quite gloomy and dark and that will not let you be quiet for a single moment, with a plot that will leave you completely crazy.

If you like horror and want a psychological and suspenseful experience with innovative mechanics I recommend you to play this game.

Rating: 9.5/10

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)