Alan Wake

Alan one of the most anticipated games of 2010 came up short of my expectations in many areas. The game play where you wear down the enemies shield of darkness with flashlight sounds cool in theory, but in practices ends up making the game way easier and less intuitive. Also, about half way through the game it starts throwing items from the landscape at you. This makes me wonder if they just ran out of ideas for enemies. The AI is also does not progress throughout the game it is more or less wave after wave of the same enemies over and over again just with new weapons or more of them, and you may not even notice the change in weapons as they come go so fast. The difference between enemies can pretty much be separated into 4 or 5 types of enemies all with the same way to kill them, though. This is a good example of why game play is so important in a game.
Then there’s the story that is pretty much ripped right off the screen of a mid 90’s movie called Darkness Fall’s, which was a fantastic little under the radar horror film. The story differs in minor areas that really don’t make it seem all that different. Then we have the useless characters that are there mostly just to make the game last longer, like Barry your agent who shows up very early and guides through the game (could/should have been used to make the game have a co-po mode); as well as the sheriff and a few others you meet along the way.

Now where the game really shines is the little things. The actual story that Alan has written is smart and intriguing and personally I hate mystery; which the game isn’t, you know from the very beginning who the bad guy is. Also, the Night Springs TV show on all the TVs that you come across. There’s other small things that take away from the game: the coffee cans that they want you to collect that are all over the place. As well as shooting down the towers of can, I think this was thrown because one of creators, if I dare call them that, liked that carnival game a little too much.
One of the high lights of the game was the music. You actually come across a band called the Veizgothis in the game; they’re kinda over the top but cool. The music style is a kind of American folk rock that actually is one of the few things that make you want to play the game. This is pretty much the only reason I gave the game a C, because of the music if it hadn’t been there it probably would have gotten a C- or a D+.