Review- Alan Wake

 

A lot of people’s favorite movie post pandemic is Spider-Man No Way Home. It is a film that brings back our favorite characters from the older movies and allows them to interact with all of our current characters, and it also sets up a foundation for Tom Holland to have more typical Spider-Man circumstances in his life. My problem with this movie (a problem that I’ve had since the second time I watched it) is whether I liked the movie for what it does, or did I like the movie for what it was trying to convince me it was doing. Concept versus execution is the name of the game with this review, as the video game Alan Wake has a very similar struggle between its story and gameplay mechanics. Story wise, Alan Wake is an engaging thriller/horror game, with an intriguing plot that kept me wanting to know more the entire time, but a rift begins to form in the overall package when the game side of this game does not deliver in equal measure with what the story is offering to the player. I enjoyed my time with Alan Wake but was wishing the entire time that all that creativity just overflowing from the narrative would spill over into the gameplay more.

 

The story’s premise is this: Alan Wake (the character) is a successful yet tortured author, who is hoping to get some much-needed R&R with his wife in Bright Falls, Washington. Once they arrive mysterious things begin to occur as Alan unravels the mystery this town is hiding. As mentioned previously, Alan Wake’s narrative and plotting are both top notch. The number one reason I was so excited to continue playing was for the story. Alan Wake’s narrative is like a seasonal show on Netflix, where each of the game’s six episodes further the overall plot in a cohesive way but are still unique enough to be differentiated from one another. The best part about the whole plot is that it continues to keep the player guessing until the very end, since you’re never really sure what is true in all this mystery for most of the game.

 

The game is sprinting in its narrative and stumbling in its gameplay. The main gameplay scenarios involve Alan Wake with his flashlight, a dodge, his guns, and occasionally flares of some kind. The main enemies involved are shadowy figures called the taken (better lawyer up Bungie) and Alan can kill them if he shines his flashlight on them for a brief time and then shoots them. Now to give the game its due credit, the idea of a flashlight and light in general being the main gameplay mechanic is a novel one. Not since the videogame adaptation of Night at the Museum 2: Battle for the Smithsonian has a flashlight been this vital to the player character. However, the game begins stumbling in combat whenever Alan begins to be surrounded by these taken figures. Alan Wake’s combat is serviceable in a 1v1 but add more than one taken enemy into the mix and the dodge system almost becomes worthless. There are also very little sound cues alerting you to enemy locations, and considering every gameplay section takes place at night, where the main enemy is cloaked in darkness, I would have appreciated some better audio cues.

 

Another criticism I have of the games combat is with certain enemy designs. In terms of enemies, are three main types of taken: thin boys, thick boys, and ADHD boys. The thin boys and the thick boys operate mostly the same with the only difference being how long you have to use your flashlight against them. The real problem is those ADHD boys, enemies that rarely stay in the same place and are incredibly frustrating to track and take down. Their constant movement, coupled with not being able to properly place enemies unless you have direct line of sight, means that most of the time I just ignored them and tried to push through to the next checkpoint.

 

My final main criticism is that the game lacks any big, interesting gameplay scenarios to spice up the gameplay. There are certainly efforts to, like one particular fight at a farm that I won’t spoil, but every fight, including that farm fight, works in the same three ways: Either you have to kill all the enemies, make it to the next checkpoint so enemies disappear, or hold your own against waves until the game allows you to be done. It is in these big set pieces that all these problems: The clunky combat, the poor audio cues, and jumpy enemies meshed together and were overall my least favorite part of the whole experience.

 

Do not paint this review as anti-Alan Wake because that was not my intention. It takes far less time to explain your praises than it takes to explain your criticisms. I had a good time with Alan Wake in Alan Wake, and from the looks of things, Alan Wake 2 is likely to address that disparity between the narrative and the gameplay, this time incorporating Alan’s skills as a writer to help influence actual gameplay scenarios which just blows my mind. I don’t have any clever or poignant thing to say at the end that perfectly sums up everything I just talked about, but I imagine that if I did, it would have been really impactful to read.