Alan Wake Review, Episode III

The Case of the Ever-Changing Loadout

Part I and Part II of my episodic review.

Ragtag group of misfits.

 I recently completed the remainder of Alan Wake and the two bonus DLC chapters, and I must admit that I was left rather satisfied. Although the story becomes much more linear in the latter half of the game, there are enough scenarios thrown in that make reaching the dangling carrot the least of your worries. I actually found it amusing how often the objective would be to reach Point A only to change into something else every other minute. The effect was elongating the chapter without making it seem artificial. The player can often see the objective and coolly think, "Oh, it's right down there," but two hours will pass, and surprise, the objective still has not been completed.

Some character story arcs were left dangling. At the end of the game, you only truly find out what happened to two major characters, and the rest is left up to speculation. This isn't so problematic as there are only a few avenues of assumption you can take with the remaining townsfolk. But one does wonder! One thing I appreciated about the final chapter is that there were no major plot holes left. Every shred of foreshadowing from the beginning was addressed, and the only questions that remain were purposely left by the writers for the player to contemplate.

The mandatory trope of a horror scene happening somewhere in a church is complete.

There is one more bone I'd like to pick, and it's regarding loadout. At times, Alan will reach the major goal for that section of the game, and after a cutscene, he'll be left to continue on his quest. Bafflingly, even if he reached a safe haven or simply took a car ride, Alan will set off on his next objective with different weapons or a weaker flashlight. I'll just say it's disappointing to reach a house at night with a heavy lantern, a hunting rifle, and tons of ammo and flares only to be dispatched in the morning with a regular flashlight and maybe a pistol with a few bullets. This is an unnatural way to impose resource conservation especially when it doesn't make any sense in the flow of the narrative. I can accept heated moments when Alan would not have time to grab all his items, but if there's no rush, you'd think he would stock up. Maybe I'm nuts, but it reminds me of games like Dead Space, which do a better job at making enemy scenarios more challenging without screwing with your weapons and ammo.

Overall, I really enjoyed Alan Wake. The story, while not overly affecting, is compelling and makes proceeding through the game worthwhile without running on too long. I also greatly enjoyed the overall flow of the gameplay and the combat despite my nitpicking. Neither the combat nor the narrative comes off as tacked on, which is a testament to effective game design. However, I would suggest tossing it up for future entries. In actuality, the only enhancement to basic third-person shooting is the flashlight mechanic, and future iterations with no changes to this would start to feel tired quickly. Hopefully, Remedy Entertainment does more with the light/dark mechanic to keep things fresh. I also hope they keep up the presentation quality. This was one of the better looking games I've played, and the scenery and lighting effects never grew stale. Just some work on the character models and lip-synching is greatly needed.

Don't be fooled. They're lanterns of doom.

"The Signal" and "The Writer"

The Steam version of Alan Wake comes with the bonus DLC chapters, "The Signal" and "The Writer," which came out after the game was released on the Xbox 360. When you finish the main campaign, the credits scroll, and you are returned to the main menu, so you must manually select these episodes to continue Alan's story. Without spoiling too much, they serve to elaborate on what happens to Alan after the ending of the main story, and they set the game up for a sequel. The story between the two episodes is peculiar but less compelling. Although the goal is obvious, it is readily apparent they are for players who just want to play more Alan Wake more than to offer truly though-provoking revelations about his predicament.

Although mostly intact, there are a few new gameplay elements, which were previously introduced in the very final act of the core game. Due to the surreal setting, ammo stashes and batteries are supplied by words hanging out in the environment. Shining the flashlight on them forces them to release their load. This flows into other areas where words, such as "bridge," "rock," or "climb," reveal objects required to proceed to the next objective. The words also play into combat where "boom" and "fireworks" either destroy the Taken or remove the darkness from them, setting up easier shots.

This feels right.

While "The Signal" feels grossly linear in the way it makes Alan navigate the world, "The Writer" shines by creating platform puzzles that stretch the imagination to greater proportions. The setting for both is a rehash of familiar environments from the core game, but they are effectively remixed and tossed about with new survival scenarios to keep everything exciting and new. It all still looks good, but sadly, there is no daylight to speak of, which I enjoyed before. In one scenario, a cabin and a tunnel are merged together into a continually rotating maze that Alan must proceed through lest he get dropped into the abyss below it. Things like this keep "The Writer" more fun than "The Signal," so at least the DLC ended on a good note. I would say these episodes are worth playing if you have them by default like I did, but due to the lack of important narrative additions and short length (about 2 hours each), they are not bringing anything to the table for your dollar. It'd be better to wait for a sequel.

All images taken myself via Steam's screenshot feature.

Alan Wake Review, Episode II

The League of Extraordinary Heavy Machinery

"We'll stay up all night and tell ghost stories and practice making out with our pillows!"

I forgot to mention in my previous entry that Alan Wake features yellow paint that is only visible with a flashlight pointed at it. Often times, it reveals a message from some anonymous graffiti artist about your current situation – "TRUST NO ONE IN THE DARK." Also, you will occasionally find arrows or paw prints of some sort which lead you to a chest containing ammo, flares, or batteries. The painted path terminates in an encircled torch above the chest, and you typically know you're following it correctly because of the faint sound of a woman's breath in the background. That might be my favorite touch. Earlier on in the game, Alan can follow these detours into dark tunnels or behind houses and return to the beaten path unscathed. I am now part way through Chapter 4 of the game, and the safety has changed. Opening the chest and claiming its items often leads to an ambush shortly after. But let's not ignore the fact that the Taken are polite enough to wait for the player to stock up.

The third chapter also marked the first time I used the Energizer batteries I am behooved to collect. I did write that the flashlights recharge on their own, but when Alan is surrounded by enemies, the larger of which take longer to strip of their dark veneer, focusing for too long makes them run out of juice. Usually, I would just run around like a ninny until it was useful again, but some situations are desperate, and my finger found its way to the Q key to insert batteries. Now, I was avoiding this because I incorrectly assumed that it would take as long to replace the batteries as it would to reload a gun with bullets. Wrong – Alan Wake asks the player to suspend his belief again while tapping the battery reload key instantly energizes (see what I did there?) the flashlight to usefulness again. It takes about three to fill 'er up, and if you're a good hoarder like me, you will always have batteries handy. So of course, I am taking full advantage of this logic leap as it becomes necessary, but the mechanics of the magical flashlights will continue to elude me.

You would think that the LIGHTning would wipe out the DARKening. You'd be wrong.

Chapter 3 also starts Alan's war with things. Objects become possessed by the darkness and fling themselves at the protagonist to impede him in his travels. They usually will be barrels or boxes littered about, but the Dark Presence also likes to possess building pillars, freight cars, and in one harrowing sequence, a bulldozer. I like these sequences since they require a different strategy than the Taken. You defeat the objects with light alone, so it is just a matter of being able to dodge flying objects coming towards you. Until one becomes possessed, trees and lamposts are helpful with impeding the flight path of wayward objects, but as I found out in one sequence, you sometimes need them to fly right at you to break open pathways. Empathizing with Alan in this case, that wasn't fun, maybe because it took me a bit to realize that's what needed to happen.

Navigating through Bright Falls and the chapters is still compelling. Alan Wake's writers have provided some clever sequences where Alan is essentially defenseless save for his flashlight, and he needs to manage his batteries and short sprinting ability to make it between "safe" areas. Sometimes I feel compelled to fight the tide of Taken coming, but I wake up from my delusion shortly after I take a gander at my ammo count. Chapter 3 is easily longer than both of the first two chapters combined, so I no longer play just one chapter before turning in for the night. My brain allows itself an arbitrary number of scripted sequences to experience before finding a safe haven and quitting. Then, I become impatient in my desire to return to the game and get Alan to true safety, a concept the story has already dissolved entirely. A twist came about, one that the Internet ruined for me a few years ago, but the un-twist, if you will, came next, and I became proud of the writers for not letting me down. It easily brought Alan Wake out of horror movie and into worthwhile gaming experience. The manuscript pages now capture my interest more, too. The writing may still be forced in its composition, but the content is gripping. Without spoiling it further, they both reveal the future and make the player desperately want to know what happens next in both the narrative and the pages. I'd compare the experience to watching two TVs showing the same program with a 10-20 minute time difference.

Well, I was hoping for a Snickers bar.

I would say I am at the point where I feel comfortable recommending the game to others, but I have not witnessed the end game, which could become a giant let down. For now, the characters are unique, and the Dark Presence has become a formless antagonist, which I hope to dissect further. Alan Wake begins with a Stephen King quote, which indicates that a good horror story does not reveal why the horror is happening. If that is the case, I hope the ending gives me just enough to swallow my suspense.

Part III

All images taken myself via Steam's screenshot feature.

Alan Wake Review, Episode I

Why am I collecting thermoses?

I started playing 2010's Alan Wake, developed by Remedy Entertainment, for PC on Sunday. My friends seemed generally divided about whether it's worth playing or not. Some insisted that I should play it, while others were wholly dismissive of it. Regardless, the game has always intrigued me. I enjoy thrillers and horror, and it seemed to have a concept unlike any I've experienced in a game before.

The end of a battle. Just in time, too.

The story involves the titular character, Alan, and his wife abandoning their home in New York to vacation in the fictional lakeside town, Bright Falls, Washington. Alan has been suffering from severe writer's block, and the hope is that he'll be able to clear his head. Much to his chagrin, an evil darkness begins to possess the world at night, and Alan is forced to do battle with this mysterious evil. The story, in and of itself, is unique to the video games I've played while not completely original if one were to branch out to other media. Making the primary protagonist a writer and featuring manuscript pages seems risky in that the developers invite not only criticism of their game writing but their in-game writing as well. I've only completed two chapters thus far, and while I've enjoyed my time with it, I do wonder if there will be a big revelation or twist that will impress me or if the characters will just ride out the story laid out thus far with some predictably bombastic ending. I will admit that while I appreciate the manuscript pages' purpose in the narrative, I do find Wake's writing to be a bit hammy when taken in one-page bites. (By the way, A. Wake? Come on, you guys.)

He's not kidding.

In terms of motivation, Alan Wake offers a guy like me good incentive: I want to get out of the dark. I will readily admit that I am not the best a action games; I lack l337 skills. I play most games on the easiest difficulty so that I can enjoy the story with little hindrance. A few notable exceptions were Uncharted 3, which I regrettably played on Normal, and Bayonetta, which I have only played on Normal and Hard and seriously loved every minute of it. I'm doing this one on easy, and you can mock my gamer cred henceforth if it pleases you. Returning to the game at hand, when darkness falls, people possessed by the darkness, "the Taken," come out of nowhere to wreak havoc on our city boy writer. It makes me jump, especially when the game just moves or drops objects out of no where for some cheap thrills. Exploitation aside, nothing has made me stick to the ceiling as much as the tentacles from Dead Space, but it is enough to keep my heart thumping and me looking for every pool of light to take shelter in.

Combat in Alan Wake is also original. Though armed with a pistol or shotgun during darkness segments, Wake's best weapon is his flashlight. Defeating the enemies requires focusing the flashlight on them until the requisite blanket of darkness that envelops them has disappeared. Then, shoot. On the easy difficulty, many enemies are easily felled by two bullets from the pistol, but larger hulks require a shot gun or a onesie weapon like the flare gun, which removes the darkness and kills in a single hit. I am trepidatious with shooters, typically wishing to shoot everything haphazardly and be done with it, but I honestly enjoy this extra layer. It never comes off as artificial filler, and it keeps the player engaged, managing two systems of offing the Taken instead of Rambo-ing through with beefed up weaponry. I have one problem with it, though. In order to make the darkness disappear quickly and effectively, you must focus the flashlight on the enemy using the right mouse button. When not focused, the flashlight will recharge its own battery, though not fast enough for heated encounters. My question is what flashlight in our reality does this? The story is effective so long as we understand that the Taken are part of an extraordinary circumstance in what is otherwise the real world. But they have magic flashlights. In fact, you can even do this with vehicle headlights, which is more boggling. I know I should suspend my belief, and if the flashlights behaved normally, it's a wonder how long it would take to progress, but seriously, has no one thought hard about this?

Just a small town with small town folk.

The game features an episodic structure, containing a number of chapters to fit the whole writing motif. The beginning of each chapter features a recap of what has happened thus far, and the end of each involves a title card hanging out on the screen while a song plays in the background. (You can skip this.) I find these features to be rather novel, and the end of the second chapter was capped with "Haunted" by Poe, which I adore. The narrative is obviously linear, but Alan Wake throws in some other diversions along the way. Alan can collect blue thermoses strewn about the wilds of Bright Falls, listen to radio programs, watch the game's version of The Twilight Zone on various TVs, and even shoot some can pyramids down. The collectible items serve further to suck the player out of focus, and justifying them within the narrative gives Wake a mildly schizophrenic thought process - I'm really scared and want to go home, but I see something flashing over on that hill that I must have. The radio and TV shows are dichotomous, however, both aiding the setting with their eccentricities and unnecessarily distracting the main character from getting out of Dodge by having him stand around for five minutes. The breadcrumbs left by Remedy Entertainment in this case are confusing, and it would have served the story more to give Alan some bonus within the narrative via the collectibles.

Cynicism aside, Alan Wake features applaudable visuals. I am playing the game at a 1920 x 1080 resolution on the highest graphical settings, and it features some really beautiful vistas with no slowdown or framerate issues that I have noticed. Bright Falls and its environments look great, and it's almost a shame the game takes place mostly in the dark because the daylight and sunset are handled rather beautifully. Although objects are rather sparse, the overall effect and the landscape are really what shine, and they are enhanced via a natural color palette and bloom lighting effects. I also love how enemies disappear into sparks, and the game's subtle cue that a battle is over by making the last enemy die in a larger flash. The odd transitions between the engine-rendered and the pre-rendered cutscenes reveal jarring lighting changes between the two, and it never seems to make sense why the tones need to change for such brief moments. Frankly, this is one of those games that makes me question why they have pre-rendered cutscenes at all. Still, the quality is high and easy on the eyes with both. The vocal performance is another double-edged sword, with voice acting being well executed and the lip syncing negating that execution. There is also the matter of characters who will talk to Alan while he runs around looking for thermoses without changing the directions their facing or trying to slap him into paying attention.

Well, let's be honest. Nobody was going to use it.

There will be more to come as I continue to play the game, but hopefully, this serves as an indicator of what to expect starting out. In the meantime, don't forget to stock up on Energizer batteries. The game won't let you forget!

Part II
Part III

All images taken myself via Steam's screenshot feature.