Alan Wake

Date Acquired: 9.4.2010

Date Completed: 9.25.2010

Thoughts: I kind of ignored this game when it first came out. Judging by the sales figures I am far from alone. I had recently played through Heavy Rain, (a game I thought was kind of the PS3 couterpart of this game) and it launched the same day as Red Dead Redemption. In retrospect, this was probably a poor decision for this game, as RDR had incredible sales and topped the sales charts for weeks. Microsoft would have been far better off releasing this 3 weeks early, or delaying it two months, but instead they took on Red Dead and lost. Then all of a sudden in August, I started getting a strong urge to play this game. I'm not sure where it came from, but I just really wanted to play it. So I finally sucumbed and picked it up shortly after finishing Wario Land.

I almost didn't finish this game. Not because I wanted to stop, but because I already have 3-4 games in the can for September, and was thinking I could hold out and make this my October game so I'd have one. I was seriously considering this, until I thought about why I'm doing this list. The whole point (and it's been very succesful) is to get me to finish games. Delaying finishing a game I otherwise would finish sooner is the antithesis of the whole list. So I couldn't do it. Plus I really wanted to finish the game, this game rocks.

Pros: There's a lot to like about this game. It starts out with a unique story that does a good job of piquing the player's interest. It supports the story telling with excellent voice acting. The mood is fantastic, it uses a creative episode format that makes it seem like you're playing a weekly television show. Every new chapter begins with a recap of the previous chapters (which makes it ideal for incremental gaming) Every chapter ends with a cool song that will play all the way through if you let it, or skip past it because you're impatient to continue the story/get your achievement points. The game is all about light vs dark. You're wandering around in the dark with your flashlight a lot, but it never got annoying, it was never so ridiculously dark that you couldn't see (We'll call this the Doom 3 effect). You go through the game armed with a flashlight and a gun. To defeat the enemies you have to hit them with light for a certain amount of time to make them vulnerable, then you can finish them off with your gun. It's an unusual gaming mechanic, but it works well. The game does a good job of creating suspense, but I wouldn't call this game a horror title. Though there was at least one scene where I said to myself 'I bet something is going to jump out at me here, and not only did that happen, but it still made me jump. Weird. I also loved the driving parts. A great way to conserve ammo is to run the enemies over. The game makes great use of frequent checkpoints so you won't find yourself repeating long stretches of the game after dying very often.

As for the comparisons I was drawing in my mind between Alan Wake and Heavy Rain, they wound up being not very similar after all. While both games are story driven, unique and original experiences, Alan Wake is much more combat focused than Heavy Raind, and doesn't have the multiple endings. There's just the one. Actually the game that I most closely compare Alan Wake to would be the cult classic Eternal Darkness. They're not identical, but I thought of ED many times while playing through Alan Wake. Speaking of which, I would LOVE to see an HD ED remake or better yet, a true sequal.

Cons: The game gets a bit repetitive eventually. The basic mechanics never change, you don't really get new weapons in later chapters, you pretty much have everything in the first chapter (and for some reason keep losing it in each chapter and have to find new weapons every time, so don't be afraid to use your good ammo when you play, you can't take it with you) And there aren't a lot of different enemy types. Also the game ends and has a decent ending, but it then continues in 2 downloadable chapters. One of which came free with new copies of the game, the other will be released this month, and it's somewhat annoying to have to purchase the true ending of the game. However, in this case, I enjoyed the game and want to extend the experience so I will gladly be handing over my money.

Final Thoughts: I'm just going to say it, this is my favorite game of the year so far. Granted there's a lot of great stuff from this year I haven't played yet (Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy 13, God of War 3) as well as great stuff on the way, but for me, right now, this is my favorite game so far. I strongly recommend buying this game new, to give the developers the money and help this game's sales. It needs it. Trust me, you're going to want a sequal after you finish this game.