Ciarán’s Alan Wake review

Yeah, I know I’m about 6 months late but I picked this up for €20 new a while back and since it’s come down in price so much, there might be some of you thinking of buying it. Also new copies seem to come with a free download for “the Signal” the first DLC, so is it really a bargain worth playing?

First of all this game is very much story driven so I’ll keep things vague to avoid any spoilers. It involves Alan Wake, a famous writer, who travels with his wife to a remote US mountain town for some R&R. His wife promptly disappears in the middle of the night and the games' story then focuses on Wakes’ efforts to find and rescue her. It soon emerges that the town is “haunted” by a dark presence which can only be hurt by light and the gameplay involves around Wake fighting enemies and solving puzzles with his torch.

The story is the strongest part of the game and to be honest it was all that kept me going through some parts of the game. There are times when you won’t really understand what’s happening but it does kind of come together at the end. It’s not as completely garbed as a Call of Duty campaign for example. Gameplay on the other hand does get repetitive especially around the middle of the game. It picks up towards the end again though. There are three difficulty settings and you only get to see the entire story on the hardest (nightmare) setting. To be honest this is probably the only reason you would play through again.

The graphics do have some clipping issues but they aren’t major and overall I think they do a brilliant job of setting the atmosphere and creating a believable world. Audio is pretty good too. The game is divided into chapters at the end of which you get a song from a famous artist like Nick Cave or Bowie. 

It took them a long time but Remedy did a really good job with this game and I look forward to seeing what they come up with next.  Overall, yes I would recommend Wake to anyone looking for an engaging single player experience. If you’re looking for something different from yet another “Call of Honor: Modern Company 5” by-the-numbers FPS, check this out instead.