Alan Wake hands-on impressions

I’ve played Alan Wake in two different continents, over the past two weeks. That’s probably the least remarkable thing about my experience with Remedy’s psychological action thriller.

If we’re being completely honest – and we always are – the story of Alan Wake is the main attraction. The gameplay is just gravy. From the first moments of the story that see Alan and his wife arriving at Bright Falls, a town in the pacific northwest of America, the dark secrets lying beneath this seemingly idyllic locale seek out a unique corner of videogame storytelling. Unashamedly reliant on cutscenes with a Hollywood-style dramatic storyline, it’s a tale that’ll resonate with fans of Max Payne, the studio’s previous franchise.

The game is an action-adventure, divided into TV-style episodes. During almost every episode, there’s a daytime sequence heavy on NPC interaction with a few QTEs and fetch quests, while the night sees Alan facing off against a group of Bright Falls citizens called ‘the Taken’, who are seemingly possessed by a demonic force of shadows.

To fight these enemies, players have to shine the torch on them until their outer protection of shadow is broken off, enabling you to pop some caps in the usual way. Flare guns can be used almost as grenade launchers, but so far we’ve only seen the shotgun and the pistol as standard weapons. Since there are boss characters in the game, though, expect Alan to beef up his armory with time.

In the story, Alan is a novelist (famous enough that citizens in Bright Falls recognise him by face) – after his wife disappears, early on, Alan realises that one of his books is coming to life. The problem is, he doesn’t remember writing it.

We’ll have a much more detailed account in the March 24th issue of X360. For now, I’m cautiously optimistic – Microsoft has clearly invested in a different type of new IP, one that I’m sure fans of narrative-driven games will eat up.