Alan Wake is a very special game for me. Along with the lesser-known Guns, Gore & Cannoli, it's what got me back into video games in 2020 after five 'wilderness years' where I thought I was done with this hobby. It brought me so much joy in a way that simply doesn't come when you're a habitual player. Far be it from me to claim it works for everyone, but I genuinely believe video games cured my depression, and Alan Wake was the game that started this return.

I could not have chosen a better game to get back into the hobby, because even non-gamers would find a lot to appreciate here. Alan Wake has an intriguing story, beautiful graphics and a kick-ass soundtrack. Also, its gameplay isn't very good. So it fulfills all the requirements for a classic survival horror title.

The first two words spoken in this game are 'Stephen King.' Alan Wake is a love letter to the campy, commercial horror that makes up so much of his work. There are shot-for-shot homages to his film adaptations, and the protagonist directly lampshades his knack for turning innocuous objects into horror stories. And just as with some of Stephen King's favourite heroes, the main character is an author. A tweed-suited author, unshaven and unassuming, who can't run three steps without running out of breath. He seems to be have written a story that is coming true, word for word. This gives us such brilliantly meta passages as, "He took out his hip flask when he reached the page that described how he reached the page that made him take out his hip flask." Sam Lake is a great writer himself.

It was an incredible feeling to explore this game's world, and remember how entertaining video games are - I'd forgotten. The chief gameplay gimmick is illumination - in the light you're safe, in the dark they get you. This makes every unlit spot in the game feel like a threat, and street lamps are safe havens. It's tense, and was even more so when I replayed this game because I accidentally selected Hard difficulty without realizing it. The gameplay isn't going to win any awards, however. Alan sucks at cardio, and for a game that heavily advertises Energizer batteries, all it taught me was that they can't even power a dinky torch for 5 seconds. It's a repetitive game, and vestiges of its scrapped open-world design still shine through in the nigh-pointless driving segments.

Yet it still brought me so much joy. The development team might not have known how to make movement feel good, or the gunplay satisfying, but they definitely knew how to create a moment. Fighting off dark demons with the power of heavy metal, fireworks exploding everywhere, is a memory I will treasure forever. Even the small things - the in-game TV programmes, the NPCs in the loony bin and the thermoses you pick up because Alan's body is 75% black coffee - they made me so happy. This re-ignited a video game addiction that has still to subside 4 years later. So thank you, Remedy, and thank you Sam Lake. Now do the face.

An interesting title that spawned a sequal that became what I would say is remedy's best game. Alan wake 1 is a fun game with horror elements, that is very interesting as the game remedy made coming off of max payne 1 and 2. Alan wake starts some really interesting concepts and ideas that ended up being made even better by its sequal. Alan wake is a game that wears its influences on its sleeve and is in a lot of ways a game where remedy was trying to find thier footing after leaving max payne, while not perfect its memorable.

Yeah, this was very mediocre at best...

This story in this sucked ass, the Twin Peaks references become really annoying after a while (I'm saying this as someone who loves Twin Peaks) and the worst of all - the game was just not scary at all.

The combat was fun at first but becomes really repetitive after just 2 hours. There's only 3 enemy varieties and their all play very similar to one another. Enemies often spawn behind you with no prior warning giving them an easy attack on you. Resources like ammo and batteries are incredibly over abundant making the game a cakewalk. More than half the game is just spent running around similar-looking woods.

Overall, just a very boring game.

Also, is Alan supposed to be a bad writer? All of his narrations (which are clearly meant to be in his writing) are so incredibly dry and awful.

que gameplay de mierda hermano mamitaaa
la camara tosca que encima me la manejas y meten slow motions que hace todo mil veces mas tosco
los enemigos repetitivos que después del capitulo 1 ya me aburrieron
el movimiento no era algo que sea lindo de manejar

todo el juego tenía estas complicaciones que me la bajaban niveles abismales

la historia me encató, la ambientación y el sonido tambien pero lamentablemente a mi no me bastó como para poder disfrutarlo

hasta el punto que lo jugaba y me hacía doler la cabeza

prefiero leer o ver videos de la historia que jugar esto