Alan Wake (2010 Video Game)
7/10
Great but Not Perfect
2 July 2023
Played this game for the first time in 2023 via the remaster on Series X.

Overall I enjoyed my time with Alan Wake. It was a short and interesting story with some really cool concepts both story wise and gameplay wise. There are a few issues I have but nothing that majorly kills the experience.

Positives:
  • Cool mysterious story that keeps you guessing.


  • Great small town setting in the pacific north west
  • wears its Twin Peaks and Stephen King inspirations on its sleeve. If you like either of those you will love this game.


  • The right amount of scary/creepy.


  • A good personal story with a good amount of ambiguity.


  • A very fun cast of characters. Alan is great of course.


  • Solid puzzles.


  • episodes 5-6 are killer!


Negatives:
  • the idea of the combat is brilliant and cool at times but it feels unbalanced which makes it come across as clunky and slow.


  • episode 3 is a slog
  • too many forest sequences.


  • weird tonal shift in episode 4.


  • the episodic structure while cool and nostalgic for fans of shows like Twin Peaks makes the story a but disjointed.


Overall the game is great, just a few problems you might be able to attribute to it being older. I can see how in 2010 it would have been an easy 10, it just has not aged very well. Can't believe this was a 360 exclusive back in the day! Still looks great!
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