Alan Wake takes us to the small mountain town of Bright Falls where we find the title character and his wife, Alice, who are on a holiday to help Alan, a successful author, who has a severe case of writer’s block. Not long after their arrival, Alice goes missing and Alan sets out to find her, along the way discovering some dark truths about both the history of Bright Falls and himself.
The story, while trying not to give too many spoilers, sees our protagonist, Alan, for the most part stumbling through the woods of Bright Falls by night and by day trying to piece together what happened to his wife, all the while meeting the eccentric and interesting towns folk. As plain as that sounds, the writing in this story is amazing, solid and worthy of novelization, even the levels, which for the purposes of the story telling are called “Episodes”, each begin with a “Previously on Alan Wake” re-cap, which fits so well into the Twin Peaks style universe being created.
Alan’s movement through the woods, mountains and town streets seem natural enough for someone who spends most of his time in front of a type writer however he seems to become short of breath after running about 10 metres, even a writer can do more than that (this writer can, at least). When encountering the Taken, townspeople consumed by an evil force, his abilities with firearms seem beyond that of someone who has never held a gun before. That aside, the combat is competent, well, enough for a survival horror game, Alan’s ability to dodge attacks, while reminiscent of Alex Shepherd’s from Silent Hill: Homecoming, is very welcome as there are times when the Taken have Alan overwhelmed. While Alan does have guns at his disposal, when he can find them, his greatest weapon is his flashlight, shining your torch on the Taken weakens them immensely and leaves them open to be finished off by a few rounds. Batteries become more important than bullets, trust me.
The look of the game is wonderful, setting the atmosphere superbly, the soundtrack wouldn’t feel out of place on a big budget television drama series, the voice acting is on the level of Uncharted 2 and the characters are believable and likable, even though you may not think so from the beginning. Unfortunately this makes it even more obvious when characters make odd gestures and clip through desks and other objects, including themselves. It is a small thing but as soon as someone tells you the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows it is the only thing you can notice.
This is one of the greatest episodic narratives that I’ve been privileged to witness and the fact that it is a video game and therefore interactive makes its so much more than any TV show could be. Everything comes together well, the story, the look, the gameplay (minus aforementioned foibles), the sound, into something that’s going to make the more recent Silent Hill games run for the hills. I’m often asked why I don’t watch television, I can now point at my copy of Alan Wake and say “Because I’ve been waiting for this.”
Racoon hails all the way from Australia, where he can be found owning many games consoles and sometimes making very, very bad drawings. 
