Interactive thriller
ReviewFirst and foremost, Alan Wake is a cinematic, story-driven drama that mirrors something that you'd likely see on primetime TV on a channel such as Sky 1 or HBO. It’s even laid out like a TV Show, split into episodes that end with a fitting conclusion and begin with a re-cap of the last show’s events.
If developer Remedy's goal was to create a compelling, interactive experience with strong story-telling at its very core then it's job done because Alan Wake possesses all of those things. Indeed, if it were a primetime TV show, there’s no doubt that we’d tune in every week.
It manages to blur the boundaries between a TV drama and a videogame in a number of ways. First up, the visuals really are stunning. The town of Bright Falls itself is highly detailed and very creepy and the woodlands surrounding it feel totally alive. Indeed every location, from eerie motels to abandoned wooden shacks, demand to be explored such is the feeling that you get that every place may hold a dark secret. Sometimes we just like to be frightened and Alan Wake plays on this emotion very well, particularly through use of light and dark which plays a huge part in the game’s visual appeal and helps to create the tense and thick atmosphere. Overall, this is a highly polished game, one of the finest on Xbox 360, that's despite it being let down somewhat by some poor, robotic facial animations during cut-scenes.
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