Re: The Official Alan Wake Discussion Thread!
Phew! Sorry I couldn't post a hands on impression last night. I guess I got too immersed into playing this game.
So now that we finally get to play the game that had been in development for 5 "f*ckin" years, it's time to asses if it's worth the wait or not. I am merely posting my initial impression from the first episode of the game. Let's get down to the spooky stuff now, shall we?
Most of us probably know the story of what Alan Wake is all about, or at least have a rough idea about it. In a nutshell, it's centred around Alan Wake, an popular writer who visits a small town called "Bright Falls" with his wife, Alice, for a vacation. Alan hasn't written a book in the last 2 years and to get rid of this "writer's block" issue, his wife recommends that he take this trip. Shortly after arriving at their Cabin near Claudron Lake, Alice disappears without a trace. Alan now has to find out where she is and what exactly happened. This is not the only concern which Alan has to deal with, but some mysterious things keep happening on the way. Alan starts seeing these dark mysterious shadow like people who are apparently, a part of his unwritten book. Now Alan has 2 things on his hand; his wife's disappearance and these mysterious shadow like people.
The story doesn't really begin this way. The game is more like a jigsaw puzzle which has been scattered throughout and various bits and pieces are branched together in each episode. So you'll be confused on many occasions as to what the hell is going on and where is the story actually going. It's like playing a TV series based game. It could very well be a TV show too. You get to see the recap of previous episode at the beginning of a new episode.
The gameplay is very straight forward. You already known it's tag-line, "Light reveals the truth". So yes, light is a major element of the gameplay out here. Most of the action (and horror) happens during the night time. You'll have a flash light which you can aim at oncoming foes to blind them and then shoot with your pistol. This is as far as offensive moves are concerned. In the defensive corner, we can only duck and dodge. So if the heat is on, just haul ass off. You also get a shotgun and a Flare Gun. You health regenerates normally, but you can also revive yourself by standing near a light source. You don't have an abundant health supply, so take 2-3 hits from those axe wielding maniacs and you're dead. A slo-mo occurs on the last hit that every enemy takes.
Graphics are stunning. No doubt Remedy had a huge burden on them to deliver a great looking game on the 360, thankfully, it has turned out to be the best looking game on the 360. The daytime reflects the best possible time of the game to get a good look at Bright Falls. Night has made brilliant use of dynamic lighting effect and soft shadows. The environment adds a great deal of spooky feeling and it's successfully delivered. The play with lights is absolutely brilliant. You can even witness the foggy weather conditions and even when the wind just starts gushing all the dust across. Downsides would include lack of AA, minor tearing issues, rare frame rate issues and colour shimmering issues off characters when camera is rotated at high speed. Motion blur has been added to perpetually mask the slow frame rates.
Now for something which I found extremely kick ass about this game; the audio. OMG! This game just begs to be played in a surround sound environment. I feel like kicking myself in the nuts for not getting a 5.1 channel speakers. Any fan of the survival horror/psychological thriller genre, would vouch for the fact that sound is a major part of it. This game is absolutely brilliant when it comes to delivering those chilling pieces of sound. You can clearly hear those crickets, wind rustling the trees, the sound of sickle that the enemies throw at you and even the owl sounds at night. The soundtrack is fantastic. You get to hear a melodious track at the completion of each episode.
Additional collectible items include coffee Thermoses and manuscripts of Alan's (unwritten) book. I'm taking my own sweet time with this game and collecting all these items along the way. So each episode is turning out to be quite a long ride. This is just a brief impression of my game, so it's still a long way to go before we can come to final conclusions. So far, the game has lived up to it's hype and expectation. One major advice for anyone and everyone playing this game, PLEASE PLAY IT ONLY AT NIGHT.
