Genre: Action/Third-Person Shooter
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Platform: Xbox 360, PC
Score: Best Game
“Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical to the poetry of fear.” –Stephen King
So begins Alan Wake, a game as inspired by the King of Horror as I am. Standing in the shadows of giants of the genre, it’s difficult to find your own voice. The ultimate success of Alan Wake is how it finds that voice and beckons us into the night. Despite a couple gameplay issues, a narrative evolves that should make any horror aficionado proud. Alan Wake is not just a great game but a great story told in a great way.
As the opening narration expands on the wisdom of King, the camera pans over a foggy Washington townscape. Atmosphere is where awesome stories start. The first mistake most horror games make is jarring their audience with immediate violence or shock value. Taking the time to build unease is what separates genre paragons like Alan Wake and Silent Hill 2 from lesser titles like Resident Evil 5 and Dead Space 2.
Once settled in, the video game proper begins. We’re given control of Alan inside a nightmare. Specifically, a tutorial cleverly disguised as exposition. You run from a monster or two, learn to shoot a gun, and master light as a weapon. A chase scene ends things nicely. Later you’re introduced to a few more characters that may or may not be important to the story. Spoiler: they are. No wasted movement here. The game then builds further atmosphere, adds to the stakes, and allows for exploration of a couple areas before things get real.
At first, I thought I’d quickly sweep over the plot of Alan Wake as a typical scary story – I had even mostly typed out a short synopsis: A Cthulhian presence is imprisoned in a lake and tries to escape by warping reality. Sure, it’s familiar, but that doesn’t matter because it’s told so well that etc., etc. But, after playing the game for one hour, I took back my almost written words. The plot is excellent and told well.
Alan Wake is a famous author vacationing with his wife Alice in the fictional town of Bright Falls. The Darkness lurking in Cauldron Lake has a bit of a fetish for starving artists, so when this self-absorbed creative rolls into town with a bad case of writer’s block, it perks right up. Subtly at first, but gaining momentum, The Darkness eventually tornadoes across town possessing people and animating objects. On top of this, Alan may have taken a flight over the cuckoo’s nest. He comes to after a car crash missing a week of his memory and holding a few pages from a manuscript he doesn’t remember writing. It describes events as they are unfolding. Finding Alice, collecting missing pages, and attacking The Darkness becomes his quest.
I’ve played through Alan Wake more times than any other game in the PS3/Xbox 360 era and I’m still finding layers. Something as simple as a quip about a carving in a stump provides poignant details only realized after the first playthrough. The amount of care put into the town of Bright Falls makes it a real place with real people. There’s an in-universe Twilight Zone-esque TV show to watch and the best collectible ever put in a game for a writer; coffee thermoses. Even the names used are often a pun, reference, joke, or allusion. I relish tidbits like this and was particularly pleased with all the different author names Agent Nightingale manages to call Alan. I won’t give spoilers but I will give a tip:
Take your time playing this story, lead writer Sam Lake and co. took their time in the telling.
Scenes comfortably sashay between thriller, action, horror, and rock concert. Populating the set pieces is a cast of more than one note archetypal rehashes (with one exception). For instance, Alan Wake himself has three distinct personas. There’s Narrator Wake and Darkness Wake (plus Mr. Scratch in the DLC) both with their own role and personality. The main persona, however, I call Wake Prime. It’s the version of Alan played by the gamer.
Flaws make for a more interesting character and Wake Prime has plenty. He makes the bad decisions he needs to, to drive a horror plot but has clear, realistic motivations. Brash social interactions and a recurring temper give the impression that Wake Prime is not a great human being; he is a bestselling author after all. One of my favorite qualities is his insomnia. I like how the details of his mental health aren’t explicitly stated. Hints like the thermoses and a few deft conversations imply he has struggles beyond writer’s block. There’s a subplot reveal involving Alice talking to a therapist on Alan’s behalf. Then Sam Lake and co. choose subtlety over heavy-handed narrative. Without saying too much, Alan’s inner struggle is externalized and gratifying gameplay segments follow as a bonus. As a story, it’s a genius act of subversion. With something outside of himself to fight and take the blame, Alan doesn’t have to confront what’s inside.
Great care was shown by Remedy Entertainment in choosing Matthew Charles Porretta (that’s right, Will Scarlet from Robin Hood: Men in Tights) as the voice of the eponymous character. With three versions of Alan, he’s heard a lot. An enjoyable dulcet is critical. Porretta is masterful and emotes each line with range and finesse – from conversational dialogue to reading manuscript pages in the menu. Porretta’s greatness in this game cannot be overstated.
Remedy’s keen casting extends throughout the entire game. Cult film star Mark Blum depicts Dr. Emil Hartman with a deliciously smug lilt to antagonize Alan. Benita Robledo is absolutely exuberant as Rose Marigold, one of the most sympathetic characters in Bright Falls. Even Barry Wheeler, the one note exception I mentioned earlier, is downright endearing through skillful voice acting. A clever script and two genius prop comedy bits help but it’s Fred Berman’s effortlessly charming portrayal that won me over. My Cousin Barry is a comedic relief sidekick trope that unabashedly revels in it until the audience has no choice but to join him.
Environments are beautifully realized from the opening cutscene to the fog that chokes the town. Scenery is animated with a ghostly human quality that infuses every forced nature hike with suspense. Multiple playthroughs later I still wonder if those shadowy limbs ahead are trees or an axe-murderer. Then the game shouts, “gotcha!” and an axe-murderer jumps me from behind. Also, the tree ahead is an axe-murderer too. It’s glorious. The thrills ebb and flow throughout. The spontaneous axe-man and other degrees of randomness while exploring are offset by planned encounters that are earned, built toward, and foreshadowed. Pacing is one of my personal focuses in storytelling and Alan Wake excels at.
Oh, right! Alan Wake has gameplay. So, I should review that too. It’s good.
You shine light at monsters and then shoot them or whatever. Flare guns are fun. There’s other stuff. You move around with the left analog stick. The camera doesn’t suck. Some people have taken issue with the jump feature or some other nonsensical, forced complaint. If this prohibits you from enjoying an interactive Stephen King novel, consider reading 50 Shades of Grey for its Shakespearean prose.
Alan Wake goes beyond being a great game, it’s a work of art. More than horror homage, it’s bona fide hero-worship that sits right there next to us on the couch paying respects to The Shining or laughing about evil Hitchcock Birds. More than a collection of horror tropes, name-dropping, and classic references, Alan Wake is its own beast. It’s a tapestry of nightmares and dreamscapes. A personal tale about the journey an artist takes during the creative process and the relationship between fiction and reality. On a deeper level, this game is about the struggle we have with ourselves.
From the Winsomnia.com Archives. Originally Published May 19, 2012.