Last time we played a finished Remedy game Max Payne and Mona Sax were machine-gunning their way through hoodlums while exchanging whiskey-soaked comments dripping with an overblown Raymond Chandler wit. That was 2003, and in the years since the Finnish studio that gave us bullet time has been cobbling together Alan Wake. It moves away from the crime rings and nighttime streets of New York City to a fictional small town called Bright Falls with great results.
The protagonist, Alan Wake, isn't initially an action hero. He's a popular fiction writer attempting to escape the pressures of fame and creative expectation whose vacation in Bright Falls quickly turns Twin Peaks weird. His wife goes missing, and his search to find her is swiftly diverted into the realm of the paranormal, forcing him to pick up a gun and pull the trigger to stay alive. It's an adventure heavily informed by television shows like X-Files and Twilight Zone and horror fiction from Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. Presentation, character building, and plot twists take on just as big a role as the tightly wound action gameplay you'd expect from a Remedy title. The result is a swirling tale of fiction that's endearingly self-aware, that occasionally sputters and stumbles, but offers enough scares, laughs, and thrills to keep you hooked.
The story spans six episodes, each crafted like part of a TV miniseries. After the first episode's exposition each that follows ends with a cliffhanger, fades to a title screen (strangely without credits) as songs from the game's excellent licensed soundtrack play, and then transitions into a plot recap as the next begins. Even if episodic gaming isn't particularly original at this point, the style of the presentation fits with what Remedy is trying to accomplish here; delivering a videogame experience that feels like a novel presented as a TV show.
The protagonist, Alan Wake, isn't initially an action hero. He's a popular fiction writer attempting to escape the pressures of fame and creative expectation whose vacation in Bright Falls quickly turns Twin Peaks weird. His wife goes missing, and his search to find her is swiftly diverted into the realm of the paranormal, forcing him to pick up a gun and pull the trigger to stay alive. It's an adventure heavily informed by television shows like X-Files and Twilight Zone and horror fiction from Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. Presentation, character building, and plot twists take on just as big a role as the tightly wound action gameplay you'd expect from a Remedy title. The result is a swirling tale of fiction that's endearingly self-aware, that occasionally sputters and stumbles, but offers enough scares, laughs, and thrills to keep you hooked.
The story spans six episodes, each crafted like part of a TV miniseries. After the first episode's exposition each that follows ends with a cliffhanger, fades to a title screen (strangely without credits) as songs from the game's excellent licensed soundtrack play, and then transitions into a plot recap as the next begins. Even if episodic gaming isn't particularly original at this point, the style of the presentation fits with what Remedy is trying to accomplish here; delivering a videogame experience that feels like a novel presented as a TV show.
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