It’s not often I can say that a horror narrative has truly frightened me. Being a long time fan of the genre in all of its forms, I’ve become rather desensitized to its conventions. While I do occasionally fall victim to a Resident Evil style ‘jump scare’, it takes something special to really unsettle me. True horror should linger in your mind long after the 360 cools down and Alan Wake, I am both pleased and disturbed to say, does just that.
You play as the title character, a bestselling crime author that with a prolonged case of writer’s block. After a dream sequence that introduces you to the mechanics of the game, you spend much of your time in a sleepy little town called Bright Falls. Your wife, Alice, thought it would be a nice little getaway. However, we’ve all read enough books to know that an author should never take a holiday to a sleepy little town because bad things always ensue.
You lose your wife on day one and spend the rest of the game searching for her with a lingering suspicion that she is dead. As you progress, you find pages from a manuscript which usually foreshadow something bad happening to you or the townspeople. To add another layer of creepy, you are the supposed author of the story, but have no recollection of writing it. The plot isn’t just a vehicle to get you to the next scare. It plays with the touchstones of the genre, drawing obvious inspiration from the work of Stephen King. One of the characters is named Pat Maine, in honour of the US state in which many of King’s stories take place.
What kept me playing past my bedtime was the desire to delve ever deeper into the mystery. What happened to Alice? What’s the deal with that manuscript? Alan Wake is broken up into television style episodes, and I often found myself striving towards these stylish intermissions. Like television, the end of each episode has a big reveal and the beginning of the next instalment recaps what has happened so far.
Another significant part of this story, and the one which instils the most terror, is the dark presence which lurks within the town. This evil force can manifest itself as objects (from fridges that fling themselves at you to ‘Christine’ style possessed tractors that attempt to run you down) and locals consumed by the darkness, known as the Taken.
It’s when you’re attacked by the Taken that the game becomes truly scary. The main characters can look somewhat stilted, but the environment is almost a character in itself. By day, you know you are safe, the darkness cannot get you. However, the pine trees, wooden cabins and winding roads still have a slight menace to them. When night falls, your surroundings act as an evil figure ready to pounce. Once you see that familiar blurred vision, hear the whistling of wind and the accompanying eerie score, you know the Taken are coming. It’s at these moments that your toes curl up in anticipation for the slow motion cinematic that sees you surrounded by these shadowy figures.
The game mechanics are more than serviceable. An interesting facet of the gameplay is the integration of the torch. Not only does it provide much needed illumination during dark and gloomy nights, it is actually very difficult to kill the Taken without one. The most common method of dispatching your foes is to bathe them in light to remove the darkness before finishing them off with a gun. Torch batteries become just as valuable as ammunition as you progress through the game.
Although you pick up various weapons throughout Alan Wake, you never get to a point where you feel invincible. You’re always reminded that you are just an average guy who has found himself in a desperate situation. There isn’t a huge array of cool guns or an unlimited supply of ammo and there are plenty of points in the narrative where you find yourself bereft of any kind of weapon.
Cars and pickups, which you’ll need to driver in order to reach certain checkpoints, can also be used to dish out some serious punishment. It’s the only time you feel safe in the dark as you chuck on your high beams on and smash through your shadowy enemies. Both the driving and the shooting components are quite intuitive, resulting in an enjoyable, rather than frustrating experience.
Adding to the tension is just how fast the Taken are, and importantly, just how slow you are. Once, when struck by the realisation that I was surrounded by the Taken and out of ammo, I knew the only option I had left was to run to the nearest skerrick of light. The Taken don’t run at you, they dart. Within a short distance my run had slowed to a walk and I was heaving for air. I was encouraging Alan to join a gym when I was struck with an axe.
The game’s strength lies in its story and its ability to immerse you in Wake’s nightmare world. Like a good film, the open-ended conclusion leaves you wanting to share your interpretations with someone else who has played the game. If you were a fan of the horror genre, but not of video games, this might be the game to convert you.
