For as anticipated and delayed as Alan Wake was, I was expecting something amazing. Something that made the horror genre actually relevant in gaming again.
What I got was a bumbling, boring, frustrating and convoluted game in it's place.
The problem with the game wasn't writing. The story was actually pretty interesting and it was the only thing that kept me playing as long as I did. They also had a really unique idea to tell the story they way that they did and sort of "live" the story that the writer wrote. Very self-aware.
What did bother me about the cutscenes in particular was how crappy the animations were for mouth movement. Grand Theft Auto 4 and even Mass Effect from 2007 made Alan Wake's facial animations look stupid. I'm not even somebody that complains about graphics all that often, either. One of my most favorite games is Shadowrun and that game's graphics are below average for the 360.
But, if I'm expected to take a game's story seriously, you can't afford to have that large of distractions going on when the story is being told.
I haven't even told you anything about the gameplay and I already have big complaints. So, here it goes.
The gameplay sucks. And by "sucks" I mean "they spent this long on the game and couldn't come up with anything better?"
So the idea is that everybody you fight is consumed by "darkness" so they need to have lights on them to rid the darkness, and then you kill them with a gun most of the time. If you try to shoot them before their darkness has been.. killed by lights, then it doesn't do any damage. I could understand shining a light to weaken or stun them, but shining flashlights on enemies being your primary and required method of attack? OK? What is this game offering me that I couldn't do at any time? Shining flashlights at things being your primary method of attack in a game is not a fun idea at all. Using cool guns, weapons or things that you couldn't pull out of your closet and use on anybody with no consequences are fun.
At the point I stopped playing, the pipes and steel beams on a bridge were possessed by darkness, and throwing themselves at me. Really? Fighting pipes and steel beams with a flashlight? What the hell kind of game is this? Not to mention there are points in the game where you have to shine your light on these dark pools of.. gel or whatever they are until they disappear or else you can't walk past them. That's fun, right? Stand in one place and shine a flashlight at the floor for a few seconds... best idea evar.
Wrestling with controls in any game, with this many buttons and with the experience designers should have in playing games, is completely inexcusable. Alan Wake's controls were designed by an amateur.
A big part of any game is being able to evade attacks or simply run when you need to. In Alan Wake, running and dodging are pretty much the same thing. So, you have to get used to pressing run when an enemy is about to chop your face with an axe, and then realize you can't run for more than about 30 yards before you get too tired and jog at a ridiculously slow rate.
Running and jumping one after the other is a lot harder than it needs to be, too. At one point there was a jump across a river I was sure I could make, so I tried. I sprinted and pressed jump right as I approached the ledge. My character stops right before the ledge, stands still, then jumps off, as if to say "Whoa, there's a ledge! Stop running or you'll fall off! Okay, now jump.. Ahhh!!"
Not to mention, for being a "horror" game, it's not the least bit scary. There's no moments of suspense, not even cheap jump-scares or anything. Not even much of an effort to make you paranoid of enemies.
Maybe they thought you'd be horrified at how your character is completely incapable of acting on adrenaline and being able to fight back, actually dodge attacks instead of running away or run away for a long enough time to matter? If that's what they thought, then they don't know what makes a good horror game.
Think back to Silent Hill. What was scary about that game? Music/audio, crazy visuals, paranoia, weird story material, and an overall environment that made you unstable.
What's scary about Alan Wake? A forest? No. Enemies that are all human and talk in varying pitches of voice? Um, not really. Music/audio? No.. actually they are pretty unremarkable. Paranoia? No, not really because you're warned about a battle right before it starts.
It's like they wanted to tell a story about something but forgot to also make it a fun GAME. Note to game makers everywhere: if you have a good story, great. But you need to primarily make a game that people want to play. Play Alan Wake for about 2 hours and you're going to experience pretty much all that game has to offer. If you can stand boring gameplay, then go ahead and play the whole thing. But.. I want more.
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