Alan Wake Preview

18 Feb 2010 at 19:14:17 by

Making an interesting protagonist is something Remedy Studios can do. There is no denying the success of Max Payne.  From a gaming perspective, Max Payne changed the way third person shooters work. Everything from Matrix-style "bullet time" mechanic to its gritty film noir setting made Max Payne a game people still talk about today, with its influence so great Mr Payne has now even made it to the silver-screen. Already being a bad-boy, renegade cop who knows his way around guns, he's a character who'll give you action from the word "Go".

Alan Wake, on the other hand, is a bit of an arsehole.  He's a self-obsessed writer who's been suffering from writer's block for a number of years, unable to produce anything of any significance.  His wife Alice decides to take him to the North Pacific town of Bright Falls in the hopes that he'll find something to inspire him. Bright Falls is beautiful, and as you come in on the boat to the town you can't but help admire the attention to detail in the game's enviornments. It's like floating into the set of Insomnia, knowing something sinister must lurk in the underbelly of its beauty.

On arrival to the town, Alice drops you off at the local diner to pick up the keys for the cabin she's booked while she fills the car with "gas". Walking in to the diner you get your first lessons in interactivity, and the importance of light and dark in the game. You can talk to anyone in the diner, interact with the jukebox and even pick up things like coffee flasks, but it's not until you go searching for the keys that the creepy, "psychological thriller" aspect of the game kicks in.

And it's important to note that this definition only serves to create an atmosphere rather than to scare outright. Like picking up the keys from a mysterious, black-clad woman lurking in the shadows outside the toilet instead of your contact. Like the eerie little cabin on the Cauldron Lake that you and Alice drive to, which has its electricity supplied by a generator at the "bottom of the garden." Like the sounds of Bright Falls at night, and by day, and the constant sense of solitude you feel as you're playing through the game. The game establishes a dark tone almost immediately and the soundtrack and visuals help to create an oppressive atmosphere.

The camera is a "documentary style" affair which sees the over-the-shoulder view respond in much the same way as a guerilla documentary filmmaker would shoot a film. There is a delay, a catch-up if you like, where it takes time for the camera to respond to Alan's movements. This is, by no means, a hindrance, nor does it affect the gameplay in a negative way, instead it adds to that feeling of desperation and confusion, immersing you deeper into the world of Wake. It's also a subtle parody of Wake's personality too - unsure about these new surroundings and confused as to why he's suddenly been made the victim. The use of music is brilliant, and there were occasions where I did flinch during the gameplay.

At first it's hard to relate to Alan Wake, with his tantrums and penchant for pointless arguments, but it doesn't take long to start appreciating his predicament - in the first five minutes of the game, he's lost his wife, he's been involved in a car crash and he's stumbling across a manuscript he can't remember writing. So he's living his story, and his story isn't a particularly nice one. The only way for Alan to make any sense of what's happened to him, his wife and his surroundings is to arm himself with his torch and a firearm of any description to literally shed light on the situation and hunt down the rest of the manuscript. This uncomfortable place Wake finds himself in makes him more endearing, and it's another great example of just how Remedy's Sam Lake is able to weave the fabric of a protagonist who's conflicted, troubled and lost.

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