Thursday 8 July 2010

Alan Wake Review!!!

Today I'm gonna review Alan Wake. But first I'll do a synopsis of the storyline for those who haven't heard of it. Basically you are a writer called Alan Wake, who writes horror/adventure books.First you have an encounter with the darkness in a dream which is actually your tutorial. You go to a place called Bright Falls and you seem to be going on holiday (Don't worry no spoilers). You meet people, go to your house and then all the lights go out. I'll leave it there so I don't ruin the storyline.

The basic idea of the game is that you fight darkness with light, and you do this usually with a flashlight (As you progress you get more powerful ones) and a revolver or a shotgun. You have to break down the defences of the "Taken" (Yeah a pretty bad name for an enemy) by shining the flashlight at them. When you have them vulnerable you can then dispatch them pretty quickly with the revolver or shotgun. A nice little addition to the game was the introduction of the flare-gun, flares and flash bangs. When you're in a bad situation (and I think its better to save these just for this) and you're surrounded by 5 or 6 taken, but theres still some distance between you, the flare is your best friend. You can use the flare to slow their approach and also take down their defences at the same time, meaning that you don't have to waste your precious batteries for your flashlight. This also gives you some breathing space, although the "Flare and Run" technique is used quite a lot in this game by people who wanna finish the game in 3-4 hours tops.

The flare gun is the most powerful gun Ive seen in the game so far, (I'm only 3/4 through the campaign) and that's why you barely ever get it, and when you do, prepare for A LOT of the Taken to be around the next corner. The flare gun is useful for long range or short, this is because any Taken that gets caught in the light will be thrown away as if it was nothing. Picture this. Theres a line of v.strong fallen sprinting (or walking as fast as they can) towards you. But they're all standing close together. Hit the middle one with the flare gun and the fights gonna be either them all dead, or one or two with no shields. Useful right?

The flash bang is powerful and good for when you're getting hacked to pieces by Taken who are standing right next to you. You're about to die and instinctively throw a flash bang at you're feet. If you're lucky (as there is a small delay as you would expect from a grenade) the flash bang will go off before anymore of the Taken kill you. Thus the flash bang explodes and kills the 3-4 taken that where surrounding you. Very lucky.

With all these tools you must think that this must be a breeze. You're wrong. The game is still difficult, offering puzzles that you have to complete and Taken that work as a team. The AI is good, especially when you've got someone else with a flashlight and a shotgun. When you encounter a Taken boss its quite difficult, as its not only going to be a boss. No its not as easy as that. Usually he brings about five of his strongest friends with him, so you have to be fast, show some intelligence and some good shooting as you don't get cross hairs. This is only campaign so don't expect some weird multiplayer like one person's Wake and the rest are Taken.But there is an opportunity that Remedy and Microsoft Game Studios missed here. 4 player co-op waves of Taken getting harder and harder, but each level you pass you get to go to a new zone where theres more ammo and equipment. Sounds a bit like COD 5 zombies eh? but it would have been even better. If anyone from Remedy reads this make it DLC PLEASE? It has the opportunity to improve the game tenfold.

My Overall rating of the game is at least an 8/10. Could have been scarier (BTW I haven't been on nightmare mode yet so i might be completely wrong) and there's no wave style 4 player co-op. But this game has a great storyline, a good combat system, although the dodge can be hard to master. Good AI. A good all round game. Defiantly worth buying, but not right away, its just not at that level that's a must buy like COD. But remember the game is good, and just because you haven't heard about it much compared to Halo Reach or Medal of Honour doesn't mean its not popular. Just buy the damn game.

Next post: An update of this weeks new releases and if there looking good or not.

No comments: