July 6th, 2009

Alan Wake – Remedy Reveals Itself as a big Surprise

The new demo of Alan Wake –Remedy, as a thriller/horror game, comes with five big surprises that brings the game back into attention. Taking the structure feature of the game we find it to be deeply involved into tracking the characters, drawing their motivations and taking decisions as a player. In the note of a TV show, the game presents stages that are connected into narratives, with a coherent story telling experience that ends up to a conclusion of the episode. The player is given the chance to experiment more often due to the replayable version of the episodes.

Alan Wake events start in a mountain town when the darkness falls and bad things begin to appear. The character you play is lighting a torch and through the 5.1 channel surround you can hear the sound that almost stuns you. The graphics are very accurate representing the lit surroundings with a choice of real colors. Humanoid monsters suddenly appear and with the help of the bright light of the flare you can make them sizzle like vampires do in the sunlight. The lightening and its effects are very evocative as you keep using the flare in the darkness where monsters may appear if you don’t have light at all on you.

Alan and the other characters look very well designed with a facial animation, a blend of careful key-frame animation and capture of the motion that draw amazing sequences in the game. Not to mention the fact that every major object in the environment presents its own shadow over the surfaces of the displayed game. The atmosphere breathes horror through each and every pore of the game.

The series of events do not have sequences to be loaded, thus the player needing to deal with the plot form the beginning to its end. You are given different dark and dangerous places to pass through and in the end you get an SUV that helps you drive the cliff-side road located on top of the ocean followed by the tornado that you have to put up with. Here you get to a macro-level with details that worth appreciating combined with moments of normality that make the whole beauty of the game.

Alan Wake proves to be a compelling experience that one otherwise wouldn’t have thought to get after the five past years spent in the development and reworking of the technology of the themes. The feature of controls and motions look to be made in a logical manner, with an intense action, with an atmosphere of omen watching all over the place. Borrowing motifs from Stephen King, Sleepy Hollow and settings to belong to American gothic style, Alan Wake – Remedy reveals itself as a big surprise that put you through more original experiences.