When talking about Alan Wake, it seems mandatory to mention the game’s inordinately lengthy development period, but there’s a reason to discuss this not-insignificant amount of time other than for the fun of throwing numbers around.

Billed as a psychological action thriller (‘third-person action adventure with elements of horror’ is a less efficient, but also accurate, descriptor), Remedy’s latest title has by all accounts been in development for five years after being announced in 2005 - the studio’s last game, Max Payne 2, released at the end of 2003, and it’s entirely possible that the seeds for Alan Wake go back further than even that game.

But let’s keep it at five years. That’s a long time. For anything. For any endeavour of any kind. Five years, multiplied by the number of people who have touched, shaped and moulded this game, Alan Wake. Could this time have been used more productively? Perhaps. Would the world at large be any richer for efforts going towards a work that wasn’t Alan Wake? Maybe.

But let me tell you something.

If the folks at Remedy hadn’t spent the last five years crafting the game, Alan Wake, to mesmerise the rest of us, the videogame world would have been poorer for it, and after spending the hours necessary to wind, weave, battle and flow your way through the enthralling narrative and satisfying gameplay, you will similarly agree that Alan Wake was worth every moment of your time.

At the time of the story’s setting, Alan Wake, the character, is an author who’s written a half dozen best-selling horror novels, but is currently experiencing a bad bout of writer’s block. Wake and his wife, Alice, decide to take a nice vacation in the peaceful lake-side forest town of Bright Falls to get away from the city and perhaps reclaim some writing inspiration, but no sooner do the couple arrive at the town than strange and terrible things start to happen – Alice goes missing, the town is enveloped in a sudden darkness, and a number of the locals are overtaken by a sinister presence that turns them into powerful and dangerous enemies determined to kill Wake on sight.

In his desperation to figure out what exactly is going on and defend himself from these sinister beings, Wake soon discovers that these impossibly impenetrable beings can only be harmed with the power of light, and players are quickly armed with a flashlight, used to literally burn away the cloud of darkness protecting enemies, which then makes them vulnerable to attacks from a range of weapons such as handguns, rifles and shotguns.

This darkness can also be removed more explosively with flashbang grenades and shots with a flare gun, found later in the game, while the quick snap and spark of a handheld flare will keep enemies at bay for long enough to allow players a moment to collect their thoughts as a crowd of ‘Taken’ close in.

This constantly alternating gameplay mechanic, requiring players to first disarm their enemies before opening them up to attacks, works wonderfully and adds extreme tension to what would otherwise have been straightforward run-and-gun gameplay, even when there are only a handful of enemies slowly plodding towards you. Seeing the chaotic shadows twist and contort around enemies is a sight in itself, and burning these shadows away is highly satisfying, while finishing them off with a shotgun burst to the chest is doubly so.

Because combat can become decidedly close-range, Remedy have included a dodge mechanic to proceedings, allowing you to move out of the way of an enemy attack just in the nick of time, resulting in a cinematic slow-motion visual reward. At first, it’s pretty difficult to pull off this dodge manoeuvre, but once you get more confident in your abilities, it gets easier and could even be compared to Bayonetta’s dodge, only without the bullet-time advantage over your foes. If enemy attacks become a little too much to handle, it’s always recommended to run towards the closest flood of light that you can find, which acts as a safe haven against the dark presence.

Encounters with enemies can be frequent, as you wander your way through dense forests, abandoned towns, hiking trails, lodges, logging encampments and more, but emphasise is placed on exploration, even though Alan Wake is decidedly linear in progression. This isn’t a problem, however, as it feels as though the developers are more encouraging players to move around the expansive levels and investigate little side-paths (of which there are many) in order to find hidden secrets, as opposed to pushing and pulling players down the beaten path on a march towards the end. It never feels as though you’re rushing… well, except when a giant tornado is chasing you, but that only happens a few times…

Moving through the environments is half of the joy of Alan Wake, and a large contributor to the horror and scare factor. The excellent sound effects and dramatic music in the game punctuate both high action and tense moments of stillness, and when you’re standing in the middle of a deadly dark forest, stillness combined with unidentifiable noises just out of reach can be terrifying. The world of Alan Wake is oppressive, dense and foreboding, but like a great horror movie, the heroes (both you and Alan Wake) are constantly invited to investigate the depths of the unknown together, despite any feelings of trepidation.

Also helping to gently pull you through the game is that enthralling story and excellent characterisation. Alan Wake’s narrative is unbelievably spellbinding, all told through a number of devices – you may not even realise, at times, that you’re absorbing important pieces of information or backhistory through the game’s use of cinematics, flashback and dream sequences, radio and TV broadcasts, character conversations, voice-over during gameplay, and found pages of Wake’s mysterious manuscript that lies at the heart of the game.

The story isn’t even all that complicated, or filled with drastic twists and turns – it’s just amazingly well told, and holds your interest throughout by constantly feeding you small details, and then culminating in larger reveals. This plays into the game’s excellent ‘episodic’ nature – the game is split into ‘episodes’ (complete with endings and “Previously on Alan Wake” recaps to start the next episode), and in so doing, it’s almost guaranteed that not only will players not forget what is currently happening in the game, story-wise, but the recapping and retelling of the story (in different, interesting ways) also ensures players ‘get’ what’s currently going on, all done very cleverly and without being condescending in the least.

Alan Wake’s pacing is also helped dramatically with these small doses of story telling sequences, as extended rounds of ‘dark forest exploration’ can rattle the nerves of even the toughest gamer. Rounds of pitch-perfect humour readily deflate the tension bubble, with episodes of a television show called ‘Night Springs’ located around the world, and nods to Remedy’s Max Payne series showing up here and there. Great stuff! Pacing is also aided with brief (and extended) vehicle driving sections, a few environment puzzles and a chase scene or two, which mixes things up nicely.

So far, I’ve spoken completely positively about the experience of playing Alan Wake, because there’s hardly anything negative (that I can think of) to say about the game. Sure, I could probably compile a healthy list of minor annoyances (why is there that weird graphical ghosting on the edges of moving objects, and why is the lip-syncing and facial animation so mediocre?), but unlike other games, where bunches of problems add up to major troubles, the complaints I could come up with for Alan Wake are so disparate that, all told, they just don’t amount to much.

One thing I could say is that I was constantly disappointed with the way in which, at the end of certain sections of gameplay, the game would take away my equipment and force me to start the next section again from zero, even if I’d been saving up my shotgun and flare gun ammo for a particularly hairy enemy encounter. This equipment is quick to find again, so (once more) this criticism is a little hollow.

A story-related issue I have, however, is how the game can make entire objectives irrelevant simply because it suits the story to do so. An example would be that you’re told to make your way from point ‘A’ to point ‘B,’ but once you get to ‘B,’ whatever was important at that location is no longer important, and you need to continue on your path to ‘C.’ It would have been nice to get satisfying conclusions to long gameplay sections instead of story ‘dead-ends,’ but, again, this frustration is only momentary and simply means you’re able to get invested back into the adventure.

At this point in my mind, Alan Wake isn’t quite a modern videogame masterpiece, in the same vein as something like Bioshock, but upon further reflection in the weeks to come, it could quite easily settle itself into such high regard. Right now though, I feel the same way about Alan Wake as I do about Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2, in that it excels at everything it needs to excel at, and delivers an experience quite unlike anything videogame fans have seen before.

Call it a horror game, a blockbuster, a third-person adventure game or a ‘psychological action thriller,’ but in the end you’ve got a game that tells a mesmerising story better than almost anyone (if not everyone), provides satisfying gameplay that is constantly fresh, and leaves you with fantastic gaming memories in your mind and a feeling of ‘time well spent!’

While it’s not my place to say where and how other people should spend their time, and it’s not up to me to say whether or not other people should feel satisfied with their own work, I will say that the folks at Remedy should feel damn proud of their achievement in Alan Wake… even if it took five years to craft and create.

Highly recommended.

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