Review by: Jeff McAllister

Alan Wake has been in development for longer than some game studios have existed and while some thought it was never going to see the light of day, here we are, six years later, and Remedy Entertainment has finally released the game that follows the title character as he tries to unravel the mysteries of a backwater town called Bright Falls and the darkness that seems to be controlling the very nature of everything around him.

Alan is a New York based writer that has released a series of best-selling books launching him to fame and fortune, but over the past couple of years has had a serious case of writer’s block and has been unable to follow up his previous successes. His wife Alice has the idea of taking him to the quaint town of Bright Falls where he might be able to relax, away from the big city, and maybe finally put pen to paper. The little town seems nice enough, but as they get settled into their cabin, Alice suddenly goes missing – apparently drowning ten minutes after arriving – and Alan wakes up in a car crash a week after diving into the water to save her.

Once you get your bearings after the crash, you find yourself in a dense forest, in the middle of the night – this is where you will find yourself for most of the game in fact – being stalked by mysterious shadow figures that lurk just outside of the light. You soon realize that these “Taken” as they are called, are out for blood and will stop at nothing to see you dead. While the “darkness” can overtake a person’s body and even inanimate objects, a concentrated beam of light can defeat it. This is where your weapons come in.

For protection, Alan uses a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. Be it a revolver, shotgun, rifle or even a flare gun, he needs something to finish off the Taken once he has worn them down with a source of light. When he gets attacked by train cars or large wire spools, the light simply makes the objects vanish into thin air, so why the people still stick around is odd in itself.