We discuss how Alan Wake evokes a sense of place and then loses us in it as we career to an never ending stream of distant lights. We end up seeing it as one of a very few grownup games that aren't embarrassing to be caught playing.

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Videogame Podcast Guests

Pre-Thoughts

Before the tape started rolling, here are our scribbled notes.

Andy Robertson - Family Gamer

Not the sort of story I would usually watch, being something of a horror light weight, but being a game I felt more comfortable with the experience than a film. Safer maybe.

The clincher for me was the length. It was long enough to enjoy but not too long to get through in a few sittings. This more drawn out experience, compared to a film, gave me the space to come to terms with the horror nature of the game. Rather than feeling beholden to what I was watching, I had the space to appreciate how it was working it’s horror magic.

I really connected with the way the game was split into episodes that each ended with a song. This was the strongest sense of progression I’ve had in a game. I wanted to play on to experience those end of episode moments. The problem was that these episodes were just too long, and a little unpredictable so my sessions often ended up straddling a couple and undoing some of the pacing.

Although the story was at times hammy and a little disjointed it never lost its sense of internal consistency. The foreshadowing by the manuscript pages worked well for me throughout and I enjoyed the whole conceit.

Alex Beech - Scared Gamer

I gushed about Alan Wake in my review but I have a couple of big complaints. The HUD was distracting (far to bright and always on) and the thermos flask of coffee ruined the tension by distracting from task of getting to safety and asking me to search for pointless trinkets.

I confess it has been some time since I last played Alan Wake but its effects remain with me. It’s in many ways far from the conventional ‘survival horror’ game. Unless the difficulty is cranked all the way to hard there is little of the typical inventory management, or scarcity of resources that usually hallmark the genre.

What really stayed with me however was the story and the darkness. I know some would argue that the story was a poor blend of media, book and game, but I thought how it was integrated worked wonderfully -- allowing for a brilliant pastiche on horror fiction.

Indeed the script itself foreshadows its own cliches with all of its talk of Steven King at the start. I understand the manuscript pages that revel upcoming events (more heavy handed foreshadowing) may not be to everyone's taste, and could easily ruin tension, but for me (given the nature of the ‘action’ horror/panic over tension) knowing a hard area was coming without knowing exactly when remained effective and unnerving.

I liked the idea that creative people ruled the world of Alan Wake, with their medium being how they shaped it. It plays well in to the narrative, especially in the later stages and the second piece of DLC which truly capitalise on Alan’s affect on the world through his writing.

Darkness was effective through out Alan Wake, more so than in any other game I can think of (maybe bar Amnesia). The safety of being in light played well against distant dangers. There was little scarier than approaching light while being chased as the obscured enemies grew ever more shadowy.

Mark Clapham - Story Gamer

Alan Wake has an absolutely brilliant sense of place. The feeling of the American wilderness is creates is hugely compelling. This is accentuated by the stunning vistas that enable you to look across the landscape to the foreboding Mirror Peak.

But it's not just nice to look at, it creates a beautifully lonely setting. Being lost in the dark, with the night radio playing in forest shacks is an experience to remember for many years.

This has been said, but there are a lot of very valid criticisms. Not just the repetitive nature and enemies of the gameplay but also the pretentious story make the game just too rough round the edges for some people.

And besides, what does the Dark Presence want with a hack horror writer anyway? Couldn't it have gone for a better writer?

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