Alan Wake Remastered – Spotlight
Alan Wake, the erstwhile Xbox exclusive psychological thriller, is finally finding its way to modern platforms as Alan Wake Remastered, more than a decade after its original release. Existing fans will be able to savour the nostalgia and relive a cherished title from the past, which is now looking better than ever. However, new gamers accustomed to best-in-class third-person narrative adventures may be left scratching their heads and wondering what all the hype is about when Alan Wake releases in 2021.
Pros:
Stellar atmosphere
Great writing & presentation
Good story and setting
Cons:
Combat needs some getting used to
Score – 9/10
The game starts with a dream scenario, which serves as a way to teach you how to fight without being openly telling you it’s a tutorial. After that’s out of the way, the storey proper begins: Alan Wake is a thriller author who travels to a log cabin in Bright Falls, Washington with his wife to get away from his writer’s block. She hopes the lovely surroundings would inspire him to be more creative, and it may, but not in the way she expects.
Things quickly deteriorate as Alan unnecessarily chastises his wife for purchasing him a typewriter to motivate him, and then his wife is abducted by mystery powers before you can say, “Hey Alan, cool down, it’s only a typewriter.” After an apparent accident, our protagonist awakens behind the wheel of a car. Was it all a figment of my imagination? Was his wife actually in love with him? Do you know if she’s still alive? Why are the residents of Bright Falls so strange?
All of these questions, and more, become the game’s driving force and most powerful card to play. It has a Twin Peaks air to it, with weird characters who irritate you despite their apparent friendliness and an isolated wooded environment that feels far enough away from a big population centre to make you fear that all kinds of horror could happen before aid arrives. Like a television show, the game is divided into chapters, replete with a superfluous “Previously on…” at the start, a title screen, and music at the finish.
For the most part, Alan Wake shines in terms of atmosphere. Unfortunately, playing Alan Wake is a dreadful, monotonous chore, and many gamers will be frustrated by the bits in between the set pieces. Combat is so bad that it would be better if it wasn’t featured at all. As you travel from one cookie-cutter area to the next, you’ll encounter waves of copy-paste enemies who require nearly identical methods to beat, over and over again.
This no-frills remaster is the best method for existing fans to play the 2010 game on newer consoles, but much of the game simply doesn’t hold up in 2021. Alan Wake doesn’t work as a horror game because it’s not scary, as a thriller because vast portions of the game are extremely uninteresting, or as an action game because the gameplay is uninspired and repetitive without the advantage of nostalgia. There’s an intriguing central mystery here, but you’ll have to walk through hell to find it, much like Alan Wake.
