The Bad Trip

Alan Wake tells the story of a famous author who is ironically struggling with writer's block. While on vacation with his wife in the remote town of Bright Falls, a series of... unnatural events occur, the foremost being his wife's disappearance. His search begins with a torn-up manuscript: signed and titled by Alan himself. The kicker? He can't ever remember writing it. Upon collecting more pages in his search, he realizes that he is the now the main character in this phantom novel's storyline. Every time you acquire and read a lost page, you get a hint or clue as to what is going to happen next. As he travels throughout this mountainous village, he meets new people and attempts to share his story with him. But how to explain his situation without being feared insane? Was he alone? Is this solely happening to him? Or is this a plague on all of Bright Falls? What about his wife? Ultimately: What's going on!?

The second in my psychological thriller category, Alan Wake presents a lot more interaction than Heavy Rain, my last blog post. The player is capable of aiming and firing both a flashlight and a pistol (as well as several other weapons) in order to beat back the darkness that besiege him. Traveling through a somewhat funneled, yet open environment, the player is urged to take the "other route" in order to look for collectibles and manuscript pages, which, in turn, only tantalize them to return to the main route and progress the story that they are simultaneously reading. An interesting take on the new thriller genre of gaming, Alan Wake is a challenging and (quite literally) dark story that forever leaves you asking "Why?" However, this game does a remarkable job of reminding us that the best stories are the ones that don't make sense.