A good horror game knows how to balance darkness and light for effect, mood or even gameplay. I’ve never seen this concept executed better than in Alan Wake, a new Xbox 360 exclusive that hit stores today. Though I spent more time with another new game, Red Dead Remption today, Alan Wake made the bigger impression – which is not something I would have predicted before heading out to the store this morning.

Alan Wake is a survival horror game, which basically means you don’t play some over-powered superhero mowing down the supernatural, it means you play a vulnerable hunk of flesh trying to make it in a world gone mad. More like high concept survival horror like Silent Hill and that Japanese one with the camera than Resident Evil, Wake puts the focus on storytelling, atmosphere and mood. It overfocuses though and shares Max Payne’s gift for overdone writing and I mean that literally. Wake is the type of game that shows a your character react to the fact that a body has disappeared and then have the character narrate, “The body was suddenly gone!” It’s annoying, it’s constant, but more for me maybe because I’m a writer and nobody who has seen The Shining needs to hear it referenced when a bad guy is chopping a hole in a door with an axe.

Wake feels like one of those Stephen King style “a writer is being attacked by his characters?” style stories that makes great use of the Pacific Northwest and both light and dark. I’m only at the beginning but the excellent tutorial (yay! Gameplay right away) is genius. The enemy(s) are covered and protected by darkness and you have to use a light source to bleed the dark from them so they can be shot. The result is a horror game filled with inky pools of darkness and bright spots of light, a shoddy flashlight and limited ammo. Even if you’re not panicked by what’s happening, the combat and action always feels panicked and that’s great game design.

Also, as a writer who just had a book rejected the part – in the tutorial – where the bad guy mocks your character’s writing is just … cruel.  Good stuff! And despite the overwriting I found myself riveted, even when learning the controls and during early exploration downtime. I have this dreadful habit of stop/starting story games until they finally grab me around the 20% mark. Not this time, I’m already intrigued and curious for more. I just hope it sustains itself but from what I hear, it does and that’s wonderful.

Also, it’s T-Teen and seems like that’s where it should be. If you have an under 14 who is reading adult material or comfortable with Japanese or ghost story (non-gory) horror, there’s very little to be concerned about here.  Some minor bad language (Hell, Damn), a reference to tobacco and alcohol and enough – but not too much – violence. The bad guys I’ve encountered so far have been axe murderers, but the darkness and sound only imply the hewing of human beings. Blood has its place in horror, but isn’t needed in a place where the darkness – inky and murky and everywhere – can be scarier than any body fluid.

Tags: Game Reviews