After experiencing a taste of what Remedy games have to offer, and because the general premise of Alan Wake sounded interesting to me (a writer whose work on a horror story comes to life), I decided to check out the remaster of the original game. Thankfully the remaster had just recently come out (well, relatively speaking). As far as I’m aware it’s the definitive way to experience the game, as it’s just the original Xbox 360 title but with improved visual features and 60fps. I was also looking forward to Alan Wake 2 afterward because it was a survival horror game (which is right up my alley) instead of an action thriller like the original, and because of how much praise it was getting. I won’t spend too much time on the plot as a lot of elements I didn’t understand until I read up on it via wiki pages and whatnot, but it was at the very least intriguing. Remedy is good at creating worlds you start to get sucked into the more you play through them, and this one is no different. As the game goes on you begin to question unfolding events the further you go. Granted, the manuscript pages you collect completely spoil later events that happen in the story, just in a haphazard order which is kind of bizarre. This game unironically also has Kingdom Hearts-esc dialogue and I love it for that. I kid you not towards the end of the game Alan starts going on about light and darkness like he’s arguing with Organization 13. Also Barry Wheeler rules, he’s just a mini Enzo who’s also Alan’s manager. Best character in the entire game. There were also mentions of TiVo in this story of all things which made me remember “Oh yeah this was made in 2010, forgot about that”. I guess if anything else, props to Alan Wake remastered for reminding me that TiVo is a thing that existed.

This game is the textbook definition of “flawed but fun”. The combat works but it’s a complete mess in a lot of different areas. You have to shine a light on the enemies and hold it on them until it breaks their shield, to which you can fire at them with regular guns and remove them from the equation. It gets a bit repetitive having to do the same technique repeatedly, especially with how long it takes to remove darkness shields from enemies. Still, in regular 1v1 encounters, it’s perfectly fine. You even get a variety of different weapons: close-range shotguns, hunting rifles, a flare gun, and flares. What’s odd about the weapons in this game is that you don’t keep them between chapters. You sort of just…lose all your equipment and get them back one by one at the beginning of a new chapter. You’re even able to swap weapon variants out at points; like you can swap between a pump action shotgun or a double-barreled shotgun at designated locations, and you can even change out the shotgun you have for a hunting rifle. There are extra collectibles in this game as well, but they aren’t anything to write home about sadly. Outside of the aforementioned manuscript pages, the coffee thermoses just exist for the sake of having things to collect, nothing more. They’re achievement fodder, and if you miss one beforehand (and you will), you’ll start to care about a majority of the other thermoses out there less and less. There’s just really no point in picking them up as they have nothing to offer outside of intrinsic achievement value.

The gunplay in this game is weird in that you don’t aim like a traditional shooter, the game sort of autoaims for you. This has admittedly been somewhat finicky for me as there have been times when I’ve readied my weapon but the gun still misses the enemy even when I’m facing directly at them, which is frustrating. Some things are just plain unfun to go against, such as the possessed objects that can only be destroyed by shining your flashlight on them and require that you use the dodge mechanic which…feels more like a drunken stumble than anything else. There are also the groups of shadow crows where you just need to shine your light on them to get rid of them, except that if you do it for too long they fly away and group up for another attack, meaning you need to kill them in one go or you need to wait for them to come back around.

However, I think the biggest fault with the combat lies in the structure itself. The gunplay is primarily designed for one, maybe two enemies at a time. When there are multiple groups of enemies onscreen this game completely falls apart and crumples under the pressure. The only way you’re realistically dealing with a group of enemies is either with the flare gun which can wipe out a group in one go, or with flashbang grenades which…pretty much do the same thing. The overly drawn-out flashlight takes a considerable amount of time to burn away the darkness shield for one enemy: in a large group it’s far too easy to get ganged up on. Granted simply shining your flashlight on a single enemy temporarily stuns them so there is a slight element of multitasking, but it’s just not enough. What’s even worse, I’ve often had recorded instances of enemies completely blindsiding me offscreen, either with some random axe that I would NEVER see coming or with a taken itself. Like, there was one time when the camera focused on 2 taken enemies coming towards me so that I could prepare, and then some random taken came up from behind me and completely cheapshot blindsided me unrelated to these other two. There is a way to know when there are enemies outside of Alan’s camera view but it’s way too subtle to even be noticeable. Not helping things is the sprint, it’s legit almost as bad as Sebastian’s sprint in The Evil Within 1. It’s not QUITE as bad but it’ll start to get on your nerves in the long run.

Outside of that though, I did still managed to enjoy myself for what it’s worth. I don’t think I’d replay this game again unless it’s years down the line; it’s incredibly flawed and is more of a “one and done” affair to me, but still: I didn’t hate it at all. It was repetitive and pretty rough around the edges at times (even on a technical level, I saw the giant red "missing mesh" error cubes inserted in geometry and just thought it was part of the actual game) but I still managed to finish it completely and even played the DLC afterward (which thankfully comes packaged with the remaster). If I were going to get to Alan Wake 2 eventually, this would simply be the necessary step forward.

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