A game that's focused on being the light in the darkness is one that has very bright moments of brilliance among a pile of flaws. Okay, I needed to let that weird and probably inaccurate metaphor out of my brain. Let's actually break this down.

I got into Alan Wake by recommendation of my brother and any fan of Remedy's games I could find on the internet. So I decided to finally give it a shot! After FFVII Rebirth I wanted to play some shorter games to wind down from such a massive RPG.

Now, after playing it, my usual reaction to anyone who told me to try it out is a mix of “Why? Why would you make me do this?” and “I genuinely understand the vision, and I share it as well".

And that is born from the fact that playing the actual videogame is not very fun. And while I found the idea of having to break enemies' guards with a flashlight first before being able to damage them (not counting flare gun shots and flashbangs) very cool at first, I feel like as the game goes by, the concept starts becoming very repetitive as most enemy encounters feel the same. It quickly starts to become very, very annoying. Specially when you have the entire army of darkness throwing homing axes and machetes at you that you usually have to avoid by using the most unreliable dodge button ever put in an action game.

However, every time I would get into a section of the game where I could just watch the story unravel, read a manuscript, listen to a radio show, or watch the characters interact, it was delightful. It's a bizarre story that's surprisingly funny (whether it's intentional or not) at times, with interesting ways of preparing its plot twists and making the player believe they are going just as insane as Alan himself is.

What I'm trying to say, is that 1. I don't think that Alan is as unlikeable as a lot of people led me to believe, while he gives an awful first impression. It takes having to interact with a friend that has a creative hobby, whether it is writing, animating, drawing, you name it, you quickly come to realize that being creatively blocked fucking sucks, and I can also speak from experience with that. And 2. Barry is absolutely GOATED, I wish I had half of his charisma.

At the end of the day, even if I had my complaints with the gameplay itself, I found myself in more situations where I would go, “Oh, this is why people love these games,” and I want to see more of it. Soon I'll go into the DLCs, and maybe later this year, both Control and the direct sequel because I HAVE to know more.