WHEN WE FIRST started hearing about this game back in 2005 I was seriously stoked. The in game screenshots, which we were assured without any shadow of a doubt, were generated by the fully functioning, in game engine…they were breathtaking. Lush vegetation, crystal clear water, intense sunlight streaming in through the vibrant pine tree’s. And then it dropped off the face of the Earth for three years. Leaving us all gobsmacked and demanding, craving more.

Finally, an update arrived, and it was most decidedly not to our liking. The promised open world, entirely none linear aspect had been removed in favour of episodic plot progression. However, it still looked amazing, and considering that a lot of the open world games do tend to drag on a wee bit, the turn towards episodic play wasn’t really a major issue. Sure, it would have been nice to be able to just wander around the Bright Falls area at your leisure, but not so much that it really put a dent into our fervour for what was shaping up, and promised, to be possibly one of the best psychological thrillers in video gaming. Right up until the rumours were confirmed. Alan Wake was going to be X-Box only. And that’s about the point when the game died for all of us.

Suddenly the massive delay and the shift to linear gameplay made a lot more sense. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising the X-Box for what it is. I’m not particularly a fan of the console any more than I am of the Playstation 3 (I like the Wii so ner), but I’m not about to start the whole elitist argument back up again. The X-Box simply is not as powerful as a PC. That’s not an insult, it’s as true as saying a PC is more powerful than a pocket watch. It has it’s limitations, and as PC components continue to improve, each console falls slowly behind. It’s the nature of the industry. But each console has it’s strengths and weaknesses. And whilst all of them are capable of open world environments, none of them are capable of generating one so lush and detailed as Alan Wake was promising to be. No, that wasn’t the problem.

The problem became apparent as more information was released. Even a year before the game was finished, we were already “assured” that there would be downloadable expansions…yeah. And then came the actual footage. This beautiful, lush, vibrantly alive environment we had seen in early pictures and footage was replaced with a pretty bog standard mistfest. Yes, the use of colour is still powerful, and the streaming light has been done extremely well in some places, but the draw distance is down to about six inches, and during the night time sections (the majority of the game) everything is just drab and grey. Long story short, this game sucks. The plot is contrived and about as predictable as a brick to the face. The characters are wooden and lifeless (with the exception of Barry, he’s actually fairly well developed, and Sarah, though she still suffers from being uninteresting, at least she’s believably uninteresting) and the voice acting is horrendous. Hey, and don’t even get me started on the lip syncing, or rather complete lack thereof. Alan, when speaking, spends most of his time looking like a wasp is stinging the back of his eyeball with a pogo stick.

The original premise really sucked me in when I first heard about it. A writer visiting a small town and having odd dreams that were starting to affect reality around him. I’m a writer myself, as evidenced by this review, but not just that. I’ve written newsletters, poems, short stories and even a full length novel that I completed in April of this year. Writing is something I am extremely passionate about. A large part of who I am. I see things through the perspective of what they could be, rather than what they are. And I have had dreams so vivid, so real, that I am sometimes unsure if a conversation or event took place, or whether it was just a dream. I don’t know, perhaps I’m just crazy. Am I A.Wake? And yeah, about that. What happened to the whole dream idea? They keep saying there was the is he/isn’t he thing going on…but if it was, I sure as hell didn’t see it.

Gods! They turned the game into Alone in the bloody Dark, but made it boring. Frankly, Remedy dropped the ball with this one. I can’t think of any better way of describing it than, dude, this game sucks (I feel so much like Linkara right now, lolz). The animations are fairly fluid, I’ll give them that, but the bloody camera pissed me off something chronic. With a click of the right stick you can shift it from one shoulder to the other. Apart from when I actually wanted it. It kept trying to bludgeon me into having the camera on the left, which is fine apart from when there are a hoard of taken coming round a corner to my RIGHT. Why give us an option to change, if it doesn’t work? I, seriously, had it flick back for no reason no less than fifteen times in two minutes.

You know, I’m going to stop here, otherwise I’ll be at this for hours. I don’t like the game. It’s dull, it’s overly stylised (less time making me watch the hoard of enemies descending on me, more time letting me run the f**k away) and it seriously drags. Far from having a deep, engaging, thrilling exploration of the Human psyche, we had a slew of clichéd dialogue and overly dramatic action sequences. Though, admittedly, facing down an army of Taken on a fully functioning stage with Ozzy Osbourne crooning out Children of the Elder God was pretty damned awesome. And, actually, that’s one thing the game did do well. The ONLY thing it did well. The soundtrack is outstanding. Not just the track list, but the in game music as well. It set a very good atmosphere on its own and wasn’t gratuitous like most games these days.

Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Audio/Music: 9/10
Plot/Scripting: 5/10
Overall: 4/10

Closing thoughts : Just save your money.

Pretentiousness: 9.5/10
Contrivance: 10/10
Self Indulgence: 13/10
Waste of money: 100%