Now to finish my 5 game round up minni series I thought I would talk about a game that I only really caught site of during the E3 Expo.
When I first heard the name Alan Wake. I generally thought it was going to be another snow boarding game. Lord knows why but the name Alan Wake sounds like it needs the words Snow Boarding to be put on the end of it. It wasn’t until i saw the games main logo and the first couple of screen shots that this game as far from that.
The game puts you in the shoes of the famous horror writer Alan Wake. Imagine a peaceful town called Bright Fall where you have gone to escape te hustle and bustle of the city to clear your mind. Dislodge that bit of writers block and relax. Until your girlfriend who you have been on holiday with disappears, The town around you collapses into darkness and you notice that you are following the path of a brand new Novel just like the ones you have written but in real life.
So game play wise what are we looking at here? Well straight off the bat it is another 3rd person survival horror game. The classic limited bullets an health which I am really looking forward too. Not many games of this generation have used the survival horror genre to its full advantage.
One of the biggest elements of this game that has really caught my attention is the use of light, but not in a lighting sense. In the game, light is your biggest weapon. Once darkness falls over Bright fall that’s when nightmares start coming true and people and objects start getting obsessed. Only armed with a torch that runs out of batteries, Alan will have to use his cunning and problem solving to stay alive in the darkness.
Just to show you the way light is used as a weapon in the game, take a look at the demo showed at E3
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGA3poy1tzQ]
The demo also shows you that the game is set up episodically like you are watching a TV show. This I think is a fantastic way to tell a story such as this in game play. Everybody has done the, ‘you have completed level 1 now go onto level 2′ way of game play. But to actually have the levels set out in a way that seems as though you are playing a TV show. That really grabs my attention and shows the creators have thought about the genre.
To me Alan wake looks like it is going to set the benchmark for survival horror games to come, by taking the way the story is told an attacking it from a new angle. Also showing the fact that not everything has to be attacked with guns. This one is defiantly on my wish list and I am eagerly waiting for the Q2 2010 release!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auw3_z9EyRg]
Garv!
