Alan Wake (Preview)

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A hands-on experience of this much awaited game

One of the most awaited games of all time is due for release, and thanks to Microsoft India, we at Techtree were able to get an exclusive early hands-on with the game at Microsoft's office. Although we got limited time with the game it was still enough to give us an impression of what the game is all about. So what do we think of it? Read on to find out.



Let's take a quick look at the story of the game first. The protagonist, Alan Wake, is a famous author but for some reason has not been able to write anything for about two years. His wife, Alice, takes him to a small beautiful town named Bright Falls, Washington, so that he may begin writing again. The day they arrive at Bright Falls, Alice goes missing and Alan discovers all sorts of weird things happening around him. For starters, all inhabitants of the town get possessed by some dark force at night and Alan finds himself being part of a story that he apparently wrote himself, a story that he does not even remember writing.

Now Alan must find the missing manuscripts and piece the puzzle together so that he can find his wife again, all the while trying to escape the creations of his own imagination. The only way to destroy these creatures of the dark is to shine light on them, which is why one of the most important weapons that you will wield in the game is a flash light.



The story is told in a unique episodic manner. If played at a decent pace on the normal difficulty level, each episode lasts about an hour. Think of each episode as a different level. After an episode ends and a new one starts, you get a recap of all that happened in the previous episode. This makes you feel like you are part of a TV series rather than a player in a game.

If it isn't clear already, Alan Wake is an action survival horror thriller game. Your primary enemies are inhabitants of Bright Falls, who have been possessed by a supernatural force. This gives them the ability to take far more damages than your average Bright Fall citizen and even move around at blinding speeds that would leave you spinning around as they move and try to dodge your attacks. The only way to weaken them is to aim your flashlight at them, destroying the evil force in them. But even after they lose their superpowers they continue to attack you, which is when you make use of the games firearms. In the short while that we played the game, we managed to uncover a standard handgun, shotgun, rifle and flare gun.

Thanks to this unique style of combat the gameplay remains quite exciting and at times, when you are surrounded by multiple enemies, it can be pretty intense as well. Adding to the tension is the fact that unlike most other games the flashlight in Alan Wake isn't powered by a magical unlimited power source and keeping it on the higher intensity mode (which is required for stunning the enemies) drains it quickly, causing the Change Batteries prompt to appear. Add to that your dwindling ammo and certain fights can become pretty hectic.

The enemies are pretty smart as well. They don't just stand around for you to stun them with your flashlight and as long as they have their superpower they will make it quite difficult for you to aim at them by moving around at warp speed. They are also armed with weapons such as an axe, which they won't hesitate to swing at you if you are close or just throw it at you if you are away. As the game progressed, we saw more and more of these enemies attacking simultaneously, with some taking in more damage than others. Certain others wielded more powerful weapons and are best kept as far away as possible.



Alan can replenish his health by standing under light. These are usually placed after certain fight sequences or right in the middle of them, but in this case the light isn't switched on and you need to start the generator for that, which is not something your enemies will allow you to do easily.

Ammo and batteries for the flash light are strewn all over the place and only on couple of occasions did we find ourselves too low on ammo. However, if you are on the verge of running out of ammo, then there is no escape. The enemies in the game are a lot faster than Alan, who eventually tires out after running a short while. If your ammo ever runs out it's best to just give up and die and start again, this time managing your ammo better by aiming for headshots.

The game takes place in the night as well as day, but as you'd imagine, most of the action takes place at night. As we moved through the woods you are always aware of where you have to go, thanks to a handy indicator at the top. You can still explore the place however, and this often results in rewards in the form of more ammo and missing pages of manuscript. This fill in more details of the story you are in, sometimes explaining events that already happen and sometimes ones that are about to happen.

Alan Wake looked really great in screenshots and trailers when it was first unveiled over two years ago, but in today's day and age it takes a lot more to impress us. That's not saying that they look bad or anything, but at no point does the game blow you away with its graphical capabilities. The sound, however, is very impressive, with excellent voice acting and a superb soundtrack that perfectly sets the mood for the game.

We would really like to talk a lot more about the game, but considering our limited time with the game we would rather wait till we get our hands on our own copy and play it right till the end to give you a proper verdict in our full review. Till then all we can say is that the short time with Alan Wake has really left us wanting for more and we can't wait to find out what happens next.
 
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