Alan Wake: GameStar Preview

German magazine "GameStar" recently served an in-depth preview of the upcoming Psycho-Horror title Alan Wake in their latest issue. I am going to translate the most interesting facts (Images are courtesy of AlanWake.com:

Alan Wake is a well known US author with an immediate problem: writing blockade. To overcome the issue, his wife Alice and him are taking a time out in the sleepy coastal town "Bright Falls". Alice dissapears and pages of a manuscript Alan apparently has been working on emerge, however he can't remember to have written said pages. Everything in the manuscripts becomes reality over time and the nightmare begins. A dark power has overtaken the small town.. but how much of it all is true? Is everything only happening within Alan's sick brain?



Remedy shows GameStar a playable level:
Alan wanders through dark forrests outside of Bright Falls searching for a police officer named "Rusty" who apparently found some of the manuscripts' pages. The scene is very disturbing without a direct threat. You can hardly make out parked cars and a wodden hut in the distance. Totally real looking shadows are dancing through the forest until a cry of pain echoes through the night... Rusty. Running towards the wodden hut they find Rusty, lying on the floor blood-overflowed warning them to watch out since human like creatures are slowly wandering towards the hut. They point the torch to the creatures and they break down with an enormous effect. Whatever has taken control over the humans, it fears light.



Alan has a pistol and a shotgun, but only the torch really helps to get rid of the enemies. GameStar mentions the lack of ammo and players also have to conserve battery for the torch.. If your battery runs out, you are ******. The "dark power" is able to turn anything into a threatening enemy. Cars are trying to hit you, bulldozers all of a sudden start to hunt you and push big houses into canyons. Later in the game other sources of light like magnesium flares, flare guns or simple dome lamps help the player to get rid of... "the enemy"

Remedy is not trying to create an action game, rather than a psycho-thriller with weird nightmares and during the gameplay session GameStar continues to wonder if it all is just in Alan's own ****** up world.

The game is divided in episodes which start with a summary of previous events and end with an enormous cliffhanger. Therefore Alan Wake guarantees more highlights and players can easiely be brought back into the game even if they decide to put aside the game for a while... which, according to GameStar won't happen since its so exciting to learn more and more to finally find out what is reality and whats just happening in Alan's brain.



Source of the translated article: GameStar July Issue / Website: www.gamestar.de

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