Alan Wake

Combined review for Alan Wake/Alan Wake's American Nightmare (spoilers for both);

On the surface Alan Wake seems like a fairly obvious spin on familiar horror/suspense themes with references to Stephen King, Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone etc... However, after a while it seems to shift towards a commentary on various other subjects including the creative process, the writer's struggles with creating a compelling narrative within an interactive medium, the survival horror genre, and, eventually, the game's own protracted development process. Then there's (possibly) the occasional dig at Take Two/Rockstar for taking the Max Payne series away from its original creators (Max Payne and Alan Wake share the same writer/development team). Maybe some of these aspects are a bit of stretch on my part, but the game definitely offers enough thematic depth to warrant some of this speculation, so here goes...

Sam Lake/Cauldron Lake/Alan Wake - in the game Cauldron Lake is the site of The Dark Place where Alan Wake's creative visions become reality. The Dark Presence represents something which is attempting to control this reality and reshape it into something else. Cauldron Lake represents real-life writer Sam Lake's head-space and the Dark Presence is the medium of video games which he, as the writer, is struggling to come to terms with in an attempt to tell a compelling story. The Dark Presence is seen as something that is attempting to wrest control away from the writer, who is frustrated at not being in complete control of his own vision. As the story develops and we get into American Nightmare, Wake becomes increasingly confident in his own abilities and how to 'reshape reality' to get what he wants.

Night Springs = video games - The Night Springs episodes that crop up occasionally are obviously done in a Twilight Zone style, yet they also are to Alan Wake what video games are for Sam Lake. In American Nightmare Wake talks about how he got started in his career by writing episodes for Night Springs and even though it wasn't what he initially wanted, he's come to terms with the role it played in furthering his career. Likewise, Sam Lake, as someone who studied literature at university, writing for video games is something which he possibly felt conflicted about as it's not a role that's appreciated all that highly. Also, there is a 360-style box of a 'Night Springs' game sitting on a desk in one of Hartman the psychologist's rooms, and the stilted dialogue/acting and weirdo plots of the Night Springs episodes could be a poke at the usual narrative fare we're served up in most video games.

Combat - Wake is given a gun in the chapter 'The Signal' and told by Zane that "it is not a gun, it is a process of elimination". Wake uses a flashlight to illuminate the things that are getting in his way, then he uses the gun to eliminate them. The main things that you 'eliminate' in the game are enemies that attack using melee weapons and random possessed objects. These represent the things that are getting in the way of Wake telling his story - two things which set Alan Wake apart from most survival horror games are the lack of melee combat and the lack of an inventory (besides ammo). Melee combat in survival horror games is usually derided for being 'clunky' and the puzzles are often criticised for using obtuse logic involving random objects. In Alan Wake, you are in a sense eliminating melee combat and weird object puzzles as these are the things that have tended to get in the way of a well-paced narrative in other survival horror titles.

Alan Wake's development - Alan Wake was originally announced as an open world game and then after a period of several months, they had to abandon this design in favour of a more linear approach. This decision becomes part of the game's narrative and towards the end of the game (I think it was in the 'The Signal' chapter), Wake's increasingly crazed persona in the TV clips talks about the "world getting smaller... closing in on itself". The final line in the game sees Wake uttering the line "It's not a lake, it's an ocean", which seems like a fairly random non-sequitur to end on, yet it hints at Sam Lake becoming more confident in himself (using his own name and saying there are bigger things to come) or, as I initially thought, maybe they will attempt to expand the game into a more open-world structure in future Alan Wake installments. Sure enough, in American Nightmare we have a more open, non-linear structure than the main game. Additionally, American Nightmare is Mr Scratch's world - he is the id to Wake's ego. He tells Wake in one of his TV appearances that he has more freedom and has the guts to achieve all the things that Wake was never able to (i.e. have an open-world game vs Wake's linear story).

Thomas Zane/Max Payne connection - Zane comes across as a kind of father-figure to Alan Wake, and he provides him with a crucial object called 'The Clicker', which is an object from Lake's own childhood which he used to comfort himself against the things that go bump in the night. However, since Zane is trapped in the Dark Place in Cauldron Lake which is Alan Wake's headspace, he is actually meant to represent a creation of the writer, i.e. Zane is to Wake what Payne is to Lake. Zane and Payne are voiced by the same actor and, in the game, Zane writes things into his story that help Alan Wake complete his story - Max Payne helped the real-life writer Sam Lake become successful and make a name for himself. Sam Lake wouldn't be where he is without Max Payne, likewise, Alan Wake needs Zane to get to where he needs to go. Also Thomas Zane appears in a diver's suit and Max Payne dived around a lot. That last bit is possibly a stretch...

So 'The Clicker' is an object from Sam Lake's own childhood, which was used to give him comfort when he felt afraid of the dark. It is something which allowed him to regain control and put himself at ease. Within the game, The Clicker becomes the crucial object which allows him to overcome The Dark Presence and bring the story to a close. As something which gives Alan Wake control, it could be seen as analogous to a 'controller', i.e. a video game controller. It represents the writer coming to terms with his role in a video game and realising it's the controller which gives him power to change to the story.

Also in 'dying' or at least separating himself from Alice at the end of the story, it could be viewed as the writer having to cut-ties with something special or important in his own life. Max Payne had been the most significant creation of Sam Lake's career up to this point and, since the series is out of his control, now he has to come to terms with it carrying on without him. He has to let himself go and allow it to continue without his input.

The quality of the writing in the manuscript pages that you collect seems to change as the series progresses as well - they appear to be markedly better written in American Nightmare vs the original game, which seems odd given that you'd have to assume Sam Lake wrote all of these. Given that one of the themes of American Nightmare is about Wake growing in confidence and accepting where his career has taken him I'm wondering if part of this was deliberate or if it signals that Lake is becoming more confident in his own abilities - maybe he wasn't all that invested in Wake's character to begin with, but he's started to see the potential in the series and has continued to stretch himself in attempt to realise these possibilities.

Just another little thing that I noticed at the point I stopped playing in American Nightmare last night - there's a point where Mr. Scratch sends you back to what appears to be the beginning of the game. This is seconds after you enter a room which prominently features a mock up of a Death Rally arcade game. Death Rally was the first game Sam Lake worked on at Remedy. You're shown something that represents the beginning of Lake's career before Mr. Scratch sends you back to the 'beginning'.

While some of this metaphorical content may be obvious, it still seems like there is a dearth of discussion about these kinds of things with respect to video games. This plays into some of the themes addressed in the game such as the frustration of the writer having to work in a medium that perhaps doesn't appreciate his input all that much. People are always talking about how they want stronger narratives and more thematic depth in games, yet when a game offers these things they're mostly ignored, e.g. Alan Wake probably received more discussion on the substandard quality of its facial animation that on its narrative/thematic content. Sigh.

It's almost as if Sam Lake delivered the lovechild of David Lynch and Stephen King
It's a very creative game while being one of the cheesiest and most trope-drenched games of its era. The mood, atmosphere, lighting, visuals: all perfect. Dark, chilling, foreboding. All of the supporting characters are quirky and charming. Gameplay is average, yet has some inventive applications of design such as using your flashlight as a weapon. The story is quite a trip. It's really well done, but also what gives the game nearly all of its cheese. You're a... FAMOUS WRITER taking a VACATION in a SLEEPY TOWN in MAINE, where a STRANGE WOMAN casts an ILL OMEN upon you. It seems YOUR OWN CREATIONS ARE ATTACKING YOU.... I don't even know how many Stephen King books this is like

Much like the Stephen King novels it's very clearly inspired by, Alan Wake starts out as a promising horror tale, goes on far too long, starts disappearing up its own ass, and doesn't end in a particularly satisfying way. The lumbering flashlight-centric combat is not a particularly successful bit of game design, but it would go down easier if the game wasn't far longer than it needs to be. But flaws aside, the presentation and creepy vibes are solid enough to make Alan Wake worth checking out.

I wanted to love Alan Wake. The Pacific Northwest setting holds a lot of appeal to me, and there are plenty of commonalities with Twin Peaks here. The town in the game itself has the same sort of sleepy, tucked away feel, and its residents feel plucked out of Twin Peaks, WA without being exact replicas of anyone in particular. The plot is also reasonably intriguing with its tale of a story turned against it author, but this is a game after all, and a good setting and good characters can only go so far. Alan Wake is full of the most awkward and unenjoyable combat that I've had the displeasure of experiencing in a long time. The basic idea of fighting enemies with a combination of flashing lights and assorted firearms isn't a bad concept in itself, but the enemy placement and AI is just all wrong. Enemies constantly appear from nowhere in large swarms and the combat becomes incredibly repetitious. Point blank, it just isn't any fun to play. Some people may say that it's a survival horror game, so the awkward combat is intentional and supposed to make the game more tense, but I really find that to be nonsense if not outright fabrication. The bad combat here is indefensible. Remedy seems to be a developer at odds with itself. Alan Wake is very much a story driven game, but to get to the bits of story, you have to slog through the terrible combat and exploration, and it makes me wonder why they just didn't just get rid of the action elements altogether and create a conventional graphic adventure. I can only assume that some executive decided the game needed some action in order sell enough to justify its large budget, which is probably true, but it's still no excuse for producing such an uneven game. If you can ignore or put up withe the combat in Alan Wake, then you'll probably like it for the graphics and story, but sadly, it isn't enough for me. It's not an altogether bad game, but it's horribly misguided and one that I do not care to continue. Not recommended.