Released on 14/05/2010

• Alan Wake Preview

  "Alan, wake up..."

  We've been waiting for Alan Wake for a fair while now, and with good reason. Created by the makers of Max Payne, this psychological thriller possesses serious pedigree, but has been on the Xbox 360 release schedule for almost as long as the console itself has been around, suffering more slippages over the past few years than Didier Drogba in an opposition penalty box.

  Erring ever closer

  Thankfully Alan Wake's May 2010 release date appears firmly 'set in stone', and with it erring ever closer we were finally given the chance to see the game in action, and even have a go ourselves. We weren't disappointed.

  We felt suitably freaked out and curious, which we reckon is just what the designers intended.

  Our hands-on began with a nightmare sequence, which doubled up as the obligatory tutorial. Far from your run-of-the-mill scene-setter, however, it proved really quite abstract and unnerving, seeing Alan hit a hitchhiker in his car, only to watch him disappear before his eyes, before being pursued by darkness-possessed townsfolk through a dense and creepy wood in the dead of night.

  After ten minutes of play we really had very little idea what was going on, but we felt suitably freaked out and curious, which we reckon is just what the designers intended.

  Our first impressions of the controls were a little more mixed. On one hand you've got some of the typical conventions of third-person action and adventure gaming: movement on the left stick; camera on the right stick; aiming on LT and firing on RT. But then you've got a few things that weren't so immediate: sprint is activated by holding LB rather than A, as is the norm in Xbox games like Gears of War and Fable II; interaction happens by tapping B instead of A; and A is instead reserved for jumping and dodging enemy attacks during combat.

  Flash, bang

  After getting our heads around that, there was more unconventional gameplay to come. Combat in Alan Wake isn't typical shooter fare; instead you have to burn off the darkness protecting your foes before you can deal firearm damage. You do this with that deadliest of all weapons… the humble flashlight. It's an unusual twist, but proves interesting from both a combat tactics perspective, and a resource management angle.

  You have to burn off the darkness protecting your foes before you can deal firearm damage.

  Stand around with your flashlight tucked into your pocket and if it hits an enemy, it'll deal minor damage. Raise it up by aiming you gun with LT though and just a few seconds of concentrated contact on a possessed villager will leave them ripe for death by bullet. The downside is that the latter drains your torch battery, which will slowly replenish if you don't let it drain completely, but will require a replacement if you do. As a result, we found ourselves shuffling Alan's torso to point the beam at enemies from afar, and only raising our pistol when they got up close. Effective, but also a little bit risky.

  With the basics down, Microsoft's PR team jumped us forward into the game proper. That intro, as it turned out, had been Alan's latest in a long sequence of freaky dreams, foretelling the visit of him and his wife to the town of Bright Falls, where as it turns out, he's something of a celebrity.

  Fame unfortunate

  A famous suspense novelist, Alan is in Bright Falls to try and overcome the writer's block that's plagued him since his last published hit. Entering the town diner he's greeted by a cardboard cutout of himself in the window, and a fanatical waitress who couldn't be happier to see our hero. "I've read all your books!" she exclaims with glee. "Fans always make me nervous" rumbles Alan's inner monologue as he goes searching for the owner of his pre-booked accommodation. Instead, he comes across a menacingly hooded woman who hands him the keys he seeks and insists he make his way to the cottage at the centre of the lake.

  Just what happened in that missing week? Where's Alan's wife? And how can his phantom-written novel be playing out before his eyes?

  Apparently not wanting us to get too clear a picture of events, Microsoft again step in and jump us forward in the story. Alan is once again in the woods in the dead of night. But something isn't right. His wife is nowhere to be found; shadow-covered villagers are attacking him for real this time; and as we discover upon searching the forest, Alan has a week-long gap in his memory, during which time he apparently wrote a manuscript detailing everything that's now coming true, pages of which are now scattered throughout the wilds.

  Just what happened in that missing week? Where's Alan's wife? And how can his phantom-written novel be playing out before his eyes?

  We ploughed on, the level's linearity being well-hidden by the dense vegetation, blackest night and plenty of surprise cliff-edges which caused us several instant deaths. As the brush cleared, we even encountered our first puzzle; a generator needing to be activated and a crane moved to create a bridge of logs to run along. All of which built up to a fateful climax, seeing us fending off an army of shadows and killing their leader thanks to some swift dodging and a handily-placed shotgun.

  Headspin city

  It was then that the biggest headspin happened. Meeting the local sheriff, Alan told her of his plight, only for her to reply with something which couldn't possibly be right. "There hasn't been a cabin in the middle of the lake in years", she protested. Alan took her back to the lake... and it was true.

  What the HELL!?!?

  Cue the end of the chapter. We have no idea what to expect next, but we can't wait to find out. And with that May release date unmoving, it won't be long before we – and YOU – get to do just that.

  Preview by: Mark 'Cliffdiver' Scott
  Version Tested: Xbox 360
  Preview Published: 26.03.10

  Published: 26/03/2010

• Alan Wake: Interview

  Remedy writer Mikki Rautalahti talks LOST, psychological horror, Natal and chapters 1 AND 2 of Alan Wake...

  Alan Wake is built on open-world technology, but the first few hours we've played are a relatively linear experience. Will that change later on in the game?

  I think the key word here is "relatively". Some of our play areas are pretty wide, but this is not an open-world game. We let that idea go when we decided that what we really wanted Alan Wake to be was an intense, story-driven experience. But the technology was already there, so we take advantage of it. It lets us do some nice things – our play areas can be very large, there's a lot of freedom to building our environments. We really wanted to make sure the Pacific Northwest came to life, and a big part of that was making sure the game felt like there was a lot of room under the sky – that the player wasn't just going through the video game cliché of endless corridors or something. We don't spend a lot of time indoors in Alan Wake.

  Horror games have typically gone down one of two routes: Resident Evil is hammed up to the max; Silent Hill can get grotesquely disturbing in places; Alone in the Dark is a little bit in between. How does Alan Wake compare; what does it do differently?

  We're really all about the atmosphere and the tension, the weird moments and the suspense. That's what we thrive on.

  Well... we don't really think of Alan Wake as a horror game, to begin with. I know the distinction is a little hazy, but we like to call it a thriller to differentiate from those other games that typically have a lot of weird creatures, monsters, blood and guts, etc. We're really all about the atmosphere and the tension, the weird moments and the suspense. That's what we thrive on.

  And we also have very fast-paced and intense action sequences in the game. You need to mix things up, have variety in there; otherwise you just become numb. It's all about that contrast. And I think we stand out quite a bit there.

  
  

  You're citing Lost as one of your inspirations in making Alan Wake. As good as Lost is, some people got frustrated with and gave up watching it. Why do you think that was, and if Alan Wake is very similar, is there a worry that the same thing might happen with players putting the pad down halfway through the game?

  YI think the biggest problem with Lost is that you get a new episode once a week, and if you watch it like that, it's very easy to get confused, because it's a really dense story with an ensemble cast and a lot of things going on in parallel. There's the old Lost complaint – you know, "they never resolve anything!" But the thing is, I think they do. They answer a lot of questions all the time, but you may not even realize how much it progresses unless you watch the episodes back to back. So to me, it's definitely a box set series. I would never watch it at the glacial pace television doles it out to us. I just don't see the point.

  But with Alan Wake, that's not really an issue, because when you've got the game, you've already got the equivalent of the box set. Lost is in its sixth season now. They've been telling that story for a good while now. I don't think any series is ever going to have universal staying power over that kind of a period of time; some people are always going to lose interest.

  In any case, Lost is definitely an inspiration for us, but that doesn't mean we're emulating it, or trying to do what they're doing. Our story is very different, for one thing. But we do appreciate the way they maintain the mystery and the tension.

  Alan Wake is an Xbox 360 exclusive. We're a small studio. That means we have to concentrate on one thing at a time, and for us that is the Xbox 360 version.

  
  

  PS3 and PC owners aren't going to get to play Alan Wake. Why? Any plans for a multiformat release somewhere down the line?

  Alan Wake is an Xbox 360 exclusive. We're a small studio. I think we have 45 employees right now, and by today's standards, that's really a tiny crowd. That means we have to concentrate on one thing at a time, and for us that is the Xbox 360 version.

  
  

  Any plans to make Alan Wake Natal compatible?

  Natal is an exciting new way to play games, but there are no Natal plans for Alan Wake at the moment.

  
  

  From a control perspective, how do you think an in-depth, story-driven Action-Adventure like an Alan Wake would work with Natal?

  We haven't really talked about Natal a whole lot here, and we don't have any plans for using it. But I have no doubt that it's going to be interesting once Natal launches; I do believe that motion control is going to become more and more prevalent in the future. I'm not sure what that means for games like Alan Wake.

  I think a lot of people just assume that as soon as you bring in any degree of motion control, you're going to be standing in front of your television, sweating and panting and looking like an idiot, but that's not necessarily true. There are a lot of things you could do with that stuff, things that don't take away from the traditional gameplay – which, as we all know, is a lot of fun. That's not going to go away I think people are going to want to press buttons for a long time to come.

  But I can see a lot of applications for this kind of stuff. You could do really interesting puzzles, or things that are related to our light-based gameplay, for example. I think it's just a question of how well you integrate it into the game, and most importantly, whether it feels fun and natural. But to be clear, these are just thoughts; we don't have any of the Natal technology here, we're not working on it.

  
  

  It was important to us that we don't end on a cliffhanger that leaves everything hanging, so we made sure the ending resolves certain very important questions

  You've mentioned you're planning to make a chapter 2 of Alan Wake. Without asking you to give too much away on the first game's story, will the sequel follow directly on from the end of it, or might it be a separate story starring the same lead character?

  Well, we know we want to make more of Alan Wake and we've made sure we have planned the story and the world to allow us to do that. We want to build this whole franchise and explore these characters further. But ultimately, the success of the first game will decide whether that will happen or not.

  That being said, it was vital for us to have a definite ending for the game. It was important to us that we don't end on a cliffhanger that leaves everything hanging, so we made sure there's an arc to the story and an ending that resolves certain very important key questions. At the same time, though, there are definitely story threads that we want to pick up later. So it's not a situation where the game ends and every character goes home happy and satisfied, and you can close the book on them. But it's not a "holy crap, did they die in the explosion?!" thing, either, if you know what I mean.

  
  

  Alan Wake took five years to make – how long can we expect to wait for chapter 2?

  It's too early to speculate when we haven't even started working on it yet. But I can tell you that Max Payne 2 went a lot faster than Max Payne 1. The technology had been perfected, everyone was familiar with the tools, everyone knew what core gameplay was like – in short, we knew very clearly what we were doing. So that sequel was created much, much more quickly than the original game. I think Alan Wake 2, if we get to make it, is very likely to be completed under similar circumstances. We're working on the Alan Wake DLC now, and I've been amazed by how quickly our guys can put new, playable stuff together.

  
  

  Are you considering making bite-size, smaller chapters available to download through Xbox Live?

  We have DLC coming up. I can't really say much more, but it's no secret that it's going to be playable content. We're pretty excited about it.

  Well, we do have DLC coming up. I can't really say much more about that than I already have, but it's no secret that it's going to be playable content. We're pretty excited about it; it's a lot of fun to be able to brainstorm and come up with brand new stuff. You can't really do that when you're in full-on polishing mode, because so many things are locked down, so it's a welcome change of pace.

  
  

  Alan Wake's combat is pretty accomplished – any plans for a multiplayer mode?

  We're pretty much dedicated to making great single-player experiences, so no, not really. As far as the sequel goes, who knows? I'm a never say never kinda guy. But I don't think there's any point in making a multiplayer mode just for the sake of having a multiplayer mode. Just throwing in deathmatch and CTF isn't gonna cut it; if we were to do it, it'd have to be something unique and fun, something that's worth the effort. Otherwise it's just a me-too feature that may make a great bullet point on the back cover, but if it isn't something that people can get genuinely excited about, what's the point? We're a small team, we have to be careful about what we put our resources into.

  
  

  Lastly, picture the scene; Alan Wake launches; goes HUGE, and takes over the gaming world. Will that mean we've seen the last of Max Payne?

  Well, let me tell you, that's a great scene, absolutely wonderful. Very enjoyable! But as far as Max Payne goes, there's really no connection between that and the success of Alan Wake. I'm not sure people realize that we haven't owned the Max Payne IP for almost a decade now. We couldn't just decide to make a Max Payne game any more than we could decide to make a Mario game. We just don't own the property.

  Thanks Mikki

  Interview by: Mark 'Let The Light Shine In' Scott
  Interview Published: 28.04.10

  Published: 27/04/2010

• Alan Wake: Review

  Writer's block

  What's a bestselling horror writer to do when he suffers from writer's block? In Alan Wake's case, he and wife Alice take a trip to the seemingly idyllic all-American town of Bright Falls in a bid to help him recover his creative flow, but the holiday doesn't play out as they'd hoped.

  When Alice vanishes, Wake finds himself trapped in a living nightmare. He begins to find pages of his new book – which he can't remember writing – and everything he's scripted starts to come true. An evil entity takes over Bright Falls and its townspeople each night when darkness descends, and Wake's only protection is light. That's the basic premise of Alan Wake, a psychological action thriller that's been in development for over five years.

  Page-turner

  The game's Stephen King-esque story is its strongest feature. Presented in a TV-style structure it comprises of six episodes, which are further broken into scenes, and it mischievously leaps back and forth in time to deliver a number of twists and thrills. Discovering pages of Wake's lost script gives you an idea of the horrors that lie ahead but doesn't reveal everything because the game manages to cleverly play with your expectations. There's also a great supporting cast, headed by Wake's literary agent Barry, which helps bring the title to life.

  When [his wife] Alice vanishes, Wake begins to find pages of his new book – which he can't remember writing – and everything he's scripted starts to come true.

  While Alan Wake was initially planned as an open-world game, the final product is a more linear experience than was originally envisaged, but there are still find plenty of interesting areas to explore in the often gorgeous forest environments, which make great use of developer Remedy's lighting technology.

  Alan Wake is an action-focused take on the survival horror genre that brings to mind Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark. Its gameplay centres on the use of light, which you wield against evil forces. The most common enemies are the ‘Taken' townsfolk, although the darkness also possesses inanimate objects like vehicles, oil drums and even a combine harvester.

  The next chapter

  Shining light on foes weakens their darkness shield – do it for long enough and you'll effectively destroy their armour, enabling you to finish them off with a more traditional weapon. Your greatest ally is a common flashlight, but you'll also use flares, floodlights and lampposts to your advantage. Managing advancing enemies with your torch and attempting to establish safe areas with flares before taking down targets is often a genuinely tense and challenging experience, but in the end it doesn't quite match up to the fast and thrilling nature of the story, maybe in part because Wake's not the most athletic of heroes.

  Alan Wake lays some very impressive groundwork for what will no doubt become an established franchise. Remedy is already at work on downloadable episodes to extend the story – the first of which will be free to players who buy the game new – before the inevitable release of a disc-based sequel. The title's blend of creepy environments and innovative storytelling techniques kept us hooked until the end and left us eager to play the next chapters in the Alan Wake series.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • Gripping story delivered in a neat episodic structure.
  • Great lighting provides some lovely visuals and interesting gameplay concepts.
  • Content updates will extend the title over the coming months.

  

  • Some environments can feel a little samey.
  • Combat isn't as well realised as the story.
  • No multiplayer component.

  Review by: Tom 'Lightning' Ivan
  Version Tested: X360
  Review Published: 05.05.10

  Published: 05/05/2010

• Alan Wake Review

  Wakey wakey...

  A lot can change in five years. In May 2005, Survival Horror games were reeling from Resident Evil 4 completely rewriting the rules of the genre, the Xbox 360 was still six months away from launch, and we were just starting to hear the first whispers about the upcoming HD console's most promising exclusives.

  One of the most intriguing was Steven King-inspired horror stunner Alan Wake from Remedy, the team behind the stylish, slow-mo bullet slinging Max Payne series. Initially pitched as an open world Survival Horror title (think GTA set in The Twilight Zone) with hopes for a 2007 or 2008 release, it's finally arrived mid 2010 in the altered guise of a linear, story-driven, super-spooky psychological action thriller.

  Thankfully, what we've ended up with is one of the very best horror-themed adventures this console generation - albeit a bit of a flawed gem, with room for improvement in future sequels.
  

  Thriller night

  Alan Wake himself is a best-selling suspense author with a career-threatening case of writer's block, who heads off on holiday with his wife Alice to the idyllic, sleepy rural Pacific Northwestern town of Bright Falls. On arrival at their cabin, however, things all go a bit Twin Peaks and Alan awakes in a crumpled car to find his wife missing, the townsfolk possessed violently by darkness, and pages of a manuscript he doesn't remember writing littered around the woods, foretelling terrifying events which start coming true.

  Like any good thriller, story is the driving factor behind Alan Wake's six-chapter, 10 hour tour of the world's second worst vacation destination (after Blackpool, naturally). That means you can expect lengthy, linear on-foot slogs through forests, farms and factories, the occasional highway drive, the odd breather in some of Bright Falls' bigger buildings, and even a few flashback scenes set in Alan's apartment which add a bit of levity to an otherwise broody narrative.

  Broody is an especially fitting description for Alan himself, too - playing the tortured artists and alpha male a little to well, to the point where it's hard to entirely sympathise with his plight. Thank heavens for Barry Whealer, then - Wake's literary agent and best friend, and the game's comic relief; replete with bright red puffer jacket, Christmas tree lighting belt, sardonic dialogue and 'Eye of Mordor' handheld searchlight.
  

  Light and dark

  By far the majority of Alan Wake's gameplay involves running and shooting, but with a rather unique twist. Alan's foes, known as the Taken, are covered in darkness, and only by burning it off with light can you hope to get to the soft, squishy human parts vulnerable to bullets. You'll need to sear away the shadow by lifting your torch before you can gun them down with your firearm of choice, and so exploring the wilds to find batteries and ammo becomes essential; as does managing your resources so you don't end up reloading or recharging as an axe-wielding hillbilly charges murderously towards you.

  That said, if you're vigilant you'll seek out numerous generator-powered streetlamps which act as checkpoint markers, plus hidden caches of supplies containing flare guns and flashbangs littered throughout the brush. Such arms might be decent support weapons in many a shooter, but against Alan Wake's shadow-soaked Taken they have the same impact as a rocket-propelled grenade.

  Also up for collection are Wake's missing manuscript pages, and a hundred thermos coffee flasks dotted around seemingly at random. The former serve a serious purpose in the story, as well as giving you an eerie heads-up about what's to come, but with no in-game benefit for finding the latter, they just feel out of place, like they were designed to provide an extra challenge for gamers who really love showing off their Achievements on Xbox Live.

  Perhaps that best represents one of Alan Wake's biggest failing points; it's a hard-line singleplayer-only experience, and even with three difficulty settings you can't escape the fact that it's a very linear game, with little variation in enemy types, precious few puzzles and no huge boss battles to speak of, so once it's over and you've solved the mystery there's little different to have you coming back a second or third time.
  

  More to come

  But that first run through Alan Wake is an experience which will live long in the memory. Stumbling through the woods in the dead of night, seeing the mist come down, striking up a glorious red flare, narrowly slow-mo dodging an incoming knife and run-gunning for your very life against a horde of demonic villagers puts Remedy's game right up there with the best story-driven adventures on Xbox 360.

  In the grand scheme of horror videogames meanwhile we'd place Alan Wake bang in between the slapstick B-Movie scares, arcade shooting and slushy gore of recent Resident Evils and the oblique plotting, slow-paced puzzling and disturbing grotesqueness of Silent Hill. We could say the same for 2008's Alone in the Dark, but Alan Wake utterly nails what Atari's game tried and failed to do by offering an adventure that's surreal, intelligent, action-packed and highly atmospheric, blending the best of TV-style presentation, horror-genre plotting and third-person shooting in a way that will grip you right up until the end credits roll.

  Still, you can't help but get the feeling there's more to come from Remedy and Alan Wake. Thankfully, with DLC on the way and technology firmly in place, it shouldn't be another five years before we get it.

  

  A. Wake
  + Probably the most atmospheric videogame we've ever played.
  + Cracking thriller story with well-written characters.
  + Interesting use of light and dark in combat.

  A. Sleep
  - Gets a little repetitive towards the end.
  - No multiplayer or Horde-style mode to add longevity.
  - Who left all those thermos flasks lying around?

• Alan Wake Interview

  At the end of April Microsoft invited a big group of games writers, including Gamestation, to deepest rural Hertfordshire. Our goal: to get hands-on with spooky thrill-ride Alan Wake.

  While there, we grabbed Remedy's Head of Franchise on Alan Wake, Oskari Hakkinen to talk Survival Horror, Max Payne, five-year development times and what's next for Alan Wake...

   

  Oskari on the premise of Alan Wake...
  "Alan Wake's a best-selling writer who hasn't managed to write anything in a couple of years. His latest work, a thriller he doesn't remember writing, is coming true, word for word, before his very eyes. On his arrival at a sleepy Midwestern American town called Bright Falls his wife goes missing, this dark presence wakes up and takes over everything in its path, from vehicles to machines and inanimate objects. It's turning them against Wake, and he's trying to unravel this mystery and save his love."

   

  On what players can expect from the experience...
  "Alan Wake is a psychological thriller with the body of a cinematic action game. Those people who've played [Remedy's previous work] the Max Payne games will definitely be able to relate to Alan Wake from a story perspective as a game that pushes the envelope in storytelling, and also as a tightly-paced action game with cinematic values."

   

  On 'Psychological Horror' vs 'Survival Horror'...
  "With Alan Wake, we're trying to establish the first real thriller in videogames. I think the difference between thriller and horror is that horror is the stuff that's happening on the screen; the blood spurting and gore, and the monsters that are coming at you ? that's the horror-esque moments that you feel. Thrillers are perhaps a little more cerebral. It's not always the stuff that's happening on-screen, but the stuff that's happening in your head and what you think might happen.

  "In Alan Wake we bring in all of the elements to a thriller that you foreshadow in your head. It's the audio cues; the music; you're running through the forest; the myst is coming down; the wind is blowing; you're panning around; panicking; thinking "where's the threat coming from"... and nothing happens. And then when it actually does happen, you're scared to your wits. So for us, psychological horror is all about playing with the player's mind and emotions."

   

  On what Max Payne fans will find familiar about Alan Wake...
  "Fans of Max Payne are definitely going to be able to relate to Alan Wake. We haven't forgotten our heritage; for instance, there's no bullet time in Alan Wake, but there are these cinematic moments where if an enemy's just about to hit you and you dodge just at the right time, it activates a cinematic slow-motion dodge that feels really rewarding. Those players who remember the technique whereby the camera followed a bullet in Max Payne, we do that in Alan Wake with the flare gun.

  "We also do something that's particularly unnerving when an enemy's attacking you from behind, where we'll pull the camera back to the point of the enemy, so you're still in control, but you miss a few heartbeats and get a little bit more time to react to the situation."

   

  On Alan Wake's highly secretive five-year development...
  "It has been a long development for us, certainly, but we've benefited from having a clear vision for Alan Wake. We've tried to bring some innovations while keeping things close to our chest; the story in particular is something we've been highly secretive about.

  "There's always the risk that other games might copy some of the ideas we have, but ultimately we've been true to our original vision and now we're at the end of development we're proud to say that Alan Wake is a unique game which will definitely stand on its own two feet.

  "Admittedly it's taken longer than we expected to develop Alan Wake, but we can only be as good as our last game. If we make a bad game, everyone's going to remember us for it. We want the Remedy brand to be a seal of quality. When people put their hard-earned money on a Remedy game, we want them to know they're going to get something they'll feel happy with."

   

  On what changed during development...
  "We did start out with the concept of an open world. Five years ago there were a lot of open world sandboxes coming out and gamers thought that was what they wanted. We tried to take that on with Alan Wake but we were also producing a thriller, and we realised that after six months or so of development that we couldn't do it as an open world because we weren't able to tap into the right emotions at the right time.

  "As an example, think about when you try and have a love scene, where you want the player to turn up in a Cadillac to set the scene, and because it's open world and he can do what he wants, he turns up in a monster truck - not quite what we were envisaging!"

   

  On what Alan Wake became instead...
  "Alan Wake isn't an open world game ? it's a linear, story-driven experience - but it is built on open world technology. You can see that in our environments. At times we make the path the player can take very wide, or very long; you can choose if you want to go by foot, or by car; we let the player decide.

  "There's also a lot of story content and exploration in there. Coming from making the Max Payne games, we know that some people played those games for action, and some played for the story. We thought 'maybe that applies to all Remedy games'. Those people that come to Alan Wake for action will find a dynamic difficulty system that pumps up if you're playing well and reduces if you're not, because it's not fun to die. Those people will get the skeleton of the story.

  "But for those players who dig further into the fiction, we've a lot of exploration in there. You can interact with TVs and radios; there's over a hundred manuscript pages that you can read which foreshadow the events that are to happen, which really brings that psychological effect."

   

  On using light & dark in gameplay...
  "When it comes to action in Alan Wake, light and darkness are key gameplay elements. Light represents the sane world and safety; darkness represents darkness and nightmares. Light is both a combat tool and a safe haven. Wake's enemies are covered in shadows and protected by a dark presence that's possessed them. Only light can drive away the dark presence and make them vulnerable to damage.

   

  On the success of 2010's other big story-driven thriller, Heavy Rain...
  "Some of our team have had the opportunity to play Heavy Rain and have complimented it. They've said that like Alan Wake it was also an ambitious project and very cool. However, it's not something we personally have taken creative ideas from.

  "We look into popular culture as a source of inspiration; TV, movies, books, graphic novels and comic ? we haven't really looked at other videogames as a source of inspiration. People who consume other types of media will definitely see things in Alan Wake will see where we've taken inspiration from. For instance, we have a hedge maze in the game which is a tip of the hat to The Shining, which resonates really well with players. Players who've seen The Shining will have some kind of idea what will happen in there."

   

  On Alan Wake spinoffs...
  "We're a small studio, so we try to make our projects something that translates into other forms of media. Max Payne did, and we hope Alan Wake will as well.

  There will be a novel coming out of Alan Wake. There will also be a graphic novel and a strategy guide, and a soundtrack in the Limited Collector's Edition along with behind the scenes videos."

   

  Oskari on what's next for Remedy...
  "Some people at Remedy are taking holidays, while others are working on downloadable content for Alan Wake. These will be extra episodes available on Xbox Live which we think of as a bridge between season one and season two.

  "Season one will be a complete and full story with a satisfactory ending - no cliff-hangers to have you smashing you controller on the floor(!) - but just like in TV we've left a few doors open for a bigger story. It makes sense when you've developed for five years to not just make one game and move on to the next project."

   

  Oskari on Alan Wake 2...
  "Hopefully if Season 1 of Alan Wake is a success then we'll get to make a season 2. If we do, it's not gonna take five years to develop. We have characters that we've spent a lot of time on developing their personalities, we've created a whole world and new tech to make Alan Wake, so we'll already have that to hand when we start work on the sequel."

  Thanks Oskari

   

• Alan Wake 2 on the way?

  Alan Wake 2 on the way?

  We'd love to get a sequel to moody survival horror Alan Wake, which was released earlier this year for the Xbox 360. While there's no guarantee it's on the way, Remedy, the game's developer, is currently hiring for a new triple-A Xbox 360 exclusive, so fingers crossed.

  According to a job posting on Gamasutra - thanks VG247 - the Finnish developer is after a new producer for its next game, and the chances are good that it could be Alan Wake 2, as the team has already said it fancies continuing the story of the troubled writer.

  "Being in this launch phase at the moment, we haven't had a chance to get out to Redmond, Microsoft Game Studios, and discuss anything further of how we move on," franchise development head Oskari Hkinen told Eurogamer in August. "But I don't see any reason why we wouldn't continue with Microsoft with a full-blown sequel for Alan Wake. We definitely want to do it. We have great ideas for it. There's certainly a want, and that want is I believe from both sides. Right now I can't confirm anything."

  Maybe things have started moving - or just maybe it's an entirely new project to get excited about.

• Alan Wake 2 in the works?

  Rumour time again. According to Eurogamer, Alan Wake 2 has been spotted on an artist online resume fuelling speculation that, well, Alan Wake 2 is in the works.

  According to the entry, the artist worked on pre-visualisation for the project, and was specifically involved in making Alan Wake 2 cinematics for Halon Entertainment.

  Halon, as Eurogamer has usefully dug up, are the production house that made the Deliver Hope Halo advert - and that suggests that the team could have been working on a CGI trailer for the new game if it does, indeed, exist.

  Alan Wake is an ambitious 360-exclusive action game that casts you as a troubled author looking for his missing wife on a holiday that gone terribly wrong. Enemies are covered in a strange dark substance, forcing you to cleanse them with torchlight before blowing them to pieces with more traditional weaponry. It brilliant.

  A sequel has been the stuff of rumour for quite a while, and it tempting to see all this CGI trailer chat as an indicator that we might be learning a little more on the subject at E3 in June. Trust us: if that the case, youl be the first to know about it.

• Max Payne dives towards March 2012 release date

  Hard-boiled bullet-time action hero Max Payne will finally return next March, Rockstar Games has confirmed. The scowl-faced cop was last seen in 2003 sequel Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. He was also played by the perpetually furious Mark Wahlberg in a rubbish 2008 movie.

  The first two games were created by Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment. This third game will be a collaboration between Rockstar's many global studios, and will pick up with Max working in South America as a bodyguard for a wealthy family. Things inevitably turn ugly when gangs target the family, and Max is forced to protect them by diving in slow motion through lots of doorways, shooting with two guns at the same time and going " Aaaaaargh ".

  The game will feature state of the art physics, intelligent cover systems and an overhauled bullet-time effect. Multiplayer will also be included for the first time in the series.

  Rockstar's Sam Houser said: "Max Payne 3 gave us an amazing creative opportunity to evolve one of our most iconic characters. We're excited to show fans a modern version of Max that pulls them back into his dark and twisted story."

  Max Payne 3 will target Xbox 360, PS3 and PC when he dusts off his leather coat in March 2012.

• Remedy "nagged" Microsoft to allow Alan Wake on PC

  Creepy torchlight survival horror hit Alan Wake is finally released on PC on March 2nd, but Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment had to behave like a "nagging little kid" in order to get Microsoft to sign off on a PC version of the Xbox 360 exclusive.

  Originally announced in 2005 for both PC and the original Xbox, the game took five years to develop, but which time it had morphed into an Xbox 360 title. Plans for a PC version took a back seat to the console project. Now, Remedy hopes to make amends to PC gamers for missing them out.

  "PC gaming is part of Remedy's heritage, back from the first Death Rally to Max Payne 1, which was made partly in a basement, and Max Payne 2," franchise boss Oskari Hakkinen told Eurogamer. "Announcing Alan Wake on PC was always an important factor for us."

  "We were like a nagging little kid," Hakkinen said of Remedy's campaign to get Microsoft to let it happen. "It was just a number of discussions with the right people, and then them saying, 'Yeah, we see you want to do that. We see it's important to you. We can let that happen there.'"

  The result promises to be a stunning looking game, as the developer has been able to include all the graphical features that had to be dropped to fit the game on the Xbox 360.

  Alan Wake is out now for Xbox 360, and launches for PC on March 2nd.

• Alan Wake's PC special editions hit stores

  PC gamers have been waiting a long time for the atmospheric thriller Alan Wake, but their patience is about to be rewarded with the launch of two bonus-packed editions.

  Remedy Entertainment's supernatural chiller arrives on PC this week in both a Special Edition and Collector's Edition, both of which include a copy of the main game and all downloadable content released for the Xbox 360 version.

  The Alan Wake Special Edition release will feature a second disc that includes 13 music tracks from the game, as well as a selection of stickers and postcards and a double-sided poster.

  Meanwhile, the Alan Wake Collector's Edition includes all of this content plus two additional discs of making-of featurettes, music videos and trailers, as well as a 144-page booklet called The Alan Wake Files.

  Philipp Brock of publisher Nordic Games said: "Simply put, there's far too much quality bonus content to fit on to just one disc."

  Released on Xbox 360 in 2010, Alan Wake is a suspenseful and cinematic experience that follows a troubled writer who encounters strange phenomena when searching for his missing wife in a small American town.

  Published: 29/02/2012

• Alan Wake passes two million sales

  Moody Xbox 360 and PC thriller Alan Wake has passed the two million mark in lifetime sales, developer Remedy Entertainment has confirmed.

  Speaking to CVG, Remedy's head of franchise development Oskari Hakkinen revealed that the recent PC release has pushed the game past the milestone, indicating the slow-burning appeal of Alan Wake.

  Originally released on Xbox 360 in 2010, the game tells the story of a troubled writer who is seeking his missing wife in a sleepy American town, only to encounter strange and possibly supernatural phenomena.

  Mr Hakkinen said Alan Wake has become something of a "cult classic", adding that the series remains close to hearts of the team at Remedy, which also created the Max Payne series.

  "People who have played and enjoyed the story feel the urge to tell their friends and other gamers out there that they need to try this experience, they need to play it," he explained.

  The Remedy representative added that he believes the success of Alan Wake and its recent downloadable spin-off Alan Wake's American Nightmare shows the series still has some life in it yet.
  

  Published: 14/03/2012

• Alan Wake - Review

  
  

  

  Wakey wakey...

  A lot can change in five years. In May 2005, Survival Horror games were reeling from Resident Evil 4 completely rewriting the rules of the genre, the Xbox 360 was still six months away from launch, and we were just starting to hear the first whispers about the upcoming HD console's most promising exclusives.

  One of the most intriguing was Steven King-inspired horror stunner Alan Wake from Remedy, the team behind the stylish, slow-mo bullet slinging Max Payne series. Initially pitched as an open world Survival Horror title (think GTA set in The Twilight Zone) with hopes for a 2007 or 2008 release, it's finally arrived mid 2010 in the altered guise of a linear, story-driven, super-spooky psychological action thriller.

  Thankfully, what we've ended up with is one of the very best horror-themed adventures this console generation - albeit a bit of a flawed gem, with room for improvement in future sequels.

  Thriller night

  Alan Wake himself is a best-selling suspense author with a career-threatening case of writer's block, who heads off on holiday with his wife Alice to the idyllic, sleepy rural Pacific Northwestern town of Bright Falls. On arrival at their cabin, however, things all go a bit Twin Peaks and Alan awakes in a crumpled car to find his wife missing, the townsfolk possessed violently by darkness, and pages of a manuscript he doesn't remember writing littered around the woods, foretelling terrifying events which start coming true.

  Like any good thriller, story is the driving factor behind Alan Wake's six-chapter, 10 hour tour of the world's worst vacation destination. That means you can expect lengthy, linear on-foot slogs through forests, farms and factories, the occasional highway drive, the odd breather in some of Bright Falls' bigger buildings, and even a few flashback scenes set in Alan's apartment which add a bit of levity to an otherwise broody narrative.

  

  Broody is an especially fitting description for Alan himself, too - playing the tortured artists and alpha male a little to well, to the point where it's hard to entirely sympathise with his plight. Thank heavens for Barry Whealer, then - Wake's literary agent and best friend, and the game's comic relief; replete with bright red puffer jacket, Christmas tree lighting belt, sardonic dialogue and 'Eye of Mordor' handheld searchlight.

  Light and dark

  By far the majority of Alan Wake's gameplay involves running and shooting, but with a rather unique twist. Alan's foes, known as the Taken, are covered in darkness, and only by burning it off with light can you hope to get to the soft, squishy human parts vulnerable to bullets. You'll need to sear away the shadow by lifting your torch before you can gun them down with your firearm of choice, and so exploring the wilds to find batteries and ammo becomes essential; as does managing your resources so you don't end up reloading or recharging as an axe-wielding hillbilly charges murderously towards you.

  That said, if you're vigilant you'll seek out numerous generator-powered streetlamps which act as checkpoint markers, plus hidden caches of supplies containing flare guns and flashbangs littered throughout the brush. Such arms might be decent support weapons in many a shooter, but against Alan Wake's shadow-soaked Taken they have the same impact as a rocket-propelled grenade.

  Also up for collection are Wake's missing manuscript pages, and a hundred thermos coffee flasks dotted around seemingly at random. The former serve a serious purpose in the story, as well as giving you an eerie heads-up about what's to come, but with no in-game benefit for finding the latter, they just feel out of place, like they were designed to provide an extra challenge for gamers who really love showing off their Achievements on Xbox LIVE.

  

  Perhaps that best represents one of Alan Wake's biggest failing points; it's a hard-line singleplayer-only experience, and even with three difficulty settings you can't escape the fact that it's a very linear game, with little variation in enemy types, precious few puzzles and no huge boss battles to speak of, so once it's over and you've solved the mystery there's little different to have you coming back a second or third time.
  

  More to come

  But that first run through Alan Wake is an experience which will live long in the memory. Stumbling through the woods in the dead of night, seeing the mist come down, striking up a glorious red flare, narrowly slow-mo dodging an incoming knife and run-gunning for your very life against a horde of demonic villagers puts Remedy's game right up there with the best story-driven adventures on Xbox 360.

  In the grand scheme of horror videogames meanwhile we'd place Alan Wake bang in between the slapstick B-Movie scares, arcade shooting and slushy gore of recent Resident Evils and the oblique plotting, slow-paced puzzling and disturbing grotesqueness of Silent Hill. We could say the same for 2008's Alone in the Dark, but Alan Wake utterly nails what Atari's game tried and failed to do by offering an adventure that's surreal, intelligent, action-packed and highly atmospheric, blending the best of TV-style presentation, horror-genre plotting and third-person shooting in a way that will grip you right up until the end credits roll.

  Still, you can't help but get the feeling there's more to come from Remedy and Alan Wake. Thankfully, with DLC on the way and technology firmly in place, it shouldn't be another five years before we get it.

  The Good:

  • Probably the most atmospheric videogame we've ever played.
  • Cracking thriller story with well-written characters.
  • Interesting use of light and dark in combat.

  The Bad:

  • Gets a little repetitive towards the end.
  • No multiplayer or Horde-style mode to add longevity.
  • Who left all those thermos flasks lying around?

  Published: 12/05/2012