Alan Wake is inspired by other games, it takes ideas from them and makes it one of the memorable games of this gen.
Presentation and Voice Acting:
When you first start playing Alan Wake, you'd notice the American-series inspiration was put into this game by how it's presented. You'll be put in episodes of this series and each one has its twists and plot. In some point of the game, you will interact with some townspeople especially in your first walk-through game and it's epic to say the least. I didn't expect that Alan Wake could've presented an almost A presentation.
And what makes Alan Wake an enjoyable game is also the voice acting. Like I said, the voice acting is very natural. Remedy has done a great job with those elements. It's not just the characters that are well voice-acted, but also enemies, radio broadcasts that you will encounter on your adventure, TV shows which are really creepy and you'll get to watch them in the night "Yes, play the game in the night, better". Sometimes when I listen to one of those stuff, I even put the controller down and forget that I'm playing a game.
Score: 10/10
Conclusion: Presentation and Voice Acting is Alan Wake's strongest points in the game.
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Graphics:
In your first glimpse, Alan Wake is gorgeous. I mean very gorgeous. In most of the game, you will be sent to forests, small towns and gas stations. They're all beautiful don't get wrong, but I found myself in the same environment over and over by playing it numerous hours. There were no different environments.
Score: 8.5/10
Conclusion: Everything looks beautifully the same.
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Music:
Well, let's talk about this fast because I wanna finish the review and download the music ASAP. So let's get it out of the way, the music is simply awesome. With the Rock-music genre and the right-on-time tones when you walk in those creepy environments, when you listen to a radio broadcasts and let you listen to a music after that.. man it's all cracked up to be.
Score: 10/10
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Gameplay:
It almost plays like any third-person shooter but with time, it becomes a little difficult but it's not something that makes it so hard or makes you frustrated. It needs some tactics and as you know, the game has some survival-horror elements taken from the classic Resident Evil. For example, enemies don't drop bullets when you take them down not like most of the game nowadays. So you have to try to survive a bit and save ammo in order to get through the episode. Sometimes you may have to run for your life and I know running away makes you a half man. But Alan Wake doesn't rewrite anything new in the gameplay wise but that's not a bad thing because it plays good and shooting is satisfying.
Score: 8/10
Conclusion: It may not have a revolutionary mechanics but I assure you gameplay is fun.
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Re playability:
There isn't much to do here after beating the game. Collecting manuscripts and playing it on Nightmare difficulty "hard mode" for people want challenge.
Score: 7/10
Conclusion: The only thing worthwhile is the manuscripts that you have to collect for each episodes.
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PROs & CONs:
^_^ Great Story.
^_^ Manuscripts are like a fictional novel.
^_^ Great cast of characters.
(-_-) same environment
(-_-) very short
(-_-) ending didn't do justice to the game.
Overall: 8.5/10