Amateur Recommendation Hour: Alan Wake

Today’s recommendation is one of the most criminally underrated horror games of all time. I believe that is in part due to its console exclusivity and it due to being out of print on consoles because of various licensing expirations. If you can find it I absolutely recommend playing it, though watching a longplay online would do the trick as well.

Alan Wake, developed by Finnish game geniuses Remedy Entertainment, is a psychological-mind bender through the eyes of a best-selling author and his wife looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of his metropolitan public figure lifestyle to the quaint and quirky small town of Bright Falls. While it leans into action more than it does pure survival horror like a Resident Evil, narratively it has more in common with Silent Hill, even if its level design is much more standard and linear. Not that that is an inherently bad thing at all. Just far less open space to explore like you would in either of the aforementioned series.

I believe this work to be about the importance of art and storytelling strictly being and staying an imitation of life, never being a perfect depiction of it, lest we find our lives imitating the art we consume. And it is also about the importance of balance, accepting that not everything can turn out with the desired outcome and that we sometimes have to make self-sacrifices to benefit those we care about.

If you are a fan of David Lynch’s works, Twin Peaks in particular, you owe it to yourself to experience this too often forgotten gem of a game. For everyone else if you're a fan of horror games, the "Naughty Dog" linear action game formula, or both and haven't played this yet I would say it's worth trying to find used for console players or on steam and other digital PC storefronts as it is still available through those means.