Alan Wake- a psychological piece of hype.

When I bought my brand new Xbox 360, I had the choice of either a Kinect, or a package with 2 free games. The Kinect was too expensive, so I bought the games. The games were Forza Motorsport 3, and Alan Wake.
I downloaded Alan, and after beating it, let's see how it holds up.

STORY

Often times I had to put my controller down and ask, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?". The story is a convoluted mess, but this is where the "psychological" aspect of the game comes into play. The story revolves around Alan Wake, a world famous writer going to a small town to help cure his writer's block. His wife gets kidnapped and Alan has to save her yeah yeah yeah. Now, stop me if you've heard this, A magical evil causing terror to a white man in small town America. Yeah. Stephen King. Infact, Stephen King is the first word in the game. No joke. So, it's pretty much a playable Stephen King book. Alan can also collect manuscripts from a book he doesn't remember writing, that often give hints at what's to come next.

GAME PLAY

The combat of Alan Wake, while fun at first, is very, very dull. Shine a flashlight at your enemies, two shots. You can collect new weapons, but rare is it that you can keep them inbetween levels (called "Episodes" ingame). The Episodes themeselves are rather dull and samey, with Alan most of the time in a forest. The episodes always start like this, Very short, non combat section mostly reserved for story, VERY long combat/puzzle section, the meat of the game, and finally "extraction", get to the exit. Along the way you can collect manuscripts dropped by a man in an old style deep sea diver suit. I wish I was making this up. Another collectible is coffee thermoses. Yeah, wut. Oh, but you know what enemy I REALLY hate? The birds. The are impossible to dodge, do fucktons of damage, and are REALLY hard to kill. I remember one instance, I had to push a cart off a hill, jump a big gap (the jumping in this game is awful), and run like hell with birds high on my heels. I died so many times, not even funny.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are nothing to right home about, the atmosphere is great, but the character faces are so awful...

REPLAY VALUE
Aside from achievements, and the manuscripts and coffee thermoses, there's nothing really to go back for. The game offers no reward for collecting them, and it feels like a waste of time.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Alan Wake is a bad game with good moments, the atmpsphere rocks, everything else is shit. A solid rental piece, but not a good purchase. A 5/10.

Thank goodness Forza was great.