Alan Wake Critic Reviews

A brilliantly told story, excellent voice acting, and an atmosphere so unnerving you'll sleep with the lights on for a month. If only it came with a bottle of instant amnesia so that you could play it for the first time more than once.

Ultimately, Alan Wake is driven -- as is any good story -- by the impulse to see what happens next. It offers up a believable world, characters worth caring about, enjoyable combat and a narrative I wanted to follow.

Alan Wake is definitely art, and is well written enough to keep my wife and I on the edge of our seats from beginning to end. If I can admit something, and give Alan Wake the biggest compliment I can bestow, I’d tell you that I had a nightmare about the game the night after I completed it. No horror game has ever managed that feat or even come close. It may have taken them five years to kick it out of the door, but Remedy has created a masterpiece.

Now, you can chalk it up to the absolute rush of endorphins I've had simply by having this title in hand after a 5 year wait, but I found it very difficult to find fault in this title.

It’s a horror game that doesn’t rely on clunky controls and denying the player supplies to produce tension. It’s an action game with pages of novelized story to read. Yet every element of the game is cohesive and feels right as you play it.

More than once Alan Wake reminded us of books, movies, and TV shows that we love and spend hours with every week; it helped merge the video game experience with those other memorable moments. For once a video game was able to show exactly what it means to create something that brings emotion to the gamer; on top of that Alan Wake was just damn fun to play.

If you're looking for a game with a great story, dense with mystery and suspense and capable of keeping you in constant distress for hours, Alan Wake won't disappoint you. It isn't a perfect game mainly due to the somewhat repetitive action sequences, but its core is in the fantastic plot and storytelling. It undoubtedly is a great and unique experience, and as such it's highly suggested.

Remedy set out to create one of the most intense and gripping story experiences of the year and they delivered on their goals with sublime ease. An utterly compelling cast of characters and the most engaging story we’ve experienced in years means that Alan Wake is a must buy. The best survival-horror thriller we’ve seen for quite some time. It’s more Resident Evil than Resident Evil 5 was! Move over Capcom, Alan Wake’s in town!

'Alan Wake' is a stellar experience that will live on in your mind days after the final credits role. The pacing, storytelling, and light based gameplay is astounding, making 'Alan Wake' any fan of narrative driven games shouldn't miss.

In telling the story of a frustrated author, Remedy Entertainment has excised its own demons and brought forth a beautiful, eerie, exciting, unique, and intelligent creation from the dark depths of development limbo.

Alan Wake is a good game. But as well as a recommendation, I'd suggest you take your time with the first play through, because it's a game you can also only really experience once properly. You will most likely play it more than once - but that first time is the real charm of the thing.

Alan Wake is finally here, and it's as good as we expected. Rich environments, great story, superb gameplay, many areas to explore, interesting characters... A great game that is not the ambitious project Remedy wanted it to be, but it's glorious anyway.

Remedy and Microsoft haven't made a perfect masterpiece, but Alan Wake may well be one of my favourite releases of 2010 – an escapade I'm going to remember for a very long time. It's a stunning action game, a superbly scripted adventure and a technical showcase for the now-ageing Xbox 360 hardware.

While its not the generation defining game the epic development schedule might've hyped, Alan Wake is still a fantastic, 10-hour-plus play-it-on-the-couch linear action game - with brains required or not depending on your preference.

Anything it could do to irritate the player is quickly made up for with a consistently striking character, intriguing cutscene, or thrilling stand-off against an encroaching force of possessed and gibbering mountain hicks. Alan Wake wears its own anomalous sense of style with pride and that alone earns enough credit to spend on inefficient dodging or unfair ambush attacks.

Remedy's done a great job of mixing elements of written work, television, and videogames to create an experience full of scares, laughs, and thrills that's just as fun to play as it is to watch.

Alan Wake is an entertaining game experience, with and engaging narrative and full of nights of terror.

All in all, Alan Wake is a brilliant piece of storytelling and one that is going to stand out as an example of single-player gaming done right.

An accomplished experiment in narrative: Alan Wake mixes a TV serial structure with a basic action gameplay, building its offer in entertainment with well crafted characters, twists in the plot (it won't be Stephen King at its best, but for an action-adventure game it delivers) and a cool atmosphere. Maybe not worth all the long time it took to come to us, but still a very enjoyable mix, and not one you should miss.

The presentation creates a genuine survival/horror ambience that's hard to shake (without the need for excessive gore) and the gameplay shines (no pun intended).