Its right here.

I’m on my television right now this second.

I am sitting here trying to make sense of this game.

So much so that I’ve zipped to the review despite promise of a slow drip.

Because Alan Wake is the first true test of gameplay over graphics I’ve encountered in years.

An amazing experience mired with one massive glaring graphical flaw of epic proportions.

So the debate resurfaces …

Graphics:

Hoo boy.

If I were to explain it while going by at 90 MPH, I’d have to say “an Xbox 1 game using every trick available to the Xbox 360.”

Now that I can slow down to say, 20 MPH, I can begin to elaborate.

On the surface Alan Wake looks about right. Namely it has a strength and it is “DARK WOODS”.

Its such a strong point that you may notice a blurry, incorrect-looking texture map around and choose to ignore it in all of the well-articulated evil forest crushing you slowly.

HOWEVER.

The game, as all good games do, has varying locales. And maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

Texture mapping in particular can destroy immersion. No matter what else the game is feeding me, that grey blob is not a rock.

And after that its much like going to class with a blank textbook. You stop being receptive.

Alan Wake unfortunately has some of the worst texture mapping on the Xbox 360. Or Original Xbox.

This is not an understatement.

With the exception of some patches of quality grass in the aforementioned Dark Forest, the entire game is littered with horrendous, blurry, low-resolution Playstation 2 texturing.

There’s an excellent use of light and shadow but it tends to lose its bite when you realize that this is essentially a dazzling port of an Original Xbox game.

I will say I was fooled by the game’s strength into a purchase. If you were to walk in on someone frantically working their way through the nightmare sequences, you’d be inclined to think its an above average looking title.

Given the overwhelmingly quality of the gameplay, that’s all it really needed to be.

And it has failed miserably.

Rhythm:

Having read the previous statement.

Alan Wake’s level of polish and pacing is on par with Uncharted and God of War.

The story is well-written and engaging.

And if only on the merits of gameplay it would be in my Top 4 this year.

The fact that the game can immerse you with Playstation 2 texture mapping is a testament to the work put into the campaign.

In Alan Wake you are performing one action. This is actually where the game seperates itself. In many games you are performing two actions seperately (i.e. Mass Effect 2 where you are either in overworld conversation mode or dungeon crawl lethal strength mode). Alan Wake has you constantly pushing forward. During the day you are speaking to people trying to get answers. During the evening you are trying to get to a goal (usually the light). Most impressive is how organic both sides of the coin remain through the experience. The town of Bright Falls feels startlingly right. The townsfolks aren’t bathed in yokel overplay, nor or they placed randomly. Its one of the few examples I’ve seen of NPC’s as people not mission ejecting cardboard cutouts. In the evening your jaunts through the demonized back country stand out tall and proud. Despite the videogame cliches (ammo in the rest areas, lots of supplies right before large melees, ample warning before ambushes) Alan Wake feels overwhelmingly natural. The Taken, this game’s brand of monster, should take a tremendous amount of credit. Their design and movement gives them a proper stalker vibe which translates well to your trips through the woods. Even though you are aware on some level that they simply “beep” into existence when you pass an imaginary line, you still feel like they’ve been watching you the entire time. In a related compliment I’ve never seen infinitely respawning enemies handled this well in any game ever. Fascinating how in the event the enemies won’t stop coming, you just know. And alter your strategy accordingly. They respawn in timed waves and are comfortably announced despite being uncomfortably situated on your flank. Brilliant.

As the game presses on that feeling of oppression really does take center stage. By comparison the feeling is not Silent Hill’s isolation. Nor does it possess Dead Space’s habit of constantly needling you to keep your nerves frayed. Alan Wake feels like someone very powerful and very invisible is watching you. As you proceed that person is getting closer and closer to you. By the final act that person is standing in your shirt, and you still cannot see them. If you allow one more comparison Silent Hill feels like it would go on without you, with its wind up toy enemies and infinite fog. Dead Space feels like a particularly harsh day on the job. Alan Wake feels like you are only reason the evil in the game exists. And after a few hours, that becomes quite a bit of pressure.

In Conclusion:

Usually games this unimpressive graphically have one or two other flaws that tend to disqualify it from purchase. My rationale has been “there’s usually something in the same genre that looks much better and operates similarly.” And that has usually rung true with the current trend of 3rd person action games, 1ST person action games, and racing games being the only games released. If a game looks poor, you usually aren’t missing much. I haven’t encountered a game with such a vast disparity between graphics and gameplay in half a decade. I enjoyed playing it. And can wholeheartedly recommend you play through it at least once. But I am a graphics whore and if you are one as well I can’t recommend the full 60 dollar price tag. If graphics are of little importance to you then you should being ordering your copy right … now.

The issue with being a graphcs whore is the anger you feel when presented with poor graphics.  Any softening intended for Alan Wake tends to wither when I remember the game has been in development for 5 years. On the Xbox 360. Kameo: Elements of Power (Xbox 360 launch title) was an Nintendo 64 game ported to the 360 and was for about 2 years the best looking game on the system. So if Rare (who has admittedly lost its touch) can remember to simply put a extra layer of texturing 5 years ago, Remedy can certainly remember to do the same right?

Abitrary Numeral Grade: 8.0/10. If you are wondering if it lost two whole points because of poor graphics, it certainly did. A potential game of the year. Easily the most fun I’ve had holding a controller since Mass Effect 2. Undone because of poor graphics. Poor. Awful. Below sub-par. I am one to make an exception for average graphics if the game is fun (see Conviction, Spinter Cell). But unfortunately the game would have lost the same two points if it made launch in 2006. It would have lost a point if it were released on the Original Xbox. And before you launch your assault on my email. Perform a very important task for me.

Put Halo 1 into your Xbox (whichever one you are sporting).

Play past the introductory stage.

Outside on the ringworld? Look up as a reference point.

There? Planet doubling over on itself? Excellent.

Now crouch and look down.

Thank you.

-A.

P.S. No one at Remedy and no one play testing it all these years noted that the game looked extremely dated ? I know the game was originally an open world game retrofitted for cinematic thriller action, but even standing next to Grand Theft Auto 4 and Prototype pales in comparison. No one noticed?

How Japanese of them.

Little Known Fact:

The intro picture is actually a still of me playing Halo 1 and staring at the ground.

Which of course was the final straw.

I’m getting Split/Second today.

Was nice meeting you Mr. Wake.