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00:33Alan Wake is a successful author who recently has been hit with a serious case of writer's block.
00:38To help clear his mind, Wake and his wife have taken a vacation to the Pacific Northwest,
00:41a little town called Bright Falls is the setting, a sort of amalgamation of several real-life locations.
00:47Here his adventure begins with an introduction to the slightly off-kilter inhabitants before Wake's life plunges into darkness.
00:53Whether it's a nightmare or reality is unclear, but one thing is certain.
00:56Only by staying in the light can Wake stay alive.
00:59His wife has gone missing, pages of a horror story he doesn't remember writing are scattered about, and the words
01:04are coming true.
01:06A darkness is possessing the people and objects around Wake, dripping with evil as if coated with a still-wet
01:11ink from Wake's pen.
01:12The only way to destroy the dark presence is with light.
01:15A flashlight is a good start, but during these adventures, Wake will make use of everything from generators to car
01:20headlights to flare guns and flashbangs.
01:22Rip away the darkness with light, and then finish the job with the gun. It's the only way to stay
01:26alive.
01:28It's easy to take a quick glance at Alan Wake and see how great this game is looking, but the
01:32true strengths of these visuals come out when you sit down to play it.
01:35The developers play with light to set the mood, occasionally sweeping the forbidding nighttime in in just a few heartbeats.
01:40At this point, you'll start to realize that the environment itself feels like a character as the trees loom over
01:45you and the fog rolls in.
01:46At the same time, I shouldn't neglect to make it clear that Alan Wake is an action game.
01:50I played about the first hour and a half, and while there's a fair amount of tension building storytelling, there's
01:55a lot of explosive action.
01:58The game builds and waves to an ultimate crescendo of high action before settling down again.
02:02But even during the combat, you can expect to see some cinematic moments thanks to a slick camera that will
02:07occasionally pull back from the player to better showcase the fight.
02:10Alan Wake is one of my most anticipated games of 2010.
02:13It's almost best described by what it isn't.
02:15This is the anti-Splinter Cell in its use of light and dark, and it's the anti-Resident Evil in
02:19its cerebral thriller aspect.
02:21That puts it in a pretty unique position to be a standout and memorable game.
02:24Look for it on Xbox 360 in May, and stay tuned to iJam for the latest.
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