Alan Wake Preview at HS.fi

Rajatapauksia blog blog over at Helsingin Sanomat has a preview of Alan Wake from a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, we don’t have a translation of the article at this stage, though from the looks of things, its just recapping information we already know.

Thanks to wakefan for noticing the link on the Wikipedia page.

Update: manywhere from the Alan Wake forums has posted up a translation of the article. Click the read more link to check it out. Thanks manywhere!

Read More

New Games Radar Alan Wake preview

Games Radar has a new Alan Wake preview up which doesn’t really cover much new information but it does offer 2 brand new screenshots!

Your 360 is once again engaging in psychological warfare with you - but on a whole new level. It’s a step beyond the “boo” mentality of Doom, and it’s more advanced even than F.E.A.R.’s jarring peaks and endless troughs. In Alan Wake, the Xbox 360, under Remedy’s orders, is letting you - here’s the good bit - scare yourself.

The full preview can be read here and the screenshots can be found in the Media Archive or below:

Alan Wake preview at Hooked Gamers

Hooked Gamers has an preview up which does a good job in summarising all available information, though unfortunately without offering anything new.

This level of commitment really shows in the game. The town and the nature around it are more realistic that anything we’ve seen to date. The draw distance of 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) ensures that buildings and trees will not just pop up out of nowhere as you cruise down a mountainous road and admire a view of a beautifully rippling lake surrounded by mountains on your left. Try to imagine this scene and add to this a realistic movement of the sun on the sky (and resultant shadows cast by the mountains and every other item in the landscape), sunsets and sunrises as well as eerie night-time lighting from street lamps and flashlights. Now, try to throw in ultra-realistic fog effects and twisters that rip apart houses piece by piece, sucking them up to the sky and throwing them around the landscape.

Check out the rest of the preview at HookedGamers.com.

PC Zone/C&VG Preview - New screens!

ComputerAndVideoGames.com has a preview up featuring quite a bit of new information and also some new screenshots from Alan Wake.

“Missions are built around a single linear storyline, so that the player always knows how to progress, but then there are other story fragments spread all around the world - smaller games for the player to mess around with,” continues Järvilehto. “While we allow for free-roaming exploration, we don’t want you to get lost or frustrated.”

Check out the preview here and you can view the screens below.

Thanks SlamDunk for the heads up.

PCPowerplay Alan Wake Preview

Another Australian magazine has a Alan Wake preview up and this time it’s PC gaming magazine, PCPowerplay. There’s a tiny bit of new information and a cool little Q&A with Sam and Petri. “We set out to build the first psychological action thriller in games,” says Lake. “We wanted to clearly raise the bar for story telling in video games and set out to build a movie-like atmosphere, compelling situations, and memorable characters.” It’s a sentiment echoed by the game’s creative director Petri Järvilehto. “Alan Wake feels like a logical step forward,” he says, “taking some of the things that worked in our previous games further, such as themes aimed for grownup gamers, cinematic atmosphere, and storytelling. We have a record of creating games with unique cinematic presentation and exceptionally high production values - but felt that we could take this so much further.”

But that doesn’t mean that a decent narrative comes at the cost of sacrificing gameplay. The team is looking to make that aspect just as compelling and as memorable as its previous forays. “Mystery is an important part of a good thriller,” says Lake, “as are tight atmosphere and suspense. But on the other hand we are known for action and there will be plenty of cool and cinematic engagements. We wanted to steer clear of horror and gore, which often means buckets and buckets of blood. The idea is to stay in a more stylised and tasteful area.”

The PC Powerplay magazine is available from all good newsagencies in Australia, issue #133 has the Alan Wake article.

Hyper Magazine Alan Wake Preview

Australian magazine Hyper has a writeup on their impressions of the Alan Wake showing at X06.

“The game is played form a third person perspective similar to that of Max Payne, although the screen is devoid of the usual HUD. Instead players get the occasional hand writing mission briefing and Wake’s own internal narrative to let them know what to do. Although we have only seen a brief amount of gameplay the use of first person narrative looks as though it will work very nicely for both exposition and immersion. After a little running around and showing off the character animations and cloth physics of Alan’s flapping coat, the first actual gameplay segment of the demo began with Alan talking to a gas station attendant who tells him to head on up to the cabin in the nearby mountains. Jumping in a 4WD, Wake begins the drive up the mountains. We haven’t had any hands on time with the game but from what we were shown the driving engine looks solid and realistic. More importantly it was also explained to us that as well as utilizing the episodic narrative, Alan Wake is going to be an open world game in which players can approach the story as they see fit and will have ample opportunities to explore the mysteries of Bright Falls and be rewarded for their inquisitiveness.

During the drive up the mountains the voiceover kicked in, explaining how the drive seems to mimic a passage in his notebook, if only a hitchhiker would appear. Lo and behold a stranger with his thumb out does turn up and, contrary to conventional wisdom, Wake picks him up. Just as we begin to internally groan at the “coincidence”, the voiceover, with immaculate comic timing laconically says “creepy”. Alan comments to his passenger that in his book a man picks up a strange hitchhiker. The hitcher assumes he’s meant to be the killer in the story but Wake sets him straight telling him that in fact it is the hitchhiker who dies. A little further up the road Alan comes across what appears to be the scene of a hit and run accident. A body lays bloodied in the centre of the road (a body that seems to be dressed almost identically to Alan Wake) and our hero goes to investigate. Shortly after he gets out of the car an out of control truck slams into it killing the hitchhiker, proving more of the mysterious written notes to be true. To make things even stranger the body on the road is no longer there and Alan remembers the next part of the writing that says that the hitchhiker will stalk him in some fashion, before finally passing out.”

Hyper magazine is available from all good newsagencies in Australia, issue #158 has the Alan Wake article.

Credit: Thanks Marcus.