Alan Wake

First off, don't buy the remastered edition, especially if you have an AMD CPU. It's a bad console port, riddled with vexing graphical glitches that will never be fixed. Play this, the original, it's still beautiful.

This is an ambitious game in terms of story and setting, and it's fair to say that it sticks the landing on both. The gorgeous Pacific Northwest town in which it takes place is crammed with loving detail, nooks and crannies, and colorful characters, all well integrated and memorable. The story (no spoilers!) is full of mind-bending twists that will keep you guessing, and yet still manages to be quite coherent and satisfying.

Level design is well thought out. Levels are immersive as well as serving as good arenas for action, being mostly linear but offering interesting larger spaces. Unfortunately, action is where the game isn't best. Combat is awesome at first, but the loop repeats itself ad nauseam. In this respect, there is almost no variety from the start of the game to its end. And perhaps more unfortunately, action is pretty much the only gameplay element. There are no real puzzles, and exploration is "rewarded" with useless collectibles that simply add a count to your statistics. I think this kind of mind-bending premise lends itself strongly to puzzles, but alas this was not part of the design.

Still, though repetitive and too simple, it's a good time, enough to get you through the exciting story.

Good game. Can't wait to play the sequel!