Great story, fun shooting, and challenging puzzles
User Rating: 9.5 | Alan Wake X360
From what I have read many people seem to compare Alan Wake to Heavy Rain. Alan Wake, like Heavy Rain, is a dark story of an everyman seeking a lost and/or dead loved one. The games setting is great and allows the developers to show off the graphics capabilities of the 360. The story is somewhat vague. Others have related the narrative to a David Lynch film. Its not clear how all of the characters enter into the plot line to begin with, let alone why their different stories progress the way they do. But to me this is part of the mystery that makes the story interesting by leaving much interpretation to the imagination. There are few other games if any to my knowledge that tell a deep story in this fashion. The combat is also fun in this game. There is not much choice of weapons and little variety of enemies but the fun comes in having few resources, so its always exciting when you have to race to find new ammo and batteries while being hacked and shot by taken. I also found it fun and challenging to master the shooting and lighting mechanism. The puzzles in this game are creative, well placed within the larger game, and more challenging then some other games in this genre (i.e. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves). In addition to these key elements, Alan Wake has great music both during the game play and in cut scenes, generally has more interactive cut scenes as opposed to say, Final Fantasy XIII, and makes good use of the controller's vibration feature. Given my avatar on this site, you can guess what single game to date I think is alone worth purchasing a 360. Although I do not think Alan Wake itself justifies a 360 purchase, it is an excellent 360 exclusive that warms me up to Microsoft, even if they were only involved in the game's production. 
