Alan Wake begins with a nightmare.

Chased by a ghostly hitchhiker he thought he'd just killed with his car, the titular protagonist is running and stumbling through the woods when suddenly, with a panicked start, he wakes. The writer is safe next to his loving wife, the sun is comfortingly bright and the two are on a relaxing vacation together in a peaceful rural town. Everything's okay… okay, that is, until their cabin comes alive, the wife is swallowed by an evil lake and the writer wakes up again, dangling alone over the edge of a dark cliff and wonde🧔ring desperately which, if any, of these experiences is real.

Playing Alan Wake, you'll face the same confusion. The game's greatest strength lies in masterfully blending truth with fiction, mixing darkness with light and shifting backwards and forwards through time until you don't trust your own perception, let alone your hero's. Sadly, the recurring nightmare metaphor can aꦑlso be extended to how you'll ultimately feel about the game; while half of Alan Wake is an original, compelling and brightly intꦏelligent mystery story, the other half – which you'll sink unwillingly into over and over – is a murky, mundane slog through repetitive settings and recycled enemies.