In Which The Writer Writes a Story About a Writer Writing a Story About The Writer

I'll cut right to the chase: for a game driven by its narrative, and about a writer, Alan Wake could use better writing. The glimpses I've gotten of the larger story are good, and in fact, the game is fairly skilled at the art of visual storytelling. But the dialog frequently feels grammatically stilted, with critical ideas and emotions coming out in the wrong order -- and the voice acting often suffers from hurried delivery, making the characters feel emptier than they should. (The primary characters, anyway. Oddly enough, some of the background cast is actually quite strong.)

This may as well be the end of my post, because the rest of the production isn't nearly as significant. Aim a flashlight at a goon, then shoot him. Dodge to avoid death. Explore dark environs to find the way forward. All of these mechanics are mediocre at best, serving only to support the storytelling. So, yeah.

When I watched the "Night Springs" in-game episode about Quantum Suicide, and made the mental connection to Alan's disparate realities, I got really excited about the plot! So I was more than a little disappointed when the Wikipedia synopsis failed to reveal any science fiction slant. So much for finding Ken Levine's hidden inspiration for BioShock Infinite.

Sorry guys. I might otherwise consider soldiering on - like I said, the visual storytelling is actually very good - but with the size of my remaining backlog (and since I've found critical confirmation of my early impressions), I'm just going to let this one go.

Progress: Gave up -- finished Chapter 1