Alan Wake
| Alan Wake | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio |
 Remedy Entertainment Nitro Games (PC)
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| Publisher |
 Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox 360) Remedy Entertainment (Download) Nordic Games (PC) 
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
Xbox 360: May 14, 2010 May 18, 2010 May 20, 2010 Microsoft Windows: February 16, 2012 March 2, 2012   |
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| platform | Xbox 360 , Windows | ||
| genre | Third-person shooter , survival horror , action-adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Gamepad , keyboard and mouse | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | DVD , download | ||
| language | German | ||
| copy protection | Steamworks (Steam) | ||
| Age rating |
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| information | No distribution between May 15, 2017 and October 26, 2018 due to expired music licenses. | ||
Alan Wake is a video game released in Europe on May 14, 2010 for Xbox 360 and February 16, 2012 for Windows . The action adventure described as " Psychological Thriller " was developed by Remedy Entertainment , publisher is Microsoft Game Studios . The developers were inspired by television series such as Twin Peaks , 24 , The X-Files - The Scary Cases of the FBI or by works by Stephen King .
action
Alan Wake (German voice actor Moritz Brendel ) is a thriller writer who has suffered from insomnia, nightmares and acute writer's block for some time. To gain new strength in their job and in their marriage, Alan and his wife Alice travel to the tranquil town of Bright Falls. After a mysterious handover of the keys, not only Alan's wife disappears, but also the house they just moved into and the small island on which the property was located.
Alan wakes up in the dark and finds that the area is haunted by the possessed. These human-like creatures are protected by the dark and therefore cannot be attacked. Alan finds a remedy with a flashlight and a revolver and receives a tip from an unearthly voice to first shine a flashlight on the possessed in order to free them from their protective shadow of darkness. He could then hunt them down with conventional weapons.
In his search for Alice, Alan keeps finding manuscript pages that seem to come from one of his works. He just can't remember it. In fact, the recorded events occur a short time later.
Gradually Alan realizes that a week has passed between Alice disappearing and his awakening in the woods. In television broadcasts, he sees himself again and again writing the manuscript pages while he is disappearing, trying to evade the control of the darkness that the story whispers to him.
During his journey through the nightmare of Bright Falls at night, Alan begins to understand that he has to go back to the cabin to finish the last page of the manuscript and thereby end the nightmare.
development
Alan Wake was originally intended to be an open world game . However, the concept was dropped by the developers.
The framebuffer has a resolution of 960 × 540, i.e. below HD and works in combination with 4 × multisampling antialiasing , which greatly softens the image. Important elements of the graphics engine are advanced lighting effects, shadows and volumetric fog .
On February 16, 2012, Remedy Entertainment released a version for Microsoft Windows. The port was developed by the Finnish studio Nitro Games. The publisher Nordic Games took over the distribution of the shop version .
With Alan Wake's American Nightmare , a sequel was released in 2012, independent of the first part, which is based on an Alan Wake 2 prototype that was never completed .
Gameplay
The game is a third-person shooter in which the player steers his character on foot or by vehicle through the dark night in and around Bright Falls and fights the possessed, mainly equipped with a flashlight and revolver. One feature is the play with light and darkness; The possessed must first be weakened by the said flashlights or other light sources before they can be killed with various firearms.
The story is told in six or eight episodes, as mentioned above, based on television series such as 24 . Each individual episode results in another piece of the puzzle in the overall plot.
Downloadable additional content
On July 27, 2010, the paid additional content The Signal was released as DLC . It offers a complete additional chapter and complements the main story. Another chapter entitled The Writer was published on October 12, 2010. The PC version released later contains these two additional episodes as standard.
Marketing and Publishing
A few weeks before the game was actually released, several live action episodes titled Bright Falls were shown on Xbox Live and YouTube . Intended as a prequel to the game, the series is about the reporter Jake Fischer, who has to travel to the place for research purposes. There, like Alan Wake, he experienced numerous mysterious events.
In addition to the standard version, Remedy Entertainment brought a limited edition with additional bonus material onto the market: In addition to the actual game, the box includes a soundtrack CD and a bonus disc with additional content. Also included is The Alan Wake Files . The box is designed as a book - in keeping with the protagonist's profession. The limited edition of the game itself offers the option of showing developer comments.
Soundtrack
The original music was composed by Petri Alanko. In addition to the music, the game also features songs by different artists. In episode 3 z. E.g. the song How can I be sure by Anomie Belle and at various points in the game Coconut by Harry Nilsson can be heard. In addition, a separate song will be played during the end credits of each episode.
The two songs Children of the Elder God and The Poet and the Muse , which in the game are attributed to the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard , actually come from the band Poets of the Fall , who also contributed the song War to the soundtrack.
The original music was released on CD in July 2010 as the Alan Wake Original Score by Petri Alanko . The Collector's Editions of the Xbox 360 and PC versions each came with a different soundtrack CD.
Due to expiring music licenses, Remedy Entertainment decided to stop selling Alan Wake on May 15, 2017. After the studio renewed the licenses, the game was digitally re-released on October 26, 2018.
| Alan Wake Soundtrack Releases | ||
|---|---|---|
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Original Score by Petri Alanko
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Collector's Edition Soundtrack (Xbox 360)
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Collector's Edition Soundtrack (PC)
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Pieces of music in the episode credits
| episode | Artist | song | length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode one | Roy Orbison | In dreams | 2:48 |
| Episode two | Poe | Haunted | 5:20 |
| Episode three | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds | Up Jumped The Devil | 5:16 |
| Episode four | Poets of the Fall | The Poet and the Muse | 4:18 |
| Episode five | Poets of the Fall | Was | 5:05 |
| Episode six | David Bowie | Space Oddity | 5:15 |
| Special one | Anna Ternheim | No, I don't remember | 3:56 |
| Special two | Depeche Mode | The Darkest Star | 6:42 |
synchronization
The localization was done by 4-Real Intermedia GmbH, Offenbach.
| role | Voice actor |
|---|---|
| Alan Wake | Moritz Brendel |
| Alice Wake | Gisa Bergmann |
| Odin (Anderson brother) | Peter Heusch |
| Thor (Anderson brother) | Stefan Müller-Ruppert |
| Obsessed | Richard van Weyden , Aart Veder |
| Barbara Jagger | Sibylle Nicolai |
| Barry Wheeler | Sebastian Walch |
| Emil Hartman | Gordon Piedesack |
| Narrator "Night Springs" | Mario Hassert |
| Rusty | Thomas Friebe |
| Doctor Nelson | Michael Deckner |
| Cynthia Weaver | Barbara Pierson |
| Thomas Zane | Gilles Karolyi |
| Pat Maine | Hans-Jörg Karrenbrock |
| Ben mott | Oliver Krietsch-Matzura |
| Rose Marigold | Nora Jokhosha |
| Sheriff Sarah Breaker | Abak Safei wheel |
| Deputy Mulligan | Michael Deckner |
| Deputy Grant | Sonngard Dressler |
| Carl Stucky | Mario Hassert |
| Agent Robert Nightingale | Andreas Grober |
reception
Alan Wake received good ratings with a Metacritic average of 83 out of 100 for both the Xbox 360 and Windows PC versions.
In the first two weeks, according to the NPD Group , the game sold 145,000 times, at the same time, according to a report by the scene site TorrentFreak, with 1.1 million downloads, it was the second most frequently illegally copied Xbox 360 games of 2010. By March In 2012, according to Remedy Entertainment, more than two million copies were sold on Xbox 360 and PC, and by May 2013 more than three million.
Trivia
- The song The Poet and the Muse , who comes in the game of the fictional band "Old Gods of Asgard", is in reality the band Poets of the Fall of a title in Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne to hear was. The band's lead singer, Marko Saaresto, is a friend of Remedy employee Sam Lake. They continued to contribute the songs Children Of The Elder God and War . The latter is on the album Twilight Theater .
- The TV series Twin Peaks served as inspiration for the game . This role model function can be recognized by various elements in the game, e.g. For example, the landscape of the US state Washington, which is characterized by forestry and coniferous forests (in the game a mountain is called Mirror Peak ) or the similarity between Cynthia Weaver and the "Log Lady" from the series. Allusions to Agent Dale Cooper's love of coffee are the character Rusty and the thermoses that can be collected anywhere in the game. If you have found 25 of them, the achievement "Damn good coffee" is unlocked - a typical statement from Dale Cooper. Places of action in the game and in the series include a diner and a sheriff's station. Alan Wake is also designed like a TV series, with a recap at the beginning of each episode and credits.
- Developer Remedy also indicated that the diver Tom actually used David Bowie's fictional character Major Tom as a template, whose odyssey through space is also described in the song Space Oddity, which runs in the credits of the main game.
Web links
- Official website
- Real film episodes ( Memento from February 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- Alan Wake at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Smits: Alan Wake - Release information, system requirements and more , Gamestar
- ↑ Alan Wake's last discount campaign - the game series will finally disappear on May 15 from Steam on gamestar.de, accessed on May 14, 2017
- ↑ Jamie Davey: Microsoft releases Alan Wake early in Europe . Strategy Informer. April 7, 2010. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved on August 8, 2013.
- ↑ Alan Wake: Test of the PC version - sleepless, exciting, great - now on Steam as a download
- ↑ Sebastian Klix,: Alan Wake - Why the "Open World" concept was dropped . In: Gamestar . ( gamestar.de ).
- ↑ Richard Leadbetter, Tech Analysis: Alan Wake , May 24, 2010
- ↑ Introducing the Alan Wake 2 you will never play on Polygon.com by Brian Crecente on Apr 20, 2015 at 1:00 p
- ^ Remedy Entertainment Twitter account on twitter.com, accessed May 14, 2017
- ↑ Alan Wake is available again - initially on Steam and GOG.com at 4players.de, accessed on October 26, 2018.
- ↑ 4-Real Intermedia GmbH at: ogdb.eu , accessed on January 4, 2013.
- ^ Metacritic Alan Wake Xbox 360
- ^ Metacritic Alan Wake PC
- ↑ Alexander Sliwinski: NPD on the Red Dead, Alan Wake, and Split / Second retail showdown ( English ) In: Joystiq . AOL . July 2, 2010. Archived from the original on November 5, 2010. Retrieved October 19, 2010.
- ↑ "Emesto": Call of Duty: Black Ops Most Pirated Game of 2010 ( English ) TorrentFreak. December 28, 2010. Retrieved April 21, 2011.
- ^ Andy Robinson: Alan Wake sales top 2 million, series 'has a future' ( English ) Computer and Video Games . March 13, 2012. Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved on March 14, 2012.
- ↑ Jeffrey Matulef: Remedy on why Alan Wake 2 is not happening right now ( english ) In: Euro gamers . Gamer Network. May 23, 2013. Retrieved May 23, 2013.