Alan Wake is a survival horror that trades so strongly in the humble homage that there is very little left that is truly original. You play as Alan Wake, a horror author (Stephen King) who retires to the sleepy mountainside town of Bright Falls (Twin Peaks) after finishing your latest book. Something goes horribly wrong when your girlfriend is kidnapped (Super Mario Brothers) by a mysterious dark presence that slowly envelops the town. It’s then up to Alan to try to confront the darkness with his trusty flashlight to burn away the things that go bump in the night (Darkness Falls).

The plot is actually richer than my crude breakdown here, but not by much. The only part that has any originality to it is the game play and that’s perhaps due to the woeful lack of titles in the survival horror genre. In Alan Wake, light is your friend. The other residents of Bright Falls have been possessed by the darkness. Perhaps consumed would be a better description. You’ll face redneck after lumberjack who are coated in a thick billowing blackness that can only be burnt away by the light. Then of course, you are free to cap them at your leisure. Like any good survival horror you have to be skilled with juggling your inventory. The only real tense moments in the game are those when you’re reloading your gun and your flashlight.

Alan Wake lacks the atmosphere that made success stories from similar titles like Dead Space. Despite being set in the middle of a pine forest in the dark of night, there isn’t a whole lot that is scary out there. In fact, you basically face the same handful of foes throughout the whole game until the only real enemy is repetition and fending off boredom. Having said that, repetition was the main gripe for the first volume of Assassin’s Creed, so I have high hopes for the future episodes of Alan Wake.

One of the interesting features in Alan Wake is the game being split into television style episodes instead of traditional levels. Continue to the next episode and you’re greeted with a “Previously on Alan Wake” voice over that is completely unnecessary. I suspect it’s there for two reasons. Firstly, survival horror games are wholly extensions of horror films and are bogged down in the storytelling traditions of the moving picture. Secondly, there will surely be further episodes to download, making the previous episode recaps relevant instead of redundant.

Alan Wake is a bit on the corny side, but in the same way that Twin Peaks was. Yes it was cheesy yet you were entertained none the less. The other characters Alan runs into add a goofy charm to the story line of Bright Falls. Alan’s agent and pal Barry Wheeler is so dorky he bleeds into brilliance and the old drunken Anderson brothers are retired rock gods who understand the secrets behind the dark presence and Alan’s involvement in the unfolding events.

If you’re happy to lock yourself away in the darkness for a few hours, Alan Wake is a pretty fun game to play. It’s not as haunting as they hype would have you believe, but there are genuinely tense moments and the plot is engaging enough to warrant playing it. Now go Mario, rescue the princess!!