It’s easy to laugh at Alan Wake. It’s a stupid name for one, and he’s a fairly stupid guy. He’s a writer with a much-referenced obsession with Stephen King, and his constant soliloquies about his surroundings are as flat as some of the game’s more threadbare textures. To dismiss all of Remedy’s literary ambitions though, is to do the Finnish team a disservice.

Alan Wake, on a narrative level, actually tries to do something interesting. Much like Max Payne before it, Alan Wake is a pastiche executed with some skill. It cleverly plays with your expectations and preconceptions – and even with the medium itself – and while the consistency of the cast is a letdown, the yarn it spins isn’t.

Backing up this well-paced romp – and it is a romp, there’s very little here to be taken seriously – is an atmosphere that takes full advantage of its host technology to deliver something really quite unsettling. Without spoiling the story, Alan spends a lot of his time in the woods of Pacific town Bright Falls. At night. With a torch. And his not on best terms with the dark.

Machete-wielding shadow monsters hurl themselves at you from the jet-black shroud of the night, and they can only be stopped with a well-aimed torch beam and a few shots from your revolver. It’s a slick system, one that outperforms most of its survival horror brethren in its tactility.

Sadly though, by its final third, Alan Wake has lost its way. Later sections feel tacked on for pacing or padding, and the focus shifts from snappy storytelling to drawn-out, frustrating gun-battles. Only a fantastic last 20 minutes save it from the abyss, although the ending itself leaves a lot to be desired. Here’s hoping for some conclusive downloadable content.

Still, regardless of how long it’s been in development and how stupid its name is, this is a supremely slick and thoroughly entertaining lark in the woods, and a refreshing change of pace on a console dominated by war. A happy ending after all.

Some of the games that Remedy make are more cinematic, movie like action, or so says Remedy’s OZ Hakkinen, going some way to explaining the mixture of gloomy ambiance and surprisingly accomplished mechanics that defined our very own particular play session.

‘We are well known for the Max Payne games, where we had a story driven experience and a strong lead character, and we’re seeing similar things happening with Alan Wake,’ he continued when asked on the motivations behind Alan Wake’s prolonged development. ‘We’ve evolved the game into a thriller.’

Alan Wake is a type of gaming experience that isn’t afraid to combine narrative and gameplay together!

Alan Wake is not just a survival horror game. It is more than that. It’s a piece of work that is conscious of its heritage that can be found in videogames, the movies and television – and translates that into a type of experience that combines narrative and gameplay together, not relying on cut-scenes initiated with action, but instead combining the two.

Alan Wake is a writer who is suffering from a creative block, his wife convinces him to take her and flew to the Pacific North Western town of Bright Falls. Before long though, Alan starts finding torn pages of a novel with his name written on them, but he has no recollection of writing it. And then the horror enclosed within its pages starts to come true.

The game has a bit of Hitchcock in there, certainly an echo of Twin Peaks in Bright Falls. Ala Steven king, Hakkinen enthuses while the game’s music plays quietly in the background. In the game you’ll see a hedge maze – from The Shining noticeably. There’s are some moments where you’ll say ‘OK, I’ve seen this somewhere else’. What happens with that is that it resonates really well, and you can’t quite put your finger on why you’re scared, or what emotions that it’s pulling out of you. You’ve seen it somewhere else. It can be the music or it can be the way we use the camera, it’s more like ‘the knife on the table, then you pull away, go back and there’s something missing.’ You only realize it’s the knife when the action unravels. So we take a lot of influences from popular culture like that.’

It’s not all narrative thinking and atmosphere, though. Alan Wake has also some serious gameplay mechanics to back up its style, and when Alan Wake is attacked by the nasty forces of darkness, he’s forced to look to the light. Charging up a torch beam and pointing it on your foe will weaken them temporarily for a quick pistol shot to the chest, and the way Remedy has designed the battle really suits the action and the setting.

We’re not expected to line-up headshots with pinpoint accuracy, but just remain calm enough when the adrenaline is pumping and the heart is racing to focus that torch, and then make sure we’ve got enough ammo to finish one of these specters off. It’s the proper way of doing things, but it’s also extremely effective.

Obviously, with this being Alan Wake, even the details of combat have been given cinematic flair, as Hakkinen explains: ‘We want to use some of the things we have learned about camera work and how to use those in a thriller. We have ‘thriller moments’, like a bit on a bridge where you’re attacked by birds, so we pull the camera away here so we can get that moment of ‘hunter and hunted’. You’re still in control of the player, so it gives you a little more time to relax, but it also gets your pulse racing because we pull the camera back. There are cinematic moments as well, for example if an enemy is just about to hit you with an axe or whatever weapon… If you dodge out of the way it activates a ‘cinematic moment’.

And indeed it does, as the camera pulls in close and the action slow down while our Hero rolls out of the way of an incoming axe blow during our own hands-on play. During the first episode of Alan Wake’s TV structured tale, this was one of the tamer things that happened to our poor frayed nerves. With cars falling out of the sky and crashing through bridges, different faces flashing up on the screen and making us jump out of our seat, and one of the eeriest American diners outside of a David Lynch movie, it was one of the more intense press play tests in recent times. Don’t worry about staying awake, because after this, you won’t be able to sleep.

Thankfully though, it’s also the best God of War clone ever made, and by some distance. Visceral Games has managed to capture the sense of awesome scale that separates Kratos’ adventures from the brawling pack, filling the screen with incredible sights at almost every turn.

As you’re probably aware, Dante’s Inferno is based upon the classic 11th Century literary work from Dante Alghieri, The Divine Comedy. Now, obviously the original poem did not feature combo chains or Quicktime Events, but clear differences aside, Visceral has actually done great work in creating vision of hell that echoes the nightmarish descriptions that appeared in the original text.

Descending through Lust, Greed, Gluttony and the rest of the nine circles of Hell is, at first at least, an audiovisual feast – albeit one that you probably wouldn’t want to eat. Once again, Visceral Games has displayed its flair for body horror, creating some of the most revolting, disgusting images you’re ever likely to see. Whether it’s pallid, skeletal women with phallic protrusions bursting from their stomachs or a trip through the fetid intestines of Hell, every part of Dante’ Inferno has been designed to shock, provoke and upset.

It’s somewhat of a shame, then, that such bold visual design only houses a God of War style of gameplay. Even though cutting down swatches of demonic hordes is well handled with Dante’s whirling dervish of Scythe attacks and elemental magic, the variety of enemies doesn’t match up to Sony’s classic. By the end of the game, you’ll have seen every enemy hundreds of times, and there’s no real tactical difference between fighting a grunt or a hellish Minotaur.

And the bosses – while incredible to look at, and at times genuinely quite terrifying – prove far too frustrating and unfair. Attack patterns that are almost impossible to learn and offense that takes off incredible amounts of damage on Dante’s Inferno’s normal (or Zealot) setting, often stop the game in its tracks and push you right to the very limits of your sanity.

Still, the interim parts are so full of visual invention that it’s enough to push you through even the hardest boss fight, until that is, you reach the game’s one weak spot during its final hour. It’s as if the team just completely ran out of ideas. Just as you’re making your final descent into the very core of Hell itself, you’re forced to spend an hour battling through identical challenge room. After the creativity and invention found in the earlier levels, it’s somewhat of a disappointment to find this towards the end of the game.

So it’s important, then, to remember Dante’s successes in its early salvos – those moments were it leaves you slack-jawed in wonder or grimacing in disgust. It’s still the best God of War clone ever made, but Kratos would never be seen near those final few hours. They’d only make him angry.

Valve received flack for releasing the sequel in such a short amount of time, and much of the game has stayed fundamentally the same. You and three other survivors still have to make it to the rendezvous point without getting mauled by waves of infected and the various special characters like Tanks, Boomers, Smokers and three new classes.

Each of the new infected completely change the complexity of multiplayer and will alter many veteran’s tactics. The Spitter’s ability to send volleys of acid towards the survivors make her the most potentially damaging addition, while the Charger and the Jockey each have their own value, mostly in causing panic and chaos in enemy ranks.

The source engine now offers zombies that realistically break apart under fire, which is gloriously gory and incredibly satisfying, as you watch their limbs fly off in a multitude of directions.

Everything apart from the core values is new and also superior to the original. Now you have five campaigns instead of four and every one of them is able to be enjoyed in four-player co-op and survivors versus infected multiplayer. Straight out of the box it has plenty more content than the original and that’s not even including the new gameplay modes and three new infected classes.

Scavenge mode is the most important edition and satisfies the itch of competitive play without needing two hours to complete a campaign. Based on three roads of time-based gameplay, the survivors need to collect gas cans to keep their generator going while the infected need to stop them by any means possible. When a can is added, the survivors gain another slim morsel of time on the clock. As it counts down, a small drum beats gains more tempo and if it runs out without any cans in your hand then the round is over. Then both teams swap roles to see who can get the most cans home. It’s fantastic system and leads to some really tense scenarios. Like everything in Left 4 Dead 2, it’s all about teamwork and if you are constantly communicating on Teamspeak or Steam, you’ll have an even better time.

Each of the new campaigns is steeped in Southern flavor, all with their own distinct themes – whether it be a inner city, carnival or swamp. Hard Rain is our favorite, as the dramatic weather effects are some of the best we’ve seen implemented in any game.

The plot’s wider content is explained by graffiti on the safe room walls. It’s a method which Valve has become known for and once again it works extremely well here. Campaigns also flow seamlessly into one another and are each punctuated by explosive finales. It’s a nice way to end each episode, which are also significantly longer than the original’s.

Melee weapons make their debut and even though to gory effect, eventually you’ll prefer something a bit safer. Friendly fire is a constant danger with close range weaponry and even though it isn’t Valve’s fault, you’ll probably have your fill after an hour or so. Other new weapons include the always awesome Grenade Launcher, Magnum, various assault rifles and the auto-shotgun. They each add more color to the campaign, and even those who just used the Hunting Rifle before, may be a little bit tempted to try something new.

Difficulty is once again impossible at the high end, but everyone should be able to find a level which meets the fun versus challenge ratio. There’s also Realism mode for the masochists among you, which switches off all the gameplay aids, such as survivor outlines and respawning closets. It’s a much more engrossing experience, as death awaits around most corners, with witch provocation resulting in immediate death to the victim.

It’s scary that Valve pumped out a game as polished as this in just over a year. There’s so many new additions which completely change established gameplay dynamics, and frankly it’s impossible not to recommend.