Don’t let Alan Wake’s fancy genre nomenclature fool you. This “psychological action thriller” is dyed-in-the-wool survival horror, and it’s damned good.

Alan Wake, the name of the game as well as its protagonist, is the story of a novelist whose world becomes literally enveloped by darkness as he writes and lives his newest story. Spooky. The game follows Alan Wake as he confronts his writer’s block only to find that his creativity is, in point of fact, his worst enemy. Set in a sleepy town in the Pacific Northwest called Bright Falls, the story borrows heavily from psychological genre-bending television programs like The Twilight Zone. So great is the homage that television sets can be found throughout the game that present mock episodes of a fictional show called “Night Springs.” These Easter eggs provide much needed comic relief from the dark narrative, a strategy employed once before in Remedy’s previous franchise, Max Payne.

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