There's more to the E3 demo than you've seen or read. In fact, there's a short section that precedes the press conference demo and an extra 10 minutes or so that comes after. And those extra 10 minutes? They're far crazier than anything that preceded it.

The demo takes place about a third of the way into Alan Wake. It's nighttime, which is when bad things happen. Alan Wake is divided into day and nighttime sections, with the day spent wandering the open-world small town or Bright Falls and discovering the quirky locals. At night, the darkness comes and very bad things happen.

The full demo begins with an introduction to Alan's neurotic agent and good friend, Barry Wheeler. Barry's got major allergy issues, which are in full effect in the woodsy town of Bright Falls. He thinks Wake might be going a bit loopy with his story of his wife's disappearance and dark evils in the night. Barry's such a naysayer. But you can mess with him if you like. Shine your flashlight in his eyes and he'll get annoyed, or shut the light off to leave him in the dark (he'll freak out).

Wake's mission is to meet up with Rusty, a local cop who says he's found a few of Wake's missing pages. On the path down towards Rusty's place, Wake comes across a page of his manuscript. This leads to a brief narration of the story. Wake reads, "He screamed,'They're here!' and then he pulled the trigger." And that's when things get weird. The lights along the trail blow out and a scream is heard from Rusty's place.

When Wake gets to Rusty's, he finds a trail of blood and Rusty crumpled against the wall. He tells Wake that he's hidden the pages. "It will come back to get me," Rusty tells him. And sure enough, it does. Before Rusty can tell Wake where the pages are hidden, he sees something over our hero's shoulder. "They're here," he screams before firing his gun. What comes next is the demo shown at the press conference. Rusty's been taken and Wake needs to get to him.

In the full demo, Wake finds a shotgun just before the bulldozer rips the house in half. What comes next? Wake battles a possessed bulldozer. It's intense. With flaregun in hand, Wake fires off a shot directly at the charging bulldozer. It's enough to weaken it and a few blasts of the shotgun kills the dark spirit that possessed it. The bulldozer loses power, rolls to a stop inches from Wake.

The dark can possess any person or object. Everything is out for Wake. The only safety is light. And this is very evident in the second half of the demo. After beating the bulldozer, Wake finds Rusty laying in the parking lot of a gas station. He's calling to Wake. But it's a trap. The dark comes for Wake in full force.

Possessed birds, the same lot that attacked Wake's sky lift, swoop in. You can destroy a group with a well-placed flare gun blast. After chasing away the enemies, Wake finally gets the information he needs. The pages are hidden at the lighthouse. "It knows," Rusty warns, "it won't let you…" And then there is a horrific metallic howl and another construction vehicle comes to life. Its arm slams down repeatedly on the ground. It's quite a jarring experience.

Wake dives into a car and races towards the lighthouse. The dark flings cars into his way, forcing Wake to swerve madly to avoid them. There are Taken on the dirt road to the lighthouse, but they are dispatched easily by flashing the high beams and running them over. Why the dark can't just take over the car Wake is driving is a question that will have to remain unanswered for now.

Wake races towards the ocean, eventually making his way to the lighthouse. "Now the lighthouse really was a safe haven in a sea of darkness," Wake narrates as he pulls up to his objective.

Sure enough, there are new pages of his manuscript, just as Rusty promised. But Wake probably wishes he hadn't read them. "Behind me, the night itself came alive as the darkness I released came calling. It was a trap."

The lighthouse suddenly goes dark. Wake turns to see a tornado of darkness raging towards him. He falls to the ground and the scene goes dark.

"Alan," his wife whispers, "wake up."

And that's how the demo ends.

For those concerned that Alan Wake will never see the light of day, relax. Remedy says that Alan Wake is "quite far" into production. Remedy is in the heavy polishing phase and expects to meet its spring 2010 release window.

Guess what? There's more to the E3 demo than you've seen or read. In fact, there's a short section that precedes the press conference demo and an extra 10 minutes or so that comes after. And those extra 10 minutes? They're far crazier than anything that preceded it.

IGN Peview

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/743608/remed...