If there's one emotion that the video game medium conveys better than any other, it's fear. While many are still looking for that elusive game to universally bring gamers to tears or touch the heart in ways only the greatest books and films have, fear has been kind to video games. Maybe it's something about the interactivity, or the fact that a scary environment is easier to construct in a digital realm, but series like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, BioShock, and countless others have raised neck hair and caused screaming fits for gamers all over the world with relative ease compared to other genres.

Alan Wake takes a slightly different approach to typical video game horror. Instead of relying on closet scares and oppressive atmosphere (although those are found here too), Alan Wake takes a more psychological approach, relying on tried and true literary techniques like foreshadowing, character development, and pathetic fallacy to incite unease and tension in the player. These techniques are so effective, that Alan Wake is easily the scariest Teen rated game of all time, without relying on nary a drop of blood to convey its anxiety.

When the game begins, you are given a quick tutorial in the guise of a terrifying nightmare, before reawakening on a ferry to Bright Falls, a Pacific Northwest getaway surrounded by serene lakes and forests. All seems well, as Alan and his wife get keys to their cabin and prepare to take it easy in the placid cabin secluded from the bright lights and honking horns of the big city. Of course, all is not well, as Wake is a successful writer who has been combating writer's block for two years, and isn't getting any better. It's made Wake into an irritable man who only takes solace in his wife's company and little else. Both Wake and his wife are characters that are humanly flawed, but still generally likable, all of which is established in the lengthy but necessary expository scenes at the start of the game.

Things get truly bizarre when Wake's wife goes missing, and he begins finding pages of a manuscript that he had in mind but had not even started to write. Even more bizarre, is that as he finds pages of the manuscript, they seem to be coming true as he frantically searches for his wife. The interesting thing about the manuscript pages is that despite essentially telegraphing twists and events before they happen, they actually manage to increase the fear and tension that the player feels. It's much more horrifying to know that you'll be facing an enemy with a chainsaw or having possessed farming equipment coming after you, but not knowing exactly when or where it will happen. It's a storytelling gamble that fortunately paid off in the form of an engrossing mystery.

It also helps that the manuscript pages and Wake's narration throughout the game are extremely well written, pulling the gamer in with elegant prose and mysterious plot twists. It's refreshing to see storytelling in a video game borrow some of the biggest strengths of the literary medium to tell its story, and it's this factor more than any other that makes Alan Wake a must play. The game also has an unexpected level of good humor, particularly coming from Wake's easily frightened agent, Barry.

The story Alan Wake tells is shockingly unpredictable, and filled with exciting twists and turns that I dare not spoil here. The game is actually split into six two hour episodes, complete with an ending title scrawl followed by a "previously on Alan Wake" blurb to kick off the following episode. Gamers who buy the game new will also get a card with free access to the first downloadable episode soon to be released on Xbox Live. Needless to say, the story in Alan Wake is the driving factor for the gamer, and you'll definitely want to see this story through to its bizarre and shocking conclusion. Just don't expect to learn all of its secrets by the end. The game even warns you of this right off the bat when it quotes Stephen King, who said that when it comes to horror and fear, there's little fun to be had in explanations.