Alan Wake 2 review: singular, hyperbolic horror

It is perhaps ironic that in attempting to crystalise my thoughts about Alan Wake 2 - a game about a novelist with such crippling writer's block that they end up spawning an entire evil doppelganger of themselves to sabotage their own work - I, too, have been hopelessly staring at a blank screen for the better part of 24 hours. I have not, thank goodness, reached the stage where my psyche's split in two (yet), but this spiral of self-doubt has now got to the point where I simply have put words, any words, in front of one another to write my way out of this hellish pit of despair.

Alan himself goes through a similar ordeal of writing to escape as he tries to find a way out of the prison-like dimension known as The Dark Place, where he's been trapped since the events of the first game - and I take heart from the fact that it's clearly well-worn territory for the folks at Remedy as well, such is the forensic precision in the way it's portrayed onscreen: a chaotic, supernatural tornado that not only threatens to unravel Alan's own identity, but also the wider world as we know it. It's imposter syndrome writ large, and honestly, Remedy are pretty on the money with this one. Horace is not a pretty taskmaster when the words stop coming.

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