Alan Wake ended on a somewhat fulfilling cliffhanger (if there is such a thing?). The ending to the disc based game was sort of expounded upon in the end, but it left most gamers trying to fill in the blanks and figure out the rest of the story. It wants gamers to think about the ending of the main story arc and expand upon the things that are shown. Does the new Alan Wake DLC “The Signal” go further and do that? Read on for more.

Alan Wake on it’s own was a great game. Tight gameplay, great in-depth story, and non-playable characters that you actually liked and cared for (love me some Barry). It’s what made Alan Wake a must have Xbox 360 title. Just picking up the game on it’s own and playing through the singleplayer is enough to satisfy even the most hell-bent game player. Throw in some perfectly timed DLC just after the release and you have gamers going back into the woods they have come to hate.

Note: If you haven’t beaten the single player campaign for Alan Wake, don’t play the DLC. You’re stupid. Why would you do that? This DLC takes place after the conclusion of the campaign, so there is a refresher video at the beginning of The Signal to spoil the disc game if you haven’t already played it. I’m just letting you know there is a spoiler at the beginning.

Overall, you’re looking at about an hour and a half of gameplay time (give or take a few minutes). I managed to collect seven or eight of the alarm clocks and completed the campaign in an hour and forty five minutes. I didn’t really trouble myself with finding all of them, but these alarm clocks in The Signal are the “new” coffee thermoses. These are just there to add another playthrough to the DLC if you didn’t collect them all in your first playthrough. The clock items collected maintain relevant to the story while giving gamers those achievements they so desperately need. Achievement whores rejoice!

For the most part, The Signal is exactly the same as the disc-based game, but ramped up a notch. This DLC is just jampacked with signature landmarks from Alan Wake that are just compressed into an hour and a half. You’ll run across places within walking distance of each other like the diner and the church. These locations were far apart in the original Alan Wake, but here they are mishmashed throughout the level. It’s a great level design that plays tricks on your mind, really adding a fun house type appeal to the DLC where you don’t know what is coming up next.

The Taken also seem to be amped up as well. They don’t seem to be completely formed in the game, making for a somewhat faster and stealthier Taken apparition. This equates to an even scarier game with enemies, the Taken, and the unknown blending into the trees and dark surroundings better. The boss battles I found were done significantly better in this DLC, causing the player to think a little bit more and have a strategy compared to the lackluster “boss fight” at the end of Alan Wake.

The downfalls to this hour and half playthrough of The Signal is that Remedy tries to compress elements from the single player campaign into the DLC. They don’t need to do this. Some of these instances were downright annoying in the disc-based game, so why are they put into the DLC? Here they just amplify the annoyance even more. The clunky driving parts come to mind. These get a pass from me in the original story because you ultimately need them to get from point A to point B. That’s it. There is a section of the map in The Signal where you need to literally drive a Jeep fifty feet in order to push a button to open a door, not to mention having to deal with all sorts of driving and axe throwing enemies. It’s one of the very few times I used cheap tactics to take down the Taken because I died so many times, using parts of the environment to my advantage (like hiding out in a corner behind a pile of wood). I shouldn’t need to do this in order to progress in any game, but I did it anyway.

Another downfall of the DLC is that there seemed to be too much running and gunning. Alan isn’t the fastest or the most agile on his feet by any means, so it really was a surprise that Remedy would put these sections in. It wasn’t a staple of the singleplayer game, but in the Signal there are sequences that are almost mind numbingly difficult. I distinctly remember only a few instances that required me to tuck tail and head to the next safe haven, but here you’ll need to do it quite a bit. The light pole sequence in The Signal immediately comes to mind, only for the sheer fact of running frantically to the next flickering light. It’s almost like this section alone is on the Nightmare difficulty.

Other than these two small nagging issues, everyone who has Alan Wake should play this and/or buy this. For those of you who bought new? You’re an idiot if you don’t put in your unlock code to get it for free. For all of you others who bought the game used, it’s a measly $7 bucks. I’ll use the used crowd as my barometer for this review, and would absolutely pay $7 dollars for this DLC. It’s well worth the money. What you get with that money is a great ride with Alan Wake yet again, and who doesn’t want that? For most of us out there we’ll get it for free.

The Signal DLC for Alan Wake is available now for free with an unlock code if you bought the game new, and 560 MS Points ($7) for those who bought used. Alan Wake was provided by the publisher for review purposes, including the free unlock code.