During last week's X10 event in San Francisco, I previewed the latest build of Remedy's third-person supernatural action-thriller, Alan Wake. The scene I played takes place later in the game (not the beginning), so any chance of getting wrapped up in the mystery of the over-arching storyline was not happening; not to mention the demo was relatively short and, oh, the fact that I was preoccupied by the axe-wielding maniac chasing me.

A representative gave me a brief recap of what had brought Wake to the specific location of the demo level, where the scene kicked off with a "Previously on Alan Wake ... " montage -- like we'd seen before at E3 2009 -- but most of it made little sense out of context. The only thing I was sure of was that I needed to escape from the car I'd just crashed after swerving to avoid someone in the road (who, of course, vanished when Wake looked in his rear-view). After I climbed out, Wake's voice-over cued me to head through the woods to reach a gas station and get help. That's when things started to get really weird.