Some interesting trivia about this game: all of the assets of the town in the game were taken from the town that they filmed Twin Peaks in. More or less, the locales of the town all exist in real life, just under different names.
but anyways, I got this game when amazon had it on sale for 14.99. Worth every penny. A lot of the sandbox stuff can be bypassed if you get the right items. There's a radio (i think) item that lets you quick travel to recently visited spots, so you could avoid the driving for the most part. I never got that item though, and drove everywhere, and I never really thought less of the game because of it.
Also if you want time to pass quicker in the game to just cut straight to the story missions, you can smoke the in game cigarette items or sleep. Sure, neither of these items will fix the somewhat flawed shooting sections in the game, but honestly I found it to be very playable. If you don't like Resident Evil 4's shooting style, you probably won't like this. It's a less polished version of that shooting mechanic, but really the game isn't hard to begin with, so the sort of uncontrollable aspect adds a little bit of suspense.
The story is phenomenal and incredibly quirky. This contains some of the most unique and memorable characters you'll ever come across in gaming. For a budget title, you'll be more than happy to look past some of its weak points.
In case you can't tell, I highly recommend this game.
off and release it already. I loved Alan Wake though so I'm not knocking it and I see that the linear path worked to tell the story (except for me searching every corner for those damn pages...), I just feel like more could of been done with the world.
If only they had this shit for XBL with Multiplayer it would make Lost Planet 2 look like dog doo doo. I even went so far as to get the Japanese PS2 ones as well, which are both fantastic. Every 360 owner owes it to themselves to check this ditty out. 
