There are a lot of intriguing games out on the market right now, and most people can’t afford them all. This makes choosing the right handful of games more important than ever. Enter the new Xbox 360 title, Alan Wake.

Wake was first announced six years ago by the team that brought us the Max Payne titles; however, those crime noir shooters bear little resemblance to what is billed as a “psychological thriller.” In point of fact, Alan Wake draws more from videogames like Silent Hill and Heavy Rain, as well as TV shows like Lost and Twin Peaks, that it does Max Payne.

Now, sometimes this genre can trigger click here nightmares of poorly executed games of a bygone, point-and-click era. Fortunately, Alan Wake appears to be nothing like that; it works with a solid “light versus dark” theme that is simultaneously basic and effective.

The game features a novelist, Wake, who is trying to track down his missing wife in the Pacific Northwest, with pages from a novel he doesn’t remember writing as his only clues … pages that seem to reflect the reality unfolding with each passing moment.

It’s a primal concept that reminds me of Silent Hill at its best, which for me was Silent Hill 2, the first appearance of the franchise on PS2, and by far the one with the more basic and visceral premise: a grieving husband being beckoned by his dead wife to “meet her” in Silent Hill.

Similarly, Wake offers up core, primal fears and motives that make this 360 title one of the more intriguing options on the market right now; it’s on my “seriously consider getting this” list, along with Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2, White Knight Chronicles, and Cross Edge.

In fact, it’s likely to stay near the top of my want list right up until Fable 3 is released near the end of the year (if it stays on schedule).