Even better with the lyrics, which are no less than one big middle finger to the Dark Presence.
Barry: Al, this may be the most AWESOME MOMENT of our ENTIRE LIVES!
Barry gets a moment after Alan kicks down the door leading out of the catacombs under the church. A huge Taken with an axe begins to charge from the other side when it catches a flare gun round to the back, courtesy of Barry who quips with a one-liner:
Barry: Guess that one saw the light!
Not to mention he was standing there (after spending no less than the entirety of the pervious episodes as a whining and inefficient coward and in the end even presumed crushed to death by a school bus or even worse, turned into a Taken), fully clad with a head lamp (you know like "Sauron!"), the biggest flashlight around in one hand, a big smoking flare gun in the other, and gaudy christmas lights tied across his chest like Badass Bandoliers. Not only that he had probably found THE most effective and logically foolproof weapon in the game; his overall appearance is so heroically and proudly ridiculous (and, by god, he's still every inch of the Plucky Comic Relief he was before) that it can't be accounted for anything else but a CMOA.
There's also the manuscript page foreshadowing it. Barry sees a cabinet with flares, a box with crowbars, and gladly embraces the Lock-and-Load Montage these two items exist to fulfill.
At one point when Wake is separated from Barry and Sarah, you find a radio that plays Awesome Music "War" by Poets of the Fall. Then the Taken attack, and you battle them with the song blaring in the background. Not as impressive as the earlier staged based fight, but the more emotional song adds a greater deal of weight to the ensuing battle.
Alan's Big Damn Heroes event for Sarah and Barry. You round a small hill and they're falling back as at least seven or eight Taken are swarming them, barely ten feet away at that point. If you've got a flare gun or flashbang, you can literally end the fight in a second... Which makes it all the more awesome when Sarah quips, "You sure know how to make an entrance. Barry and I were just about to make like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
This is magnified by a later attack on the trio in which several of the ludicrously fast Taken start swarming you, with both Barry and Sarah freaking out. Alan doesn't say a word, and the A.I. flat out can't take them out, so you have to. So the end result is that you calmly smoke the two enemies freaking your companions out... One of whom is a through and through Action Girl. It really represents a transition for Alan from Action Survivor to badass, especially since the first thing he does upon being separated from the two is take out a trio of poltergeists with a snarkish "Down boy."
"Return", by Alan Wake.
Any time you clear a stage in American Nightmare's arcade mode. You're up to your armpits in Taken, when the clock at the top hits zero, and the sky starts brightening rapidly and provokes a bright flash, causing every single taken to fall over dead in a second. Then you get treated to the Scenery Porn of the arenas at day as the narrator praises you directly. Feel proud of yourself.
It's a pretty huge cliffhanger (and worse if you've played the game before and know what the lake is), but the end of episode 3 is pretty amazing. Alan's falling off a tall cliff, flare in hand. That image, of the streaking flare... Just gorgeous.
. Also a big model dragon over head which can get activated if you're in the right place. Made extra awesome due to the Awesome Music "Children of the Elder God