Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Alan Wake was a game that for better and sometimes for worse tried to deliever a Twin Peaks-esque World. Pitting suspicious characters against the foggy brained protagonist. The original game had it's flaws it's main one being that introduction was the closest it ever came to true horror and the rest went the chainsaw and spooky ghost route. But there was enough of the Remedy charm, sardonic self awareness and very polished gunplay to make you largely forget this. The charm of the original is sadly gone in American Nightmare. The story is terrible and doesn't seem to know it, the new characters may as well be non-existant and what you have is a few 'new' locations that you'll quickly forget and some extra weapons. This is a glorified combat DLC one that would have been welcomed had it come out around the same time as the original game and had not tried to sell itself as anything more than such. If by some chance the only thing you enjoyed of Alan Wake was the gunplay, and didn't care for the story, sounds, characters, locations or anything else for that matter then pick this up otherwise you will be sorely disappointed

American Nightmare is one of those rare creations that immerse you in its world immediately, getting you extremely excited to explore it. Sadly, it wastes that start by introducing you to an easy budget title game, that as another reviewer has said, is basically DLC. American Nightmare simply feels slapdash, and forgoes a sensible plot for fetch quests and collectibles. Each level in this game is incredibly small and incredibly empty, and all you have to do in it is find three items hidden around the level, in order to move to the next level. Once you finish the few levels that there are, you discover you have to revisit each level, only this time you need to collect less items to advance to the next level. You can collect manuscript pages strewn throughout the levels, and you can also come across new weapons, but both collectibles are pretty much pointless wastes of time. You can tackle the supernatural elements that attack you with a simple gun. and the occasional submachine gun, without encountering too many problems. Especially since attackers can be stopped temporarily by using a flashlight. Enemies also spawn in far too predictable areas, as well as act in far too predictable ways for the game to become scary. If you do get overwhelmed you can usually run away, since most of the game takes place in open areas. You also get spots where your health regenerates, and a place to re-stock on ammo. So overall, American Nightmare isn't a tough game. It's even easier if you ignore the collectibles and only search for the main three items, aided by the map you get which tells you when an item of note is located nearby. It will cause less enemies to spawn, which isn't a bad thing, seeing as fighting them is so repetitive and tiresome. I also discovered, trying to find every collectible, that the levels are fairly empty, devoid of both items and enemies, which makes the game much more boring than if you simply tried to complete each level as quickly as possible.

Bought both of these in the sale and I'm sorry to say even though this was easier on my laptop, they just don't port well to the PC, I can imagine them been pretty good to play on a console, they certainly have the edge of a good survival horror, but on the PC the aiming just doesn't respond the way that you would like it to. I just so wish that whoever ported these had put a bit of consideration into ease of use because they do look stunning, just near impossible to play, think I'll go and watch them played by somebody else on youtube!

I really loved Alan Wake, bought all the DLC on the console and pc, then i get this crap.. That game is some kind of joke, if u want to play the the same boring game few times again and again u should get this. Its boring, story is some kind of a joke, and u must play the same +-3 locations over and over again.. Ahh, i forgot to add that there are the option where u shoot people for score and try to survive, any fan of arcade shooting will be in heaven, but people playing for the story (or continuation of Alan Wake) will be not.. Also this game is for max 2-3hours of playing.. Im dissapointed.. Keep away from this title.

Short but sweet adventure in Night Springs.