Alan Wake's American Nightmare

I love this game. I played it *before* I ever played the full Alan Wake game. Time was I would get home from work a play a full hour of the "Arcade Mode" maps to relax. I actually really like the short length: The game wastes none of your time, has a tight story and gameplay mechanic set to present and gets right to it. And the setting(s) is/are very evocative. You really get a feel for these utterly abandoned desert motels, truck stops, observatories. Through it all it is left very ambiguous whether these are part of the real world or whether Alan is still stuck inside his own head like the end of the first game implies. And as others have said: This game can run acceptably on ANYTHING. I tend to buy Windows laptops off the discount shelf at Best Buy and it works *fine* on those.

I enjoyed the previous AA-game thoroughly and love just about everything made by Remedy so far and American Nightmare (AN) is made with the same care as their other releases. AN takes the concept of the full AA-game and turn it into a Twilight Zone episode where three seperate game areas are visited repeatedly as the game progresses. The basic premises of the previous game is still here: use flashlight to burn away darkness from enemies to hurt them, stand in light to heal and (and save your game) and collect pages from Alans novel manuscript. In AN, these pages lets you access more powerful weapons if you collect enough of them and there are more weapons to choose from compared to AA. I like the whole premise of returning to the same areas as the characters are stuck in a loop but the game doesn't really do anything interesting with the premise. The voice actors and actresses are doing a fine job and the soundtrack is great but the game lacks ambiance - it feels more goofy than surreal and I'm not sure I enjoy that aspect. I also kinda think that the game could do with more puzzles to improve the pacing but all in all, Alan Wake's American Nightmare is still a solid, short experience and in a world where so many games strive to extend their lenghts beyond what's necessary, that in itself is commendable.

Minor(ish) spoiler: the primary game mechanic revolves around a time loop. The game is poorly done: due to the loop mechanic of the game, it feels very repetitive and monotonous. I think it's supposed to feel like that, but I don't think they really pull it off. The story just isn't interesting enough to stand alone several times over. The difficulty is only present in the final loop; the preceeding feel like some sort of tutorial. I loved the original Alan Wake, and was surprised that, to my taste, this sequel failed to live up to its critical acclaim. The atmosphere doesn't feel as exceptional as the original. The levels seem more hacked together, and the story lacks the depth of its predecessor. I still love the first, and I'm excited to check out Quantum Break.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare does exactly what a DLC shouldn't, it gives us a sub-par story that manages to be engaging but nowhere near the perfection that was the originals story. The gameplay is kind of hard to complain about as it is practically the same, althogh I did notice that is was signifigantly easier to pull off a dodge, I don't know whether I just got better at the game or if they just lowered the difficuly. While I think the general setup for the game is just "ok", I do like the inclusion of new enemys, althougth these to do not feal the same due to the fact that they simply lack the human look that the original ones had which I found to be the main reason as to why they were at least a little scary. I did also find the ending satifying and left wanting more which has yet to be delivered. Overall the game just feals exaclty like what it is, DLC even it's main gimic feals like a gimic and nothing more, overall that is kind of how the whole game is, it just is kinda there. I believe it's only redeaming qualeties are it's ending, gameplay (sort of), and its phenomenal voice acting from the protagonist and antagonist (who are voiced by the same actor).

Poor story. Boring characters. Mediocre controls. But this isn't the worst. After 1.5 hours of play I thought to myself - this is the end, right? Wrong. You have to repeat the whole thing... Two more times... Are you serious? Temporal loop may be a fine idea for a book or a movie, but not for a videogame. Especially when your game is nothing to write home about in the first place. Asking anyone to repeat the same boring things three times is one of the laziest things I have seen in videogames. Definitely - the worst game I have played this year.