This was released as a standalone DLC for the original Alan Wake and was never meant to be an entirely new experience. As for the gameplay, if you liked Alan Wake, you'll like this. The puzzles can be easier simply because of the scope of the game being significantly smaller, but still much larger than The Signal and The Writer; that said, it is a direct sequel to The Writer. The name for the episode of Night Springs that you are playing out is called "The Return" and is the story being written by Wake at the end of The Writer. It is considered an in-universe spin-off similar to The Signal and The Writer since Wake is trapped in the Dark Place throughout all 3 of them. Worth playing if you enjoyed Alan Wake and it's couple DLC episodes; not a "sequel" to the main story, so don't expect all the holes to get tied up nicely.
Alan Wake is the story of a writer who takes a trip to a cabin on the lake with his wife, only to be thrust into one of his own stories. Guide Wake as he tries to uncover the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of his wife, and the violent shadow citizens of Bright Falls. Gameplay you travel around searching for clues and fighting shadow people straight out of your own book. Shine your flashlight on them to make them susceptible to physical attacks. Collect manuscript pages to unravel more and more of the mystery and help Wake escape a nightmare of his own creation.
This is a great, accessible way to play Neverwinter Nights; and I own physical copies of Gold and Diamond, as well as previously owned the GOG Diamond. It's nice to have multiplayer back and all of the mods working without issues. I love the premium content, it's fun to have easy access to something I needed to jump through hoops to make work. If you don't own NWN, get this version. You get the other version with it, but you'll realize soon after launching it this is the superior version. People complaining about the UI scaling cutting stuff off must be using strange resolutions; I run it 1920x1080 and it fits perfectly. Don't believe the bad reviews; the game had 300 players at its more recent peaks; there was not a huge online community for NWN anymore. Hopefully bringing accessible multiplayer back will be enough to bring more players in.
Shadow Warrior 2 takes place at various open world locations; none of which are actually intersecting and are reached by teleport. You select a mission or hunt and then head out and explore the large open areas to accomplish mission objectives and then return back to your base of operations to upgrade. Weapons are available randomly, like vending machines in Borderlands. This game is actually much more comparable to Borderlands than the first Shadow Warrior remake. This isn't a bad direction to take the series, and give you a better opportunity to continue doing missions without advancing the story than the first one. The main missions are well thought out, but the side missions get repetitive quickly if you do a lot of them. The game is solid overall and very much worth playing through.
One of the greatest games ever released is finally available in a package that you don't need to mod to complete. It works great, and is by far the best version of the game since the original Xbox release. If you own any other PC version of this game, you owe it to yourself to experience it the way it was meant to be played.
