Alan Wake’s American Nightmare – A Dream

Alan Wake: American Nightmare is the downloadable Xbox Live Arcade sequel to the original Alan Wake, a game which, although not reaching critical success, was extremely popular among the general gaming community. The original Alan Wake followed the title character Alan Wake, a writer, who is suffering writers block and takes a trip with his wife. In his latest book he writes about the darkness, a sentient being that inhabits the shadows. Slowly, it comes true. Alan’s wife goes missing, his world is twisted out of control, and it becomes his job to fix it. The original Alan Wake’s story was inventive and creative, and the game played just as much like a movie as a game.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare starts off with a character from the original game, Barry (not our editor in chief, a fat publisher.) lounging in bed, sleeping with his TV on. On his TV plays the game’s version of Twilight Zone, Night Springs. It quickly becomes apparent that this episode is about Alan Wake. He must fight off the new leader of the darkness – Mr. Scratch. Mr. Scratch has been wreaking havoc all over Nevada, and being that he looks like an exact twin of Alan, it becomes his job to fix things.

As you take control of Alan you’ll wake up in a black canyon with the narrator speaking about the current event, you’ll see some live-action cut scenes involving Wake and Mr. Scratch, and then move through the canyon into a small town. In this town you find out your doppelganger has “rewritten reality” by changing the events of the past. You collect a few objects, change a few things, fight a few shadows, and bam. Done the first mission. This is the trend among all of stages Alan visits; Mr. Scratch has screwed up the timeline and it’s up to Alan to fix them.

At the end of each mission you’re greeted with a cinematic as well as a narrative describing how Alan goes from area to area. After the fourth, he revisits the first, and goes to each twice.

In each mission you’ll encounter hordes of the darkness, which can be easily defeated by light coupled with gunfire alone, but in a group they’ll prove dangerous, most of the time, it felt easier to simply out run the beasts rather than fight them, a tactic that proved effective yet boring.

The Game play in American Nightmare is just like its predecessor. Light is a safe point from the darkness, stepping in it saves your game and heals you. Your best friend in Alan Wake is your flashlight, followed by your gun. You take down darkness’ shields with the flashlight and finish them with your gun. Guns range from pistols to shotguns to rifles, but special guns can be obtained through collecting manuscript pages scattered throughout the environment.

One thing the guys and gals at Remedy did extremely well was the presentation. The art, while not breathtaking, is extremely good looking, and is beautifully mixed in with the life action sequences. When I first started the game, I didn’t even realize the live-action was in fact live-action! It is blended so well that it is even meshed into the game in the TV’s that you encounter. The darkness looks menacing and scary and makes you truly breathe a sigh of relief when you see a stray flare laying on the ground or a street light looming above. The cut scenes have a nice array of music, the first cut scene being the best. And the games voice acting is very well done. The Twilight Zone-esque settings make any fan of the TV series fall even more in love with it.

American Nightmare left much to be desired in terms of story; after the first four missions I found myself barely paying attention after having already visited a location and done the same tasks already the first time around, it simply proved to be repetitive, but that’s not to say I didn’t have fun. American Nightmare was extremely fun to play through, and while it had its dull moments, it was a great game throughout. For 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), I can’t recommend or not recommend Alan Wake.  My ultimate suggestion is to do what any informed gamer would do: download the demo, try it out, and if you like it, buy it! It’s a great game and you’ll surely have fun.