Alan Wake's American Nightmare Review

Alan Wake's American Nightmare Review

By: Julian MacDonnell

XBLA

Alan Wake was a first for development house Remedy Entertainment. Having just come off of their first big hit franchise Max Payne, they decided to change things up a bit for their next hero; Alan Wake. Changing from film noir to psychological horror and moving the setting from a blizzard stricken New York City to the seemingly calm and serene town of Bright Falls, Remedy went on to make a very well made narrative driven (if clunky controlled)game.

Now it's been nearly two years since Alan's first outing to save his wife and the citizens of Bright Falls, and fans have been clamoring for a sequel. Unfortunately, due to lack of a publisher, Remedy has been forced to drudge on with their first downloadable-only game: Alan Wake's American Nightmare. What was supposed to be nothing more than a side story in the series seems to have turned into a bit of an experiment for Remedy and the next step in continuing the actual story.

The story picks up sometime after the conclusion of the last DLC released for Alan Wake, titled The Writer, somewhere near the fictional town of Night Springs;based on the fictional television show of the same name that's akin to Max Payne's Address Unknown curiously enough. We open with Alan trying to fight off his evil twin Mr. Scratch, and through losing this fight is sent to a small pit stop in Arizona that is a few miles from Night Springs. The troubling part for Alan is not only trying to figure out what does Mr. Scratch have in store for him this night, but is Alan back in the real world or still stuck on the other side? 

I'm just going to come right out and say it; I love American Nightmare for it's story and setting. From the use of warm colors to convey the hot Arizona night, to the narrator taken straight from the popular 1950's television show 'The Twilight Zone,' all the way to the very moody antagonist that is Mr. Scratch. If anything, the purchase price for this title is almost worth it just to see Mr. Scratch alone. While you never encounter him all that much in-game, he does leave little video diaries strewn about the world in the form of Television Sets that you can turn on at any time to see what he's been up to, to explain why certain events unfolded in the manner that they did or just as a means to make both Alan and the player feel uncomfortable. To put it simply, he's the guy you just love to hate. I don't want to say too much about him as a character or what he does because I feel that would just be spoiling the experience for those of you that have yet to play. Take my word for it when I say it is extremely satisfying to find every TV. The same can be said for the manuscript pages and radios strewn about the world that, exactly like those found in the first game, flesh out the world and characters that you will encounter as you move through the main campaign.

Another great bit of atmosphere given to the world comes in the form of the Narrator. As I eluded to before, the Narrator for American Nightmare is heavily inspired by Rod Serling, the creator and first narrator of the The Twilight Zone TV series. Nearly to the point where the voice actor could have been the late Serling himself and I would have never known the difference. While he never makes a physical appearance, he's always there in voice over format to either inform the players of what they should do next or to make intriguing rhetoric on the events unfolding. I did find that the Narrator had a little too much to say at times, possibly having more lines than any other character, but I never found it to be droning. Everything he says is, for the most part, short and to the point while still adding in some flavorful exposition to the mix.

Now here comes something that won't be to every one's liking, and that's including Alan Wake fans. The story is only as long as it is(around 7-10 hours or so) because the three environments you play through are repeated several times throughout the course of the main campaign. There is a reason for this that I won't get into here for fear of spoilers, but even so I found this to be a bit tiring as I closed in on the last hour or two of the game. If you are the type of person that just plans on blasting through every area just to get through the story, it might not matter to you as you'll be able to breeze through once you know what you're doing. For someone like me were you want to find every little item there is to collect, then this may be a problem as not everything is open to you right off the bat. In order to get some items, you'll actually need to wait till you come back for them to appear. Not to say there weren't those few unlock-able weapons or manuscript pages that and sense to hold off on for legitimate purposes, there were some that had no purpose being kept hidden till later.

Though I do praise American Nightmare for it's story and setting, it needs to be said that it is a ways away from being perfect. Very much like the first Alan Wake, the combat still needs some tweaking here and there due to slightly less than tight controls and a finicky dodge system. And that is quite unfortunate as the focus of gameplay has shifted from what was originally a 'run and gun/hide' to a 'stand your ground and fight' form of combat. As fans of the first game can tell you, that already spells problems. The first of which is the shotty dodge system that should allow for the player to have Alan dodge incoming attacks if well timed by the simple push of the right bumper. However there were still times where even though I successfully dodged an incoming attack, the hit still registered, causing Alan to not only lose a bit of health, but also have the animation change half way through the dodge movement and send him hurtling back to where he was standing only a moment prior. To say it's jarring is an understatement, especially when you're trying to fend off at least a good dozen enemies or so at any given time. And while I may have dodged one attack successfully, if any enemy within arms reach had attacked a second later than the initial attacker, I would still end up getting caught in its attack and forced into a position where everyone around had a clear chance to get in an attack, and for the most part would go for it.

Not much has been added to the games basic mechanics either. You still have your trusty flashlight that you can upgrade over the course of the campaign by way of picking up newer models that last longer and do more damage to the foes you shine it on. However, the arsenal of weapons at the players disposal has been increased quite a bit to now include weapons such as the staple gun, assault rifles and slightly different variations of weapons seen in the first game. The added variety is nice, but I never saw much of a reason to go out of my way to try other weapons out once I had the automatic shotgun or staple gun as they really handled just about every little thing thrown at me. And if that didn't stop the onslaught, a well placed flash bang or flare would always do the trick.

The variety of enemies seems to have gotten a slight upgrade too. You'll still have the basic enemies from the regular metal pipe wielding shadows to the swiftly moving crows to worry about, but there are some new and much bigger foes to face this time around. One such foe is an overly bulked up lumber jack that runs at you with a huge automatic saw. Something very akin to the chainsaw wielding maniacs in Resident Evil 4. While it does take a bit of damage to put down, it isn't much more resilient than any basic enemy. Just try not to get too close. There in lies another fault however, as there were only a few new enemies I can remember seeing while the others were either recycled or given a slightly different set of clothes to wear. Their attack patterns haven't changed, meaning you will be pulling off the same maneuver in every fight: Run, aim, fire, dodge, repeat. Even with more weapons to choose from, nothing has really changed. As I said before, the only real change to American Nightmare is that now you have to stand your ground and fight as opposed to running for the light.

So because the gameplay would now allow for it, Remedy probably saw fit to include it's version of  horde mode titled Fight Till Dawn where, as the name implies, you must hold out on your own against hordes of enemies(sorry, no multiplayer here folks) on one of several maps till the ten minute timer runs out and the sun comes up or you die. This mode could have been fun to play had the game been tweaked to allow for less frustrating encounters where cheap hits and kills are abound. Plus I never saw a reason to really play this outside of attempting achievements or raising my leader board rank. While it did give me a reason to run around in the main campaign a little while longer to unlock all the guns, which is the only way to get more weapons for use in Fight Till Dawn, it all came down to me doing it for nothing more than hoping to either get an achievement or find more manuscript pages in the main story mode.

Voice acting for the entire game is just outstanding. I never found a single weak performance in the whole pack. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the music. I can't really recall any of the tracks from the game that called me to attention outside of the two licensed tracks used in a few specific situations. Though they were underutilised in my opinion as the occasional instances of their use were no longer than maybe a minute at best. The sounds of the world did fare a bit better as growls from the shadows indicating their coming in for an attack or the cawing of the crows as they swoop in were well synced and made the enemies feel that much more real and believable. The sound of weapons fire and the occasional explosion never felt too cheap. 

So how exactly does Alan Wake's American Nightmare stack up? Well, while it is a solid offering with some extra content that may keep some coming back depending on how they feel about a single player horde mode, it's something that I could only really recommend to the fans of the series, especially when you consider the lack of any real replay value in the main campaign and the lack of any staying power in the new Fight Till Dawn mode. At its initial price of $15(1200 Microsoft Points)it is a little pricey. Had it been a little cheaper it would easily be more digestible for me to recommend it to everyone. All I can hope for now is that Remedy gets the green light some time soon to start working on an actual sequel to this series that properly fixes the on going problems since Alan first stepped foot in the little town of Bright Falls.