Retro Review – Alan Wake: American Nightmare

<p>There is no secret that I have an affinity for survival horror games&comma; the very short <em>Alan Wake<&sol;em> series is one of my favorites&period; However&comma; I found out after playing the stand-alone <em>American Nightmare<&sol;em>&comma; that most of my love is for the original game and its DLC&period; The first <em>Alan Wake<&sol;em> surprised all 360 owners in 2010 with its supernatural feel and overall creepiness in Bright Falls&period; The DLC was also amazing and really fit in well with the main game&period; In 2012 Remedy released <em>American Nightmare<&sol;em> as an Xbox Live Arcade game which I finally purchased during one of their big online sales&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m kind of glad that I didn&&num;8217&semi;t pay full price because this game left a bad taste in my mouth&comma; not because it is a bad game per say&comma; but due to the fact it didn&&num;8217&semi;t FEEL like the original title at all&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This time around our protagonist&comma; Alan Wake isn&&num;8217&semi;t trapped in some rainy wooded party of Washington&comma; he is trapped in Night Springs Arizona&period; Now let me tell you something&comma; Arizona sucks and is a terrible place to live&comma; just having this setting in the game made me dislike it a tad more&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m one of those people who plays games to escape&comma; not to have reality thrown in my face as I hold a controller&period; What makes this game pretty unique for the classic television nerd is the fact that it is narrated like an old <em>Twilight Zone<&sol;em> episode&period; The voice actor almost sounds exactly like Rod Serling and I loved it anytime he chimed in to let me know what was going on&period; In this story Alan is still hunting his doppelganger&comma; Mr&period; Scratch&period; Both Wake and Scratch are trying to get a full signal that is coming from space&comma; this signal could alter reality completely&comma; hence the reason they both want it so bad&period; Who ever gets the entire signal basically gets to go back to Alice and live their life the way they see fit&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;126233" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-126233" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;06&sol;07020048&sol;AlanWake&period;bmp"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-126233" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;06&sol;07020048&sol;AlanWake&period;bmp" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"370" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-126233" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Alan Wake&colon; American Nightmare<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Microsoft Studios&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>One thing I noticed right off the bat when I started playing this game was the fact that the graphics were just not as good as the first one&period; I don&&num;8217&semi;t know if this is due to nostalgia on my part for the first game or the fact that this is an Arcade title&period; The monsters weren&&num;8217&semi;t as spooky&comma; sure Remedy beefed some of them up a bit to make them harder to kill&comma; but I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t scared&period; There was too much light all around and that&&num;8217&semi;s what made the first game so damn suspenseful&period; Was I going to have enough light to get out of this pitch black forest&quest; In American Nightmare you&&num;8217&semi;re in the desert so it seemed there always some light to save your ass&comma; and you always had ten batteries on you so there was nothing to fear&period; No item management to really make you ponder how to get from point A to point B&comma; there were ammo caches all over the place&period; I know Arizona is the Wild West&comma; but we keep our ammo locked up inside&comma; no just randomly on the sides of buildings&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The controls are pulled over from the first game&comma; which is great if you decided to play all of the games and DLC in a row&period; LB is dodge and run&comma; but dodge doesn&&num;8217&semi;t work all the time&period; There were time when I would hit LB and Alan would just stand there and watch the axe insert his chest with no reaction at all&period; LT is aim and burn the taken with the flashlight&comma; RT is fire and X is reload&period; RB is your secondary weapon which can be a flare or a flash bang&comma; both are very useful when taking on big enemies or groups of enemies&period; You can only care two main weapons and a Flare Gun&comma; keep as much Flare Gun ammo as you can&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll need it near the end of the game&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;ll make it so much easier&period; You find most of your weapons along the way&comma; but as you collect missing manuscript pages you can unlock cases in the world for better and more powerful weapons&period; I really wanted to get the combat shotgun&comma; but I didn&&num;8217&semi;t have the patience to find forty pages&comma; I found 33 I believe and that&&num;8217&semi;s pretty good for me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;126236" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-126236" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-126236" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;06&sol;07020554&sol;alan-wake-american-nightmare-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"327" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-126236" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Alan Wake&colon; American Nightmare<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Microsoft Studios&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I love the <em>Alan Wake<&sol;em> concept and the series&comma; but <em>American Nightmare<&sol;em> just did not do it for me&period; I don&&num;8217&semi;t know if it was the setting&comma; the graphics or the fact that Alan was dressed like Beetlejuice that ruined this game for me&period; All I know is that I didn&&num;8217&semi;t fall in love with it as I had the other game and DLC&period; There isn&&num;8217&semi;t a lot to replay here&comma; sure you have Arcade Mode but that is only fun for a few turns&period; The first <em>Alan Wake<&sol;em> I played about three times&comma; and I never felt bored or that the game was a chore&period; With American Nightmare&comma; even though it is maybe one third the length of the first game&comma; I just wanted it to end so that I could knock it off my list and move onto the next title&period; The final act made the game a little bit more unbearable&comma; let&&num;8217&semi;s just say there is a Time Loop you have to get through&comma; and it isn&&num;8217&semi;t fun&period; If you are a hardcore <em>Alan Wake<&sol;em> fan like myself you should play this game just to say you&&num;8217&semi;ve played them all&comma; but if you&&num;8217&semi;re looking for a real <em>Alan Wake<&sol;em> adventure&comma; grab the first game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;