Legacy Review: Alan Wake's American Nightmare

 

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

*Note: I have not played the original game Alan Wake, and so cannot make a comparison between the two.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/202750/Alan_Wakes_American_Nightmare/

One Paragraph Review

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare (AWAM) is a horror action game with a unique combat system, aesthetically pleasing game worlds and a well written story. Unfortunately though, the game suffers from a bad case of repetition as you have to endure a game loop three times over to make your way through the story. Also lacking in any real stimulation in the form of diverse enemy types, weapons and skills, AWAM as a whole is a game that simply needs several improvements to stand out as a great game. It is for these reasons that I cannot recommend this game unless you are a fan of Alan Wake or if it is on sale and you have an interest in stories.

Introduction

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare (AWAM) is a horror action game where you are a writer thrust into a bizarre and frightening world full of shadowy monsters out to get you. With nothing but a torch and gun, you have to fight your way through these vicious creatures to save a typical damsel in distress.

Why are you in this weird and frightening world, you ask?

Well, the reason for that is an “evil twin” called Mr.Scratch who hijacked your life and wife out of jealousy.

And thus, here you are trying to battle all the evil surrounding you to destroy Mr.Scratch and get your life back.

With the premise of the game out of the way, let’s examine the game’s gameplay, world and story in further detail to ascertain whether this game is good or not.

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, your main task in the game is to use your torch and gun to fight the enemies of darkness.

What’s the catch?

They cannot be hurt with your gun until you actually blind them with your torch first.

Honestly, I did find this mechanic to be interesting as I’ve never experienced this type of combat before. Having to focus your torch on advancing enemies whilst desperately backing away before finally breaking through, turning the tables on them and shooting them in the face was admittedly an exciting prospect for me at first.

And the gameplay was challenging too. Many times, enemies sneak up on you from behind and over time, this really creates that elevated feeling of either terror or alertness, which greatly adds to the game’s value.

Usually, enemies attack you in packs too, and that adds another layer of challenge to the gameplay.

So far so good, but this is where I have to stop singing praise.

Variety

As interesting as the gameplay may have been, before too long, it just became rather shallow and repetitive. This is because there are only a small variety of enemies to fight against, and really they just never “stood out” as individual species to me. 

I mean, sure. You had your splitting enemies and big towering enemies, but that was as far as the game went to induce some form of diversity.

As the game progressed, fighting enemies quickly went from an exciting experience to a simple chore. Luckily, the length of the game was a mere 5 hours, so this problem of enemy diversity never became too pronounced.

Ok, so enemy diversity is bad, but what about character diversity?

Well, as this game is not an RPG, Alan does not gain experience or level up from killing enemies, so what you get at the start is pretty much what you have at the end.

There are different guns to use, but sadly the guns are cumbersome to unlock and don’t actually add any value to the gameplay. I mean, regardless of what gun you use, the gameplay is still the same.

Shine light. Shoot. Repeat.

The only things you really have are flash bangs and batteries to charge up your torch, but I never really bothered to use either of them. All they do is make the battles easier. They don’t add any actual value.

Clearly, the game has room for improvement when it comes to its diversity.

How would I improve it?

Well, one thing I can suggest is colored lights. Different enemies can be susceptible to different colors (elements). This way, you can add real diversity to weapons and equipment that can have stronger or weaker effects towards different groups of enemies. Even upgrades to equipment and Alan himself can be added in to compliment this.

Obviously, that would also allow for many more enemies to be brought into the game, each with different attack patterns corresponding to their element. When every single enemy behaves in roughly the same manner, you just aren’t delivering such a great experience.

Game World

Ok, I will start off by saying that the game worlds were aesthetically pleasing. They looked realistic and seemed to be worth exploring.

The key word being “seemed”

You see, the main problem with the worlds were that they were not only small but also largely dark and uninviting. Frankly, I didn’t see any point in wandering away from the settlements in each world to explore because I didn’t want to keep fighting more enemies.

Perhaps this was intended to couple with feelings of horror in the players, but I see it as an opportunity that could have been taken advantage of, but wasn’t. Also, when I say that my reason not to explore was to *avoid fights*, not *I was too scared* you can see that this corresponds to my earlier point about the repetitive combat.

But does the game do anything to encourage exploration? Well, it does have its own form of collectibles in the form of manuscripts. These were little bits of paper that gave the player a tidbit to read and served as a currency to unlock weapons.

So we basically have a situation where it seems like the game world was designed to discourage exploration through fear factor, but then we have these collectibles strewn around to encourage players to fight against said fear.

Sounds good in theory, but unfortunately, the manuscripts were not properly implemented.

For one thing, the manuscripts were proudly displayed on the map, so I’m not sure if looking for them even qualified as exploration anymore. In fact, if I didn’t see them on the map, I simply didn’t independently go walking around the landscape.

Also, as I mentioned, the manuscripts are used to unlock weapons. But during my first trip through the game world, the weapon boxes I saw required a ridiculous number of manuscripts to open. It was frustrating to say the least.

…….

Wait a second.

Game loop?

Oh-oh.

Houston, we have a problem.

Indeed, there are actually only THREE worlds in the game. Three small worlds with little value for exploration, each of which you played THREE times each.

I mean…. Just…. Why?

The first run through was fun, I’ll admit that.

But was the second one fun?

No.

Was the third one fun?

Not even a little. By that point, it was just a matter of slogging through the game to finish it.

And one of the worlds (the one with the warehouse) was designed poorly too. I wasted a lot of time in that world getting lost and wandering around the warehouse over and over again looking for the exit.

Good graphics does not make a good game. Good gameplay makes a good game.

Story

So, the gameplay is fun at first but overly repetitive. The game worlds clearly look good, but are still not worth exploring and are also repetitive. The game even has a loop, which is generally a bad thing for a game to have.

So…. Can anything salvage this mess?

What about the game’s story?

Well….

The story is actually good. I don’t think I can inherently complain about it. Perhaps it was the story that kept me going despite all the nonsensical repetition.

I found the story to be strange and unique and it did actually engage me and helped immerse me into the game.  Not meaning to spoil anything, but there are parts of the story that will allow you feelings of satisfaction.

Also, the little TVs found in the game world where you could watch videos of Mr.Scratch were a nice touch to add to the overall mood and quality of the game.

So in a sense, the story does somewhat salvage the game, but even it suffers from some amount of repetition in the form of the tasks you have to perform.

Random Comments

The only thing I can add on is the postgame content which pits you in several arenas where you can fight against enemies to your heart’s content.

Unfortunately, when the combat is repetitive, this just doesn’t make sense.

Best Points

Unique combat system

Aesthetically pleasing game worlds

Well written story

Combat is challenging

Improvements

The repetition must be dealt with.

Enemy variety must be improved. Consider using elements and different colored lights.

Gun variety is pointless as it offers no value to gameplay.

Character could use skills and level up over time to make combat more rewarding

Game worlds are not worth exploring

Hide the weapon crates at first. Seeing a requirement for such a large amount of manuscripts right off the bat is simply demoralizing

Conclusion

Overall, I just did not have as much fun playing AWAM as I would have liked. The combat system was such an interesting idea at first but it was just plain disappointing to see it drown in a sea of repetition soon after presentation.

Even just some color added to the enemies, weapons or main character could have made the game such a different experience, even (or rather, especially) considering the need to loop through the same worlds several times.

So ultimately, though the story of the game is good, I think it’s something you can live without, but probably still worth picking up on sale.

 I’m giving the game a B and not a lower grade because like I said, the story is well written and the gameplay is fun to a certain extent. It definitely helps if you put large periods of time inbetween play sessions of the game to reduce the monotony.

Overall Grade

B