Review: Alan Wake's American Nightmare

 Goutham Jayaraman

Ravencrow Game Review #18

 

Alan Wake's American Nightmare

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

Genre	Third Person Shooter, Adventure
Platform	PC
Developer	Remedy Entertainment
Publisher	Remedy Entertainment
Playtime	6 hours
Date Completed	23/12/2019
Date Reviewed	25/5/2021
Overall Grade	C

 

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is a compact shooter adventure game with elements of deep narrative and horror woven in.

The game follows the writer Alan Wake as utterly incomprehensible things happen to him and the world around him. By that I mean some evil entity called Mr. Scratch shows up, takes over Alan’s identity and threatens to ruin his way of life. Cast into the Arizonan wilderness, Alan must then take up arms to fight against the darkness and defeat Mr. Scratch.

Shooting enemies and wandering around one of three relatively small areas forms the core of the gameplay, though it definitely takes a backseat to the game’s storytelling.

Overall, I did enjoy the game at the start, although that was diminishing by the point where I got to the warehouse which was a confusing labyrinth of a level. And then, the game reveals its hand, transporting me back to the first area and essentially making me go through the same three levels, same three scenarios and same three everything again. Only some of the conversations were different. This was honestly just a devastating blow to the gameplay experience for me, and at that stage I had no choice but to space sessions out substantially just to make it through to the end of the game.

The gameplay and game design weren't inherently bad in and of themselves, but forcing a repetition and not allowing the game mechanics to evolve in even a single way meant that I had no choice but to leave a negative review for this title.

Note: I realized that there is actually a game that precedes this, called Alan Wake. I haven't played it so apologies in advance if I grade this game more poorly as a result.

What I liked

-          The method of combat, which involved shining a light onto enemies to first render them vulnerable before being able to shoot them. I found this an interesting mechanic and something that stands out from the generic shooting that other games use.

-          Other than that, honestly, just the storytelling aspect of the game is the only thing that really stood out to me as something I liked. Having narrated manuscript pages was definitely nice.

 

What I disliked

-          While I found the combat to be innovative, it was extremely shallow and didn’t hold my attention for long

-          Repeating the same loop three times over was not a pleasant experience.

Gameplay 4/20	= Gameplay was fun at the beginning, but overstayed its welcome after clearing the first 3 levels. I was expecting something new to happen sooner or later, but it never did = Exploration is part of the gameplay, but the only reason you’d want to do it is to collect pages. Sadly, the beautifully rendered world is not all that visible at night and you’d prefer to minimize encounters too. - But the game does nothing to diversify its mechanic. Shining and shooting will be the only combat for the entire game. It gets dull very quickly. - Other aspects of the gameplay such as arranging a scene feel like pointless chores. - Game crashes at times - Any good experience I had vanished the second the game reset back to the first area and said I had to do everything again.
Game Design 2/20	+ Interesting combat mechanic of shining a light to weaken an enemy’s guard before being able to shoot it. It can be fun at times and should make for a good amount of challenge and entertainment if executed correctly - Repeating the same set of actions three times in a row is a bad idea whichever way you look at it. - Difficulty in the game is a mish mosh. Fighting itself is easy because you have a whopping 10 batteries to keep using and ammo is plentiful. However, enemies can randomly appear from nowhere and surprise you from behind because they are not displayed on the map. Yes, this accentuates horror, but suddenly getting struck from behind is not horror, it is just annoying. - There are a few enemy types, but they do not stand out from one another enough - There are different guns, but they are fundamentally similar. - Guns requiring tons of manuscript pages to unlock are somehow placed in earlier levels, which is a fantastic demotivator. - Too easy to access reload stations - Some maps are designed poorly and end up causing needless wandering - Minimap does not show the lay of the land, and aided by the dark setting, getting lost is easy. - And yet the minimap proudly displays manuscript pages (in the nearby area), defeating the purpose of actually exploring to find them.
Graphics 16/20	+ Areas are beautifully rendered + Character models look okay + Cinematography + Good usage of special effects + Video acting and televisions + Highly atmospheric - But then, everything is dark so appreciating the areas is difficult. - Areas are very small - Only three areas, which are reused three times.
Audio 20/20	+ High quality narration + Even the manuscripts are narrated out + Video acting and televisions + Limited soundtrack but audio overall creates a perfect atmospheric experience to suit the horror theme of the game.
Story 12/20	+ Story is expertly written + Full voice acting and cinematic scenes/combat make the story highly engaging - But the story doesn't always make sense. - Story is not particularly interesting either, also sounding somewhat cliched with its overuse of the light and dark tropes. - Story is weakened by forced time loop. - Not enough emphasis placed on Alan Wake, although he is the only relatable character.
Lore 17/20	+ Collectible manuscripts give a good amount of narrated backstory and do give motivation for seeking them out. + Televisions are a nice addition to the landscape. + Some interesting conversations with other characters, but nothing special - None of the other characters are really likeable or well designed.
Value 10/20	+ Fairly cheap game + Arcade mode for additional gameplay, but not exactly all that useful. + Some replay value in going back to find missed manuscripts - Low story mode playtime, and that mind you is including the repetitions - Forgettable gameplay experience
Overall Grade 10/20	C
Score	57

 

Honestly, I think you can safely skip this game. It’s just not that remarkable, and I know many games are repetitive, but this game is deliberately repetitive by design, and that really injures the gameplay experience. Other repetitive games are usually not intentionally repetitive and at least offer ways to allow the player to relieve themselves or offer some kind of variety to slog through it. Sadly, this game does neither.

What this game is good at is storytelling, but even so the story was not particularly interesting and I can’t say that Mr. Scratch made much sense to me either. If you are a fan of Alan Wake and liked the first game, then go ahead and play this. Otherwise, I really can’t recommend it.