I just announced the release of this game of PS3 and now XBOX 360 gamers can now experience the action of this fantastic game. Let's see the reviews of this game for XBOX 360:
There were plenty of unanswered questions when Remedy announced a follow-up to their widely loved Xbox 360 game, Alan Wake. The change in setting to the American Southwest from the densely wooded Northwest, the stronger focus on action, and the fact that the game would be an XBLA game instead of a retail release raised a few eyebrows amongst fans.
However, fret not you Alan Wake loyalists, as American Nightmare is a well-crafted experience. The experience adds a new pulp element to the Alan Wake mythos, and manages to prove that action-heavy gameplay can work well in the franchise's flashlight/gun mechanics. However, there are some problems inherent to the game, including a beguiling, cluttered story and a lack of the first game's suspense and terror. American Nightmare is a good game and a great experiment, but one that fans looking for more of the original Alan Wake's deep atmosphere will find lacking.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare isn't a sequel to the original, but rather a spin-off involving the titular writer. The game finds Alan trapped inside a script he wrote for the Twilight Zone-esque TV show Night Springs. He's stuck in a desert town rewriting reality after his evil doppelganger, Mr. Scratch, tore through and unleashed a host of Taken, mindless psychopaths who have been possessed by the Dark Presence. American Nightmare opts to go a pulpier route with the story, a sharp contrast to the straightforward mystery-horror elements in the first game; think more Tarantino and Rodriguez than Lynch and King.
The campy feel for the story is markedly different from the original, but also disappointing and tough to follow. There's very little exposition on Mr. Scratch and his role as the villain. While you can find snippets showing that he's a really evil guy throughout the game, we're never really given an understanding of what drives him, or what drives Alan, for that matter. He seems to still be on the lookout for his wife Alice, even though he's been transported into a TV show. We never really get a sense of how Alan ended up in Night Springs, or why he must fix reality. The exposition feels muddled.
Graphically, Alan Wake's American Nightmare is on par with the original; an impressive feat. The character models look solid, and the environments, while quite different from those in the original, look great, as do the lighting effects. The new setting lacks the general feel of atmosphere that was present in the original, but from a technical perspective, it's admirable that the team was able to pack in so much of the original aesthetic into an XBLA game.
For being a downloadable game, American Nightmare certainly packs in a lot of bang for your gaming buck. The story mode is a tad shorter than the original Alan Wake, but not by very much. If Alan Wake took you around six or seven hours, expect to spend about four or five in American Nightmare. Couple that with the new Arcade mode, a new Horde-style mode that has you facing off against increasingly difficult waves of Taken, and you've got an experience that easily rivals the amount of time invested in the original; pretty admirable for an Xbox LIVE Arcade game.
Story Mode boasts the same intrinsic gameplay elements as the original, albeit with some key differences. The survival horror element has been downplayed in favor of more in-your-face action, something that even the new environments, moved from claustrophobic forests to expansive deserts, seem to favor. This is also evident in the weaponry at your disposal. You'll still find the familiar standbys from the original game, like shotguns and hunting rifles, but also more imaginative fare, like assault rifles and nailguns. You can unlock more weapons by collecting manuscript pages littered throughout the environments. There are also new enemies that you'll face off against, including Splitters that break into two when you shine a flashlight on them, giant hulking brutes with buzzsaws, spider creatures, and Taken that will turn into birds to get the drop on you.
The gameplay in story mode leaves something to be desired. The campaign utilizes a time warp mechanic, where our hero is stuck repeating the same sequence of events in order to right reality. This might be compelling in a movie (Groundhog Day was pretty awesome); in a game it doesn't translate nearly as well. You'll find yourself repeating the same sequences over and over again, and it does get grating. Fortunately, the American Nightmare's brevity keeps it from going on too long.
The Fight Till Dawn is perhaps the most pronounced departure from the original game, focusing on 10 minute chunks of action-packed gameplay. Depending on which map you pick, you'll have access to the same weaponry that you've unlocked through manuscript page collecting in the story mode, which gives you some much needed stopping power against the hordes of Taken. Arcade Action is a fun and exciting mode that is easily consumed in 10 minute bits, but a cooperative element would have been appreciated here. Unfortunately, there is no multiplayer to be found in American Nightmare.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare is an extremely impressive experiment, created with the aim of releasing an essentially fully-fledged retail game through Xbox LIVE Arcade. American Nightmare absolutely succeeds in this regard, with action-packed gameplay, a cool theme, and an exciting Arcade Action mode. However, as a follow-up to the awesome original game, the story comes up short and the whole experience lacks suspense and thrills.
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