Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Alan Wake has been away from consoles for over a year now, since the release of the last DLC episode of the 'first season' of its story. Well now he's finally back and its a version of Alan which is both familiar and enjoyably different.
To avoid any spoilers for the first game (though you all should really go play it as it is one of the best games on Xbox certainly in terms of story), I'll keep the plot simple. Alan arrives in a town called Night Springs in the aim of trying to defeat a new main bad guy called Mr Scratch. It's a nice follow on from the first game and fits well into the canon of the story and hopefully is a good setup to Alan Wake 2.
The game play this time has shifted from the more linear paths of the original to decent sized open areas to explore. You still have to complete various tasks for the inhabitants as well as find clues to the whereabouts of Mr Scratch and if you stick to these you'll get through the different areas quite rapidly. However the game actively encourages you to explore through its manuscript pages, though you'll be glad to know these are the only collectibles in the game. You'll need as many manuscript pages as you can find scattered around these new areas as collecting a certain number opens up weapon cases which give you greater powered weapons to defeat the Taken (the enemies of the series) with. You'll need these too as the Taken are a much bigger threat this time around.


In the first game, the suspense was created from the limited ammo in the game and in a Resident Evil style, you often had to choose between shooting your way through or running. This time around shooting is definitely the preferred option. The actual combat is still the same style as the original with Alan needing to destroy the protective dark barrier on the enemies with light before killing them with shots from his weapons. I found it very difficult to run out of ammo as there was always plentiful supplies as well as respawning refill points. To reflect this the number of different types of weapons have increased too. Flare guns, flares and flashbangs make a return, but you'll find yourself armed with 9mm pistols, nailguns, revolvers, shotguns, assault rifles, crossbows and more as Alan becomes an action star for American Nightmare.
You'll need these too as there are different types of Taken to combat each with unique attacks compared to the generic types of the first games. These range from grenade throwers forcing you to keep moving to guys who split into two when struck by the light from your torch. The downside to this is the suspense has gone from the title somewhat but instead you get to go on killing sprees and have a number of set-pieces to fight through. There may be some who complain it has shifted the tone of the games, but I was a big fan of the original games and in my eyes this is just an evolution of the series, possibly a necessary one due to its Arcade title status.


However this is just the single-player story mode covered. On top of this you also get a arcade survival mode to beat. In this you are tasked with surviving 10 minutes against waves of Taken until the sunrises and you are safe. I'd highly recommend playing this after the main story as the manuscripts collected in the story mode allow access to the power weapons in this mode as well as in the story mode. This certainly adds length to the game as you have to complete each round with the highest score to unlock the next stage and once the five stages are unlocked there are Nightmare versions to complete too. As usual there are friend leaderboards up to compare your friends scores to see who is the best Alan out of you!
Musically the game shines again, with its use of music from Poets of the Fall as well as its continued use of licensed tracks as well (though this time its just one track 'Club Foot' by Kasabian which is put to superb use!). The voice acting is top notch and the combination of FMV within the cutscenes (something which I realised has been sadly underused in recent games) as well as the videos of Mr Scratch and the radio shows which can be found really add to the game and flesh out the story nicely filling in gaps as to what has happened since the last game.


The game itself looks just as good as the retail version if not better which considering this is an XBLA title is impressive and also shows that there is a lot of life in the Arcade market still. As I mentioned earlier the FMV is superb and ties in nicely with the games story, this is certainly one of the most visually strong titles on the XBLA marketplace.
Achievement wise, you'll get about 50% of the achievements just through story mode. There is the inevitable collectibles achievement but with the addition of a minimap which flags up when a manuscript is about this is not really that difficult to get and you'll want to get them all to unlock the powerful weapons. The rest are tied into the survival mode and will probably take a little time and effort to unlock, but will prolong your gaming experience as bit of skill will be needed to net them.
Overall this is certainly one of the best XBLA titles on offer for quite awhile. With a fair sized story mode as well as long arcade survival mode your getting your full points worth. If your a fan of the original game this is a must buy. If you were put off by the slow suspense feel of the original I also recommend you at least give the trial a shot as the change in pace of the game may well win you over. In fact I recommend everyone tries this out as at the moment it has my XBLA Game of the Year already!!

Score - 10/10

Marketplace Link

Great review mate. I was very impressed with this game from the bit I have seen so far, certainly a stand out XBLA game, especially in it's presentation

Good review mate, been looking forward to this for a while so as soon as I get some ms points I'll be getting this.

Great review again Tenlo!

Sounds like an amazing game!

Good work mate.

I think any game with collectibles should have a point removed though as its just dull padding to drag it out.