I don’t know about you, but my American Nightmare would be nothing but reality TV to watch and having to deal with a shitty economy. Wait, that’s already happening! Then I guess Alan Wake has it easy in the latest game in the series: “American Nightmare”.
If you haven’t finished the last Alan Wake DLC, “The Writer”, yet, you might want to before jumping into American Nightmare. I am sure you can play through without having played the DLC, but a lot of the context surrounding what’s going on will be lost on you. Since, to me, Alan Wake has been more about the story than the gameplay, this is a big deal. What surprised me when starting up American Nightmare was being greeted by live action video. It made me wish that the whole game could be played out as an FMV adventure game with how well the production value was on this.
The combat seems to be more fluid than it has been in the previous Alan Wake games which is offset by the amount of ammo given to you. I was never found wanting for ammo at all through the entire story mode. Everywhere you turn, there’s ammo. Just in case you can’t find the big flashy objects that your firearm desires, there are regenerating ammo and battery caches scattered throughout levels.
And although this time around there are new weapons to decimate the Taken, you are better off sticking to the sub-machine gun and shotgun combo. One thing I would have loved to be included while mixing it up with enemies is some sort of indication that I was about to get attacked from behind. I got overwhelmed a lot due to the sneaky bastards getting the drop on me. A subtle audio cue would be sufficient enough for me. Instead, I just mash on the dodge button and float like a butterfly while trying to unload buckshot into my pursuers.
Manuscripts play a bigger role in American Nightmare due to fleshing out the story even more for us story whores and being sort of a currency to unlock weapon cases for more powerful weapons. Finding the manuscripts are dead simple for the most part. Between the mini-map showing you a question mark when you are near one and the blinding light that emanates from the pages like it’s trying to send an S.O.S. to you, no one should have trouble exploring to find the manuscripts. I really, really suggest you find at least 40 manuscripts to get what I feel is THE best weapon in the game, besides light of course. The combat shotgun is essentially the AA-12 (Watch this for a brief primer on why this shotgun is amazing) and when I combined the flares with this magnificent beast, I felt unstoppable.
If you could care less about the story of Alan Wake: American Nightmare and more about shredding the Taken, arcade mode is for you, my good sir/madam. Pick a map, start the 10 minute timer and prepare to survive. With limited ammo for your bigger weapons, strategy plays an enormous role if you want to make it to sunrise as well as getting a reputable score on the leaderboards. The waves of enemies are endless. And the round finishes when you either die or make it the full 10 minutes.
I found it helpful to run around early and grab all of the ammo you can and then save the flashbangs and flare gun for the bigger threats as the waves increase in intensity. When in doubt, just run for your life until the timer runs out if you’re near the end. You won’t get those extra points for killing but at least you’ll survive with your life! More maps are unlocked as you progress through them and the later nightmare mode maps will definitely test just how well you handle the combat mechanics.
As a fan of the Alan Wake story, American Nightmare seemed to hit all of the right buttons for me. The dynamic of Alan Wake and Mr. Scratch plays so well that I was able to let go of the hangup that I had with a certain plot device in the game that I won’t spoil here but would probably be no sweat for Bill Murray. If you were one of many who wanted more Alan Wake, then there is no question that you’ll need to play this. Anyone else should play the main Alan Wake first or at least catch up on the story using the wiki or Youtube videos (although you will miss out on the atmosphere that Alan Wake brings to your senses when actually experiencing it for yourself)!