Alan Wake: American Nightmare

Oafley Jones

I had some spare points lying in my account since Christmas and decided to pick this up this afternoon and have to say i'm fairly disappointed with it. Im about two hours into now and it's an incredibly slight experience.

The game is literally go to location, shoot enemies, meet individual who gives task, go to three locations on map to hit buttons or collect objects, shoot enemies and repeat. The original was a fairly repetitive experience itself, but it did have had some really decent and inventive set pieces throughout. This is just run and shoot.

The whole effort smacks of laziness, from the paper thin story to the seriously awful dialogue and (Alan aside) terrible acting, through to some shoddy transitions e.g. getting to the observatory is one of the most jarring experiences I've had in a modern game; the presentation was such that I thought I triggered a flashback in Alan's life. You can forget about driving around the world like in the original. There's no depth to the world either, no flourishes like you'd expect, nearly all doors are locked, telephone booths don't offer any little messages, it's just such an empty experience.

Still it looks decent enough. But my advice is to avoid it.

calex71

Thanks for the heads up I almost bought it earlier

Owen

Downloaded the demo, and nearly fell asleep through it.

AceCard Jones

Deal of the week guys, low sales = early deal of the week.
600MSP is more palatable for an average game, as soon as I seen this was to be an XBLA game I knew the OP's concerns would come about.

balfe1990

Hah, it's one of the best XBLA games I've played in I dunno how long.
Did you try Fight Til Dawn?

AceCard Jones

balfe1990 wrote: »

Hah, it's one of the best XBLA games I've played in I dunno how long.
Did you try Fight Til Dawn?

Maybe that's the problem, people are comparing it to the retail game and not taking it for what it is, an arcade game. Still I got the original game for a tenner new so I'm not an early adopter of the series anyway. I'll grab it when it's on sale, maybe.

Oafley Jones

AceCard Jones wrote: »

Maybe that's the problem, people are comparing it to the retail game and not taking it for what it is, an arcade game. Still I got the original game for a tenner new so I'm not an early adopter of the series anyway. I'll grab it when it's on sale, maybe.

Haven't tried Fight Till Dawn.

I don't agree with the notion that I should be lessening my expectations just because it's an exclusive to XBox Market. In fact given that this is essentially a sequel - and that this is an experiment on the feasibility of episodic gaming - I'd expect it to improve on the originals failings.

AceCard Jones

I think they were careful to point out it's not strictly a sequel.
It's meant to be a spin off with some story for fans of the original and focusing more on the combat aspect. The creator said it was meant to be a perfect point for new players to jump on and old players to carry on with. I'd rather a sequel than episodic releases anyway so colour me not interested.:)

calex71

Tried the demo , it still has the same clunkeyness as the original I thought.

Zeouterlimits

I'm really enjoying it.

Pros:
Combat is much less clunky
Combat is much faster
Combat is more varied with different enemies and weapons
Mr Scratch is a great antagonist
FMV is even better this time
Manuscripts much better this time
Better looking than Alan Wake (increased resolution, MSAA & better Alan character model, especially face)
No HUD mode is fantastic
Soundtrack continues to be great

Cons:
Side-characters don't look great
One side-character in particular has a terrible voice actresses. Dire.
Clever mechanic is used one two many times. Would be a spoiler to specify.

Neither Pro nor Con:
I found a few moments/implications a bit disturbing. A bit of the horror elements in this "Action-y" spin off.

I think it's well worth a spin if you enjoyed the first game.

Reamer Fanny

Loved the first game was very reminiscent of Silent Hill on the Playstation only less creepier