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Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Developer: Remedy Entertainment Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
22 February 2012
Alan Wake's American Nightmare - cover art
Glitchwave rating
2.57 / 5.0
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234 Ratings / 2 Reviews
#4,336 All-time
#218 for 2012
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I'm not really sure what the goal was with this but i'm glad Remedy seems to have more or less written it off.
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Pinks 2022-01-05T04:42:31Z
2022-01-05T04:42:31Z
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- game only has 3 really short levels that it makes you play on loop 3 times in a row doing things minor different each time

- every time an enemy spawns or anything happens it takes control away from the character and plays an obnxoiously long 'spawn cutscene' that you cant skip.

-mechanics really are not that fleshed out or well done. is it a horror game? is it a third person shooter? is it a survival game? it doesn't do any of these well. the shooting is incredibly simplistic and boring. theres no shortage of ammo. you can constantly find full ammo refills around the map. the shooting is so boring and tedious that i simply choose to run past 80% of enemies in the entire game, because I could.

- really cheesy and cliche story. trite characters. embarrassingly corny real life cut scenes totally childish 'good guys vs the bad guys' plot

- can't skip cutscenes so if you die you are forced to watch the same thing again and again. makes it that much more boring

+ only took 2 hours to beat
+ isn't painful to play through. just boring and simplistic mechanics
+ bunch of different weapons so thats kind of cool but unfortunately theyre all locked behind collectables that i didnt give a shit about because the game is already such an easy trite. shotgun is good enough.


really theres nothing really going for this game other than its incredibly short and a dumb third person shooter with simplistic mechanics. the story is absolute trite but its not even really laughable bad. its just cringe. the major flaw with this game is it doesnt even feel like an actual game. it feels like the developer had some leftover assets from the original Alan Wake and instead of scapping those assets, they recycled it into a shitty half assed game where you play the same 3 segments on loop 3 times in a row and call it a game. its really boring and not clever.

4/10
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darkrecollections 2020-09-03T23:29:16Z
2020-09-03T23:29:16Z
2.0
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Stephen king's sweet dream
Alan Wake is a cool action game, but really faulters as a horror game. It just lacks the atmosphere, writing and emotional connection to really suceed. I was a big fan of Stephen King when i was younger, but nowadays everything similar to that style of writing feels very cliche and almost comical. This spinoff is more action focused than the first game. The story is still bad, both in terms of writing as well as the use of some cringeworthy FMV cutscenes.

Since the protagonist gets stuck in a time loop, you have to get through the same scenarios a couple of times, and as such it does get tedius fast.

Gameplaywise its solid TPS. i really like flashlight mechanic, if it were not so stupid that you have to change the batteries every 5 seconds. There should also be more incentive to hit spefic enemy body parts.

Its a really short experience, but its reasonably well paced for that time. I felt that after 3 hours it ran out of ideas. That said, it was still cool playing though it. I guess people that were hoping Alan Wake finale will be disappointed with it.
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Threntall 2016-11-25T17:32:14Z
2016-11-25T17:32:14Z
3.0
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Northwest By Southwest: Wake Ditches Redwoods for Cacti
2010's Alan Wake endured a lengthy development cycle which made American Nightmare's release only two years later something of a surprise. Even though it's minuscule compared to its predecessor, it was still billed as a sequel albeit Remedy Entertainment was insistent that it was not Alan Wake 2. This saving throw prevents American Nightmare from being a total betrayal of what made the first game so interesting but the faults of American Nightmare are still very apparent nevertheless.

Alan Wake was one of the few games in the post-Resident Evil 4 world that managed to find a decent, although imperfect balance between survival horror and action horror. Supplies were supposed to be limited but the abundance of supplies in certain areas made it easy to stock up. American Nightmare doesn't even try to pretend its survival horror. American Nightmare is instead best described as an action-focused spin-off in the Alan Wake series.

You can see a kernel of a good idea in this approach in the "Arcade Action" mode, which is just a Nazi Zombies/Survive the Horde mode that manages to be genuinely tense and enjoyable with enough variety between maps to keep things fresh. If this was the first thing Remedy designed, I could begin to understand why they adopted this approach for this semi-sequel.

Where everything starts to go wrong is with the story mode. To condense a complicated plot into one iconic sentence; "It's Groundhog's Day!" This means you will be running through the same handful of environments, accomplishing very similar tasks ad nauseam. It's a clear tactic to save money while providing more game but it becomes tiresome in record time. The new action focus doesn't mesh well with the combat of the original which has two too many steps for an action game. The open-world is also a way to give the illusion of content as the actual world has very little in terms of collectibles or things to actually do. The original Alan Wake was linear for a reason as American Nightmare proves that Remedy is at their best when they're providing a more focused, linear experience.

The graphics and art design are still up to Remedy's high standards. Wake's new flannel shirt looks great and the environments are gorgeous. The American Southwest is an underutilized setting and Remedy created a wonderful recreation of it. Detailed buildings, majestic canyons, and one of the best skyboxes in any game made it a visual showcase for the Xbox 360 in its twilight years.

In the sound department, Remedy hits a few rough patches. The studio's infatuation/association with Finnish band, Poets of the Fall, continues and it fits as well as it does in any Remedy game, as in, it could be worse. In the early 2000s, I fear we would have heard rap rock so I'll take Poets of the Fall. The voice acting is a little clunky at times due to an awkward script but Wake's VA, Matthew Porretta, does a fine job with the material he is given.

For a spin-off to Alan Wake, American Nightmare works a curiosity. As it stands in 2016, it is the only way to quench someone's thirst for more Alan Wake and it unfortunately does a poor job of doing so. A bog-standard 3rd person shooter on its own, its association with a stillborn franchise hurts it more than it helps. Visuals aside, it's too bland for it to really stick out.
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DreadToaster 2016-04-14T20:11:00Z
2016-04-14T20:11:00Z
2.5
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Catalog

AxeWorld Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-03-21T23:12:47Z
2024-03-21T23:12:47Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
ArpeggiDivision Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-03-20T17:30:19Z
2024-03-20T17:30:19Z
2.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
moralreef Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-03-16T07:50:28Z
2024-03-16T07:50:28Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
josemartcarv Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-03-14T20:50:43Z
2024-03-14T20:50:43Z
2.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Hayabuza Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-03-14T14:39:01Z
2024-03-14T14:39:01Z
3.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
worstcaseontario Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-03-13T09:41:22Z
Windows
2024-03-13T09:41:22Z
5.5 /10
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Raising_Heart Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-02-29T23:13:07Z
Xbox 360
2024-02-29T23:13:07Z
2.5
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
WatchassButch Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-02-29T21:32:04Z
2024-02-29T21:32:04Z
3.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Bamurim Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-02-23T03:48:30Z
2024-02-23T03:48:30Z
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
polifck Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-02-21T20:07:28Z
2024-02-21T20:07:28Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
just_okta Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-02-18T22:11:43Z
2024-02-18T22:11:43Z
3.0
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
CharminglyNaive Alan Wake's American Nightmare 2024-02-09T22:06:07Z
2024-02-09T22:06:07Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
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  • gas33 2018-09-17 02:33:36.729171+00
    One of, if not the, worst gaming experiences I've ever had.
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  • alliterativeAlpinist 2022-02-12 12:27:54.427897+00
    I played this a long time ago, but at the time I thought that this actually was a very clever way to contextualize recycling a very small amount of new assets. idk what I'd think of it now
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  • dumdume 2023-10-27 19:39:44.778621+00
    it was cool to see the changes to the gameplay the first time around, but then you do it three times
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  • polifck 2024-02-21 20:09:23.16894+00
    Fun and well-written game that only takes between 2-3 hours to finish and that makes total sense in the Alan Wake - Remedy canon.
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