The recent XBLA release ‘Alan Wake’s American Nightmare’ takes the plot of the original 2010 game, and continues it- but through the filter of a different genre. The camp schlock of pulp fiction is being celebrated here; a natural progression from the love-letter to horror that was this game’s predecessor. A transition from the moody, drizzly dark greens and blues of the Pacific Northwest to the burning reds of the Arizona desert accompanies the shift, as does the shake-up of gameplay. The fiery heat of the desert is felt through the mechanics, with the tweedy, sedate approach to combat now ramped up to stressful management of a much, much larger number of enemies.

In short: American Nightmare makes plenty of changes to stay fresh and interesting, without tampering with the central heart and vision of the series.

The Story So Far

If you haven’t played Alan Wake, I urge you to do so before playing this. Not because American Nightmare is inaccessible without knowledge of it – the game is very accommodating to newcomers, and ensures you catch up with the plot very quickly – but because it has to spoil the first game to be so accessible. You’re trading a great experience for a two minute summary of it, and I really think it’s worth starting the story from the very beginning.

I’m not going to fill you in on anything other than the bare bones- the main thrust of the story isn’t so much the detailed plot anyway, but the great big themes and concepts that fuel it. You play as Alan Wake, a writer. A mixture of the supernatural and insanity is responsible for bringing his writing to life; creating a personal hell, and trapping Alan inside his own stories.

The game’s structured around a script Alan wrote early in his career, as a staff writer for ‘Night Springs’, a cheap, seedy sci-fi TV series inspired by The Twilight Zone. The dark state of mind that fed the story is personified in Alan’s tormentor and alter-ego Mr Scratch, the personification of his self-doubt and anti-social urges. It’s him, and his army of Alan’s nightmare’s (called the ‘Taken’) who you must defeat to escape back into sanity.

If that sounded convoluted and self-indulgent then I’ve not done the series justice- Alan Wake’s presentation somehow brings this mess together into something simpler and very enjoyable. It’s wonderfully silly and self-aware, but not afraid to be sincere when it needs to be.

The writing is sometimes clumsy, sometimes intelligent, but it’s always endearing. The love lead-writer Sam Lake has for his creation shines through; as does the care the entire team at Remedy has for the project they’ve worked so long to make a reality. It’s a game with a lot of heart behind it, and this makes it an inherently rewarding and satisfying experience.

Modes

The game is split into two halves: story mode and arcade mode. Pretty much everything I have to say about the combat mechanics in the arcade mode applies to the main game, so I’m going to talk about arcade first and kill two birds with one stone.

Arcade Mode

Your shots will not have any effect on the Taken until, using some sort of light source, you burn away the ‘darkness’ writhing around them. Your flashlight is what you will most commonly use, but you’ll collect flares and flash-bang grenades to deploy when you need to do this en mass.

This mechanic was in the original, but it takes on a life of its own here. It didn’t seem to have much of a purpose before; you would have a smattering of the Taken lumbering towards you- you’d burn away the darkness – run back a bit – casually shoot them away. Combined with the lack of enemy variety, it all felt a little mundane, like you had to meander around before getting your teeth into the action.

The nature of the combat is fully exploited here however, and the arcade mode, called ‘Fight Till Dawn’, serves to cordon it off, and showcase it.

You’re offered a variety of maps; each one lightly peppered with resources, and smothered with enemies. The game will drop you into the middle of one, and tell you to survive till dawn (with the highest possible score). It starts off gradually, with one or two Taken to avoid on your merry way, but they soon start popping up in greater numbers. Wave after wave of the Taken will rain down upon you, increasing in size and variety to violently battle your growing skill and pile of ammo.

The key phrase here is ‘crowd control’. The Taken are far smarter than they used to be, and will now team up in large numbers, try to surround you, and flank you from behind. The intelligence and greater number of your opponents is at the heart of what makes Fight Till Dawn’s combat so great. It enhances two features of the first game that I thought lacking: the flashlight, and bullet-time.

The Flashlight

The tension comes from guessing how long you can stand there wearing down an enemy’s defences, before an axe strips you of a grisly chunk of brain.

Before, the need to strip a Taken of their defences was tedious, and added nothing whatsoever. Here, the necessity of burning away the darkness leaves a suspenseful, highly vulnerable delay between you seeing a creature, and actually being able to do anything about it. This enforced gap is a brilliantly cruel idea that’s finally implemented properly.

When focussing your flashlight on a Taken, your speed is slowed down considerably. The camera will zoom in closer to your target, cutting off your vision of other foes. Hitting a blind spot, you can’t plan or strategize. You’re left wide open, with no knowledge of what’s around you. I mean, you know the Taken are closing in on you- but they’re always closing in on you. The tension comes from guessing how long you can stand there wearing down an enemy’s defences, before an axe strips you of a grisly chunk of brain.

All of these design choices were in Alan Wake, but there were so few other enemies to pose a threat; it never made any sort of impact. A simple increase in enemies, and different classes of them, was all that was needed for these mechanics to work, and make you feel exposed and alone. The monotony of the combat has completely melted away with American Nightmare; there’s now a need to carefully pick your battles, and know when to run.

Bullet Time

Christ did I hate this mechanic in the original. I know Alan Wake always billed itself as a “psychological action thriller”, but even so, it was hard to go into a game that practically bathed itself in horror fiction, and NOT be frustrated at how little it frightened you. The gameplay and aesthetics were always at odds with each other.

The dodge move, while handy (though far from being vital), employed bullet-time to let you see Alan narrowly avoiding being struck by a Taken. It may have been “cinematic”, but it completely demolished any sense of panic built up, by giving you a pause for breath and making it too easy to employ at any time.

In American Nightmare however, the new camp, schlocky aesthetics go hand in hand with the dodge move- it’s a delight! There’s no horror to detract from, and the abundance of enemies makes employing this skill an absolute necessity.

The Taken are far more chaotic and unpredictable than they were before – they’ll surround you before you know it, and close in further and further. The dodge move, and the bullet-time that accompanies it, is crucial to keeping them under control. The score multiplier at the top of the screen increases with every few dodges and kills, and urges you to keep up your kill streak for just a few… more… seconds, until you’re hit. Avoiding being hit, being able to weave in and out of enemies while just barely missing their attacks, has a sense of flow that’s incredibly satisfying, more so than actually defeating anything.

With each dodge comes a single second of bullet-time. These tiny moments of relief are just enough of a break to keep you from burning out from the intensity of the fight. Imagine one of the chase sequences in Rayman Origins lasted for ten whole minutes, but every twenty seconds you were given a moment just long enough to cool you down, but short enough so as not to lose the sense of tension. It’s bloody wonderful pacing.

That second also allows you to take a mental snapshot of your surroundings, without having to worry about getting hurt. It’s just enough time to unconsciously plan a route to the nearest ammo box or point of safety.

An additional snippet of bullet-time is given as reward after killing a Taken. During this second, you’re given free control of the camera- this is another lovely little design choice that lets you swivel round and prepare to deal with creatures coming up behind you.

‘Fight Till Dawn’ is a very tightly designed arcade game that I would have happily bought as a standalone title. It’s never unfair- success always feels within your reach, but you can’t slip up your concentration, not even for a second, as the difficulty mounts higher and higher. It’s truly exhilarating at times, even physically exhausting, and I’m so glad that I played it.

It never feels ‘arcadey’, if that makes any sense. I always associate arcade games with gaudy colours, and flashing lights, and an undercurrent of stale despair. For me, playing them as a child often felt unrewarding, manipulative, and empty. Here, the compelling game mechanics are matched by an equally compelling world. The environments you play in don’t feel purely designed to facilitate gameplay, but were actually once living, breathing places with a history and back-story. It’s an arcade game- you will play through dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times – but the work put into the environmental storytelling means it won’t feel like a waste of time. As with Sam Lake’s writing, the warmth and care of the team at Remedy bleeds through, and makes play feel like something more.

Story Mode

American Nightmare was originally developed to consist of only the arcade mode. It shows. This review’s going to be as poorly structured as the story, because there isn’t a lot for me to say about it other than “it repeats the same three levels for six hours”. That pretty much covers it.

So here’s the reasoning behind the repeating levels (other than wanting to keep the download size small). Every time you complete a run-through of the three, your nemesis Mr Scratch will send you back to the beginning so as to, uh…torment you. Huh.

Well? What are you doing still sitting down? -get up on your feet, and give them a round of applause! Give them a clap. Give them a good old cla- oh well done! Well done! Well f***ing done.
Jesus Christ. The frustrating thing is, it’s not intrinsically a bad idea. Remember, you’re playing out a story written by Wake. Each time you play through, Alan remembers more and more of the script, and you change your actions accordingly. You have free will- you’re writing the story as you play. By learning from past playthroughs, you change your actions so as to create a reality in which Mr Scratch dies.

You do fetch quests in a different order, and put items in different places. That’s it.

The problem is though, the thrilling idea of trying to rewrite reality translates to mindless instruction following. American Nightmare isn’t a puzzle game- you aren’t learning through trial and error, and thinking back to what you may have done wrong. No- each time you’re dropped in a level, you’re given slightly different objectives than you were given last time. You do fetch quests in a different order, and put items in different places. That’s it.

The “re-writing reality” concept is entirely superficial, a thread-bare way of hiding repeating levels. The plot conjures up some wonderful ideas, filled with potential, that aren’t brought into gameplay and taken advantage of.

The repetition highlights which half of the game is superior- it brings tedium in the story mode, and joy in ‘Fight till Dawn’.

Both modes have access to the same combat mechanics- but the main campaign implements them sloppily, and is content to wallow in mediocrity. There’s none of the tension of ‘Fight Till Dawn’; just smatterings of enemy encounters that end just as they start to get interesting.

For what it’s worth, the pulpy plot was compelling enough for me to play through in a single sitting, despite some jarringly bad voice-acting. Alan sounds a little off, but Matthew Porretta makes up for it with his performance as Mr Scratch. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but he’s a f***ing joy to see in action; equally funny and menacing, he’s so much fun to watch.

Conclusion

From a critical standpoint, you can complain that American Nightmare’s rushed campaign dilutes the overall excellence- and that criticism is wholly justified. However, to take a practical viewpoint as a consumer, you can’t say you’re not getting your money’s worth. I know I’m going to be dipping in and out of ‘Fight Till Dawn’ for at least a month or two, and if you’re emotionally invested in the story and characters Remedy have created, you’ll be wholly satisfied.

Actually, I’d like end by quickly talking about the story again. 2010’s Alan Wake wrote itself into a corner somewhat, with a single setting and cast that was charming, but grew to be a little grating. And although Remedy somehow managed to achieve the same bloody effect again within a short five hours, they ultimately took advantage of the potential at the heart of Alan Wake; he’s a writer, trapped in his own stories. This could go anywhere. With American Nightmare, they transported a continuing plot into an entirely different genre, and just ran with it, seeing where it went. The original served as a homage to horror- why not pay homage to other genres?

Alan Wake isn’t just a series of good games; it’s a series that’s conceptually interesting. It’s principally fuelled by ideas, and as long as it keeps telling the tales of its small fixed set of characters, it can go anywhere without feeling like it’s strayed from its roots. It’s this vagueness of parameters that keeps series like Silent Hill, Resident Evil and (hopefully) Bioshock, endlessly fresh and intriguing.

I’m incredibly excited to see where Remedy take Alan Wake, more than I could have anticipated when I first started playing. It’s a little rougher around the edges than other series’ out there, but it has far more personality and potential than any of them.

The series could go anywhere. It’s only limited by imagination.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare Score: 6.8

Why so high? A brilliantly designed arcade mode, and an overall charm.

Why So Low? The campaign is happy to wallow in mediocrity, instead of fleshing out its potential.