This was a big pleasant surprise… I wrote about the original Alan Wake, and one of my big complaints was the fact that I saw Alan Wake (the character) as too empty… While I enjoyed the game, I didn’t see myself playing sequels or DLC based on it (specially given the crummy ending).
So, when a friend of mine convinced me to give this a try, I wasn’t expecting anything good, specially because it was a downloadable title… but boy, was I surprised…
“Alan Wake’s American Nightmare” really exceeds the original… Heck, this should be the original, with this kind of format, pacing and length!
Most of my original criticisms (animation in general, done-before story) are gone, replaced with a tighter game, with a much more focused experience!
The atmosphere of the original is intact and surpassed by the narrative hook of making the whole game seem like a “Night Springs” episode (the Alan Wake equivalent to “The Twilight Zone”). The story is also more interesting and is more successful in investing the player in it.
The addition of new weapons and more enemies makes the tension drop a bit in the combat sections, but at the same time it doesn’t make them into a chore like in the original.
Apparently, you don’t need to have played the DLC to make sense of the story, which is also a good bonus (I haven’t played it, and besides some references that may or might not be explained in the DLC, there’s not even a big connection to the original game).
All in all, I hope they’ll make more games like this one… a short, compact experience (circa 4 to 6 hours) that corrects the flaws of the original game and gives something new to the player… 10/10