A welcome addition to Alan Wake series.
Now we are back in another adventure. First thing we can notice is that Alan Wake changed his clothes, now he's rocking a nice redneck shirt instead of that old boring coat. Okay I'll be serious. Setting is changed, we are now in Arizona instead of Bright Falls, it's a nice change of scenery, tough the game feels a little less dark then the first game.
For some odd reason the game seems ever prettier then previous games, is it because of the different scenery or they really improved their engine a bit not sure, but I like it very much.
Story is great tough some folks might not like the chapter progressions and if you didn't play the first game you will be even more confused then we who did. So go on son, get yourself the full Wake experience before trying this.
Gameplay is unchanged which is a good thing, moving and dodging is still fluid, and shooting feels very rewarding and accurate. I don't think I could ever get bored of this combat system. And this is why Arcade mode is such a good addition to the game, enter the map and shoot everything that moves. Crazy fun.
Some things i miss from the previous game. Tension and dread that you felt every time you stepped out of the light. Ammo was scarce and batteries also. You really had to be tactical to survive. Also the way screen would go blurry and distorted every time you got attacked, and the sound that distortion made, it was some intense stuff and it contributed to the horror feel immensely.
In American Nightmare you have almost unlimited ammo and batteries, which sometimes feels a bit too godlike, plenty new weapons make the game interesting, collecting manuscript pages is made easier by having a small map on screen, a welcome touch. Narrative is ace like in the previous game, and cutscenes are absolutely amazing, featuring real actors combined with animation, looks and is awesome and fits perfectly with the games story contributing to the movie like feel.
Now after this i only hope Remedy starts being a bit more active and gives us some more Wake, and hopefully some new cool IP because they seem to be a competent team of developers with a good sense of what a good game is and plays like.
Signing out.
H.