Disappointed after playing Alan Wake's American Nightmare

[Wazza10Roo]

I just started playing Alan Wake’s American Nightmare on my PC today and I am disappointed by it. It is awful as compared to the main game, which is Alan Wake. I am a big fan of horror stories and that’s why I played the Alan Wake. I liked its story and also the horror factor it had. The first thing which disappointed me about Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is its menu screen in the start. It seemed too cartoonish for a horror game. I mean the menu which was n the main game was perfect for Alan Wake series, but in this new game, it has been badly developed. Also there are too many options in the menu which includes Story mode, arcade mode, ranking, options and many more such options. I mean couldn’t they just create a single option Game modes under which they could have put Story mode and Arcade mode.

Also I have played many games where we can compare or upload our score with online scores. But it is always placed in options for multiplayer mode of the game or in the options. Here in Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, they all are separated. I don’t know about other things of the game but I would like to know from other users who have played this game if other parts of it are too disappointing? It’s not like I won’t play if the game is not as good as the main game, but at least I won’t expect it to be better than Alan Wake.

[SANDESH49]

I live in the region where English is not the native language. I know English very well and have no problem understanding it, but I like to hear the audio of the game in German. Yes, German is my native language and I prefer having the audio of the game in German. The first game, which is Alan Wake, had a good German translation. The lip sync of the characters and the audio of their speech would exactly match. Even the lines that were used as the part of dialogues in the first Alan Wake were nice. But in Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, the translation that is done is so bad, that you can actually notice the lips of the characters saying one thing and audio coming out saying some other thing.

The Lip Sync of the characters are badly mismatched in this game. When I first heard some few lines, it seemed like some Arabic person was forced to speak in German. The accent of German and the way it is spoken, I mean the speed of speech and the heaviness in voice, it all seems like Arabic. I couldn’t understand much of it, so thought of using the German subtitles. But again the subtitles are badly designed. Te sentence is improperly ended. Many times when two or more characters speak simultaneously, the subtitles seem to be messed up as there is no indication of line breaking for different character’s lines. I think this is the most disappointing part of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and it spoils the whole mood of the game then played in German.

I don’t know about other languages that are available in this game, but English is proper in this game.

[Beatricef]

I found the story of Alan Wake's American Nightmare bit incomplete or maybe not connected t the original Alan Wake. There is no part where it s shown how he escapes the dark place and ho he reaches Arizona. There is no proper link between the two games. The only thing that is common is the character, that is, Alan Wake. I don’t know much about the story as I am just in the middle of the game. Maybe the link between two stories would be revealed as the game would progress.

Also the most disappointing factor about Alan Wake's American Nightmare’s story is that there is no proper description about number of days that have passed after the incidents in the dark place. It seems like many years have passed after the first episode and thus he character looks very calmed down. In the first Alan Wake game, it looked like he s in tragedy from the way story was depicted and from behavior of characters. But now, in Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Ala Wake seems so calm and cooled down that it seems like he is ghost hunting for fun and story is provided just for giving a background to all the fights. The way he is speaking to the blonde girl in the start is just so casual that it doesn’t give any feel of horror or some dangerous events happening around. According to me this improper continuity of story is the worst part of Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

[Irene-I]

The animations of Alan Wake's American Nightmare are good, the behavior and the body language of the characters is well designed. But one thing that didn’t go well with me is the facial expressions given to the characters. They don’t express too much. It looks like the only purpose of the face of the character in Alan Wake's American Nightmare is to show that voice is coming from their body. Developers could have at least made some basic expression like fear, relieved or depressed. Any character that is in danger and needs help has the same expression as the character who is thinking. The whole thing gives a robotic feel to the characters of Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

Another bad thing about Alan Wake's American Nightmare is the in game map that is provided for the use. This map actually shows where the manuscripts are in the game world and where I will find ammunition even before I reach that place. I mean, the game needs to have some surprise factor too. I would be fun if I would myself find the manuscript and the ammunition instead of following its location on the map. While playing the previous game, I needed to search the ammunition if I was running low on it. But now that part has been eliminated as I know where I will find ammunition. I am disappointed that developers have reduced one of the challenging parts of Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

[Kiran25]

I think that having arcade mode in Alan Wake's American Nightmare is the most disappointing part. I mean this is a horror game and according to me the arcade style of fighting doesn’t suit the game well. I think that amount of time and resources developers spent in developing the environment for the arcade mode could have been sufficient to add a few more missions to the main story and some extra cut-scenes that would have enhanced the story.

I found the arcade mode very boring and irrelevant according to the theme of the game. All one has to do is to shoot the ghosts that spawn around, collect ammunition, shoot more ghosts and increase the score within the limited time. This seems so childish as there is no effect on main story. Developers could have provided some upgrade or extra item from arcade mode that would have helped us in main story.

This map actually shows where the manuscripts are in the game world and where I will find ammunition even before I reach that place

The manuscripts are seen on the map because they have all the story and other content related to the story of this game. That is why they have been marked on the map so that player doesn’t miss the story. If they were left for the player to find, then most of us would have missed much of them or one who finds them wouldn’t have found it in sequence leading to more confusion in following the story. That is what my point is, game like Alan Wake's American Nightmare is such that one will play it twice or maybe thrice and then forget about it. There is nothing challenging which will require multiplayer or on will need to boast of their high score. I think that developers shouldn’t have put the arcade mode and instead of it, they should have extended the story mode with additional missions and cut-scenes to directly convey the story to players. This would have worked better than making us follow the manuscripts.