Alan Wake's American Nightmare

The original 'Alan Wake' game was one of the most unique single-player experiences I ever had. The story was compelling, the characters were original, and the gameplay was quite inventive. If you're looking for these things in 'American Nightmare', I say: look elsewhere, or simply replay 'Alan Wake'. In this sequel, you follow Alan through a series of dreamlike sequences, and fans of the Jake Gyllenhaal films 'Donnie Darko' and 'Enemy' will be familiar with the ground covered in this game. Unsurprisingly, repeating and attempting to rewrite reality isn't quite as fun in video game form, and so 'American Nightmare' very quickly degenerates into several hours of mindless repetition. The handful of characters accompanying Alan Wake in this game are incredibly uninteresting, and so the dialogue scenes really aren't worth sitting through. The developers seem to attempt livening the game up with a number of additions in the weapon and enemy departments, but these, again, aren't anything special. I'd only recommend this to: (a) people who've replayed 'Alan Wake' dozens of times, and are lifelong devotees of the character, and (b) people who spot this game massively reduced (i.e. £1 or less).