conclusive act for the alan wake 1 experience or at least thats what I think should I play American nightmare? ionno

anyho

wasn't a fan of the first dlc and am not a fan of this dlc it picks up where the first one left off and still plays on those chords: asset reuse same gameplay same enemies same story beats and somehow they also decided it was a good idea to implement platforming ??? youre joking

so again I probably said everything I wanted to say in the other dlc part because this is basically just a continuation of that one soooo yeah it's still mid I sure didn't want to play more Alan wake but I guess I'm just trying to cover all the bases before AW2

the story conclusion is still pretty confusing I thought these additional contents were gonna give some kind of explanation but to this moment I have no idea how the dark place and the normal world connect if Alan is actually mentally ill or its just about external influences where the fuck is the wife of this man and are the flashbacks he experience real events or just schizophrenia induced

I'm confused but I guess this is a vibes first game or at least that's what I felt

ughhhhhh so anyway can finally conclude the first games exploration its still not as good as I wanted it to be but I'm glad I played it before getting my hands on the second game

sassy barry slays

A little weaker than The Signal, I think. The setpieces are more ambitious but also jankier, and the plot is mainly just tying up loose ends as all the most interesting elements were pretty effectively established by the end of The Signal. The segment where you clear out rocks and use the lights to just decimate the Taken is cool but it's unfortunately immediately followed by an AWFUL boss fight. If you feel the need to put an unlimited supply of ammo in your boss arena you've probably fucked up. Still, not a bad time overall and provides a pretty satisfying end to the first entry in Alan Wake's story.

Slightly better than The Signal but still nowhere near as good as the base game.
The level design is more interesting, leaning into the surreal and dreamlike aspect of the dark place. The combat isn't as frustrating, with some parts that feel more puzzle like where you have to resort to the environment, like exploding barrels and fireworks. Then there is weirdly some sort of platforming? Which is an awful choice with how clunky the movement can be.
But again, the biggest letdown for me is it doesn't really add anything new to the plot. We knew since the ending of the game Alan was stuck in the dark place writing a new novel, and the whole journey throughout these 2 dlcs is just him navigating the dark place to write said novel, ending pretty much in the same place we left him in the base game. I didn't expect a major breakthrough as these are specials and they will save that for the sequel but still, I expected at least some new plot points or information about Thomas Zane or something? The whole thing feels pointless.