Alan Wake's American Nightmare

***Alan Wake's American Nightmare*** is a 2012 third-person shooter game, and is on the list of games to be played on ***Butt Spectrum Club***. Alan Wake's American Nightmare is the second entry in the ***Alan Wake & Control Series***, following up ***Alan Wake (2010)***, and was followed up by ***Control***.

## Game Info

Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a 2012 third-person shooter game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios and Remedy Entertainment for the Xbox 360, and PC.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare makes use of the same combat mechanics found in the original Alan Wake: Alan has a flashlight, which must be focused on enemies before firing weapons at them. American Nightmare is more battle-focused, containing more ammunition and a wider variety of weapons, including a machine gun, a nail gun, a crossbow, and combat shotguns, among others. Some weapons are unlocked via cases found throughout the maps, which each require a certain number of acquired manuscript pages to open. Collectible pages were also featured in the original Alan Wake, though they had only served to provide an additional story element.

The game also features an arcade mode, where Alan is set against increasingly difficult waves of enemies. New arcade maps are unlocked as they are successfully beaten, while available weapons are determined by the number of pages that have been recovered in story mode.

## Plot

The plot of American Nightmare is framed by the narration of an episode of the fictional TV show, Night Springs, which follows the style of The Twilight Zone and appeared on television screens throughout the original Alan Wake. The episode is displayed on a TV screen in the hotel room of Barry Wheeler, Alan's friend and former agent. The narration explains that Alan is attempting to chase down the "herald of darkness", Mr. Scratch, who is Alan's evil doppelganger created by a dark force. Scratch is determined to take away everything Alan loves, including his wife, Alice. Alan, as the "champion of light," has the ability to rewrite reality, and was able to write his escape from Cauldron Lake in Washington. He ends up near the small town of Night Springs, Arizona, and learns that he has been missing from the real world for nearly two years.

A nearby oil derrick erupts with hordes of Taken controlled by Mr. Scratch. Seeking light, Alan runs to a nearby motel, where he encounters Emma Sloan, who at first thinks he is Mr. Scratch, since they look identical. She tells Alan that Scratch was at the motel the night before, and provides Alan with a typewritten page, a way to alter reality to destroy the derrick and stop the Taken. Alan follows its instructions and alters the scene by the oil derrick, which causes a meteor to collide with an artificial satellite, sending it hurtling towards the Earth, where it then collides with the oil derrick. While Alan is away performing this task, the dark forces consume Emma.

Following clues he found at the motel, along with a set of keys, Alan heads to a nearby observatory. There, Dr. Rachel Meadows, who also met Mr. Scratch previously, is tracking a mysterious signal sent just before the satellite was knocked out of orbit. Rachel tells Alan that Mr. Scratch was very interested in this signal, and Alan surmises that it must contain the key to defeating him. Before they can acquire the complete signal, the observatory's telescope is sabotaged by the Taken. After Alan repairs the damage, a portion of the signal comes through that translates into a page of a story: a new reality that Alan can presumably implement.

The page points Alan to a nearby drive-in theater, where he meets Serena Valdivia, who is under the influence of the darkness. After freeing her by restoring power and switching the lights on, Serena tells Alan that Mr. Scratch is trying to prevent the sun from ever rising again. She gives Alan the security code to the projection room where he can change reality. Alan uses the incomplete message to try to set the new reality; however, as the message is only partial, the new reality does not take effect. Mr. Scratch appears, gloating, and sends Alan back in time to a few hours before. Alan realizes that Mr. Scratch intends to keep Alan trapped in the time loop forever, until he is finally killed and Mr. Scratch will be free to take over the world.

Waking up again near the motel, Alan repeats many of the same motions. Emma and Rachel still have some deja vu of the previous loop's events, and have helped perform some of Alan's previous tasks for him. Despite his efforts to change events this time around, Emma is nevertheless consumed again by the darkness. Rachel is able to capture a longer portion of the signal this time, but it is still incomplete. When Alan returns to the drive-in theater, he is still unable to complete the new reality and is sent back in time again by Mr. Scratch.

Alan repeats his actions for a third time, but this time, he is able to save Emma and gain the complete message from Rachel. He sets the correct series of events in the projection room, which triggers the projector to show a film made by Alice. Mr. Scratch appears again, but discovers that Alan has successfully written the new reality, and he is burned out of existence by the film. On the screen, Alan appears to reunite with Alice along a sun-lit shoreline; however, the narrator challenges whether these events actually occurred, or were merely a figment of Alan's imagination.

In a post-credits scene, Barry wakes up suddenly, believing he has heard Alan's voice.