American McGee's Alice (2000)

I came upon Alice: Madness Returns before I even heard that there was this prequel that existed before that. My gf (who I'll refer to as Fox henceforth) wanted to play through this childhood gem, so imagine the convenience(?) that it's available as an abandonware and there's an HD mod to complement for today's standards.

American McGee and his team made their own interpretation to follow up the story classic we all know of, where after a horrible fire incident, our eponymous heroine is brought into an asylum for mental treatment. The new adventure starts with her return to the Wonderland, which has been twisted into its state of disarray, where she's tasked to restore it in order to find a cure for her mental illness.

Alice's trip through the Wonderland is guided (and sometimes hindered) by familiar characters and she takes upon lore-related quests to make her way through the deranged dreamscape. The dialogues are sparse and focused on moving the plot along yet it is delivered in an illustrious way, including metaphors and food for thoughts (for a lack of better terms).

3D platforming and fighting were the main bulk of the challenge, left for you to manuever and figure out your fighting technique to overcome the deadly obstacles. The arsenal you discover bit by bit is wide and varies in functionality and power. The enemies grow formidable the further you go on, but the fun lies in your growing arsenal as well. My nitpick lies in the user interface with weapon selection, which is a bit redundant to go between your belongings. (I played with a game controller)

American McGee's Alice would have earned a higher grade if the later levels got its fat trimmed down, as I find sections like water puzzles and clockworks an overkill in addition (as much as I commend the accomplished design in the latter). While it hasn't aged particularly well in game design, it still stands decently well in its engaging writing, the grim style applied, level variety and the weapon arsenal. I will see to the continuation through in the sequel Madness Returns along with Fox when she is ready for new challenges.

Alice could be a game that stands up to the test of time for its high production values, its story, and its dedication to the new, darker and edgier take on the world of Wonderland. Starting with the entire game taking place inside Alice Liddell's head as she deals with the trauma of losing her entire family to a house fire, you will see horrific mutations of Wonderland as she works her way to the final confrontation with the Queen. But whereas the game could be a near-perfect masterpiece for its story, its level design, the detail for each of the worlds, and its themes of mental health, suicide, self-harm, and insanity, the game instead is too difficult to enjoy, even on normal difficulty.

My biggest issue is how unforgiving the game is. Whereas nowadays you fall into a bottomless pit and you will simply respawn with perhaps a small drop in health, the game kills you and makes you reload at the last autosave (re: the beginning of the level) or your last save. The tiniest error can send you back depending on when you last saved, and the game holds no punches even on the lower difficulties for what can instantly kill you. There also is a lack of checkpoints save for when you load in to a new area or level. This makes what could be a fantastic game with a good story and interesting takes on characters into a nightmare of just wanting to get to the end.

It's a shame, because it has high production values. For a game released in 2000, it looks great (thanks to the 2011 remaster which included HD support). It has a new, unique, darker story and terrible, twisted machinations of the Queen of Wonderland. It should be perfectly up my alley as a gamer to see something darker and with mental health themes making up the story. Instead, I played it so I could say that I played it and beat it. But there is no locking on to enemies which makes hitting them sometimes extremely difficult. One wrong move can send you to your doom and force you to reload from a save made a while ago which can be extremely frustrating. Simple features such as an air meter for when you are underwater are missing. And the last few levels of the game sacrifice puzzles for drowning you with an overflowing number of enemies that make even endgame weapons near-useless against them.

That said, some people may like games of this difficulty. If you do, this could be a perfect game to you. For me, the only saving grace this game has is its save system. Your saves are more like save states. You save in a spot and load that save, you pick up in the exact same spot you saved in with the same health and the enemies in the same position they were when you saved. It can make some very difficult obstructions in your path to the end of the level much easier. An early game example is jumping off a floating leaf at the end of a river to a hanging vine. I jumped through the vine five or six times before I finally got Alice to grab the f---ing thing, and had this save system not functioned like it did it would have taken me an hour or two to do this simple task.

Everything in this game is here. It's thematically interesting, its ideas are well done and complete, and it has a good ending requiring no sequel. I can say right now that this game is better than the sequel in terms of its story, its level design, its locations, and the themes of the story. Whereas everything here compliments each other and works as an alternative/sequel to Lewis Carrol's original stories, the sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, was made for money and doesn't have as complete and complimenting of a presentation. You go to new areas that have nothing to do with the original books and it just isn't as well-rounded and complete of an idea as this is. Unfortunately, this title's steep learning curve and punishing difficulty makes it hard to recommend, but the game at its core is at least more complete and nicely done than the sequel. That said, the sequel has locking on to enemies, upgraded weapons, ways to block attacks, and more.

But honestly? I wish this game had more modern mechanics but kept everything else the same. It would be a perfect game if it did.

I decided to play this game before Madness Returns and my god what a mistake.

This game fails in nearly everything it tries to accomplish. Platforming feels terribly imprecise and janky, combat is stiff and lacks any kind of impact, the soundtrack is repetitive, puzzles have no fun factor and it might have some of the worst boss encounters ever designed. Not to mention the level design...

The writing is fine, but doesn't save how shallow the story feels. The idea is actually good, but it doesn't go as deep as it should, it seems. Not to mention how hard it is to actually care for anything happening to the plot when the gameplay feels so abysmal.

Sisuals and tone were the only good things to come out of it. I wasn't expecting to be creeped out by some of the visual design in this game. Enemy variety helps as well. Boss fights were atrocious, but they were cool to look at, at least. And the soundtrack may suck, but the actual sound of the game feels freaky.

But style, on its own, couldn't save Alice. I'd recommend this to no one. I finished this game out of spite and hope that the sequel is good.

I remember playing this game when I was a gothy teenager with a love for the macabre and the absurd. It was probably my favourite game at the time. Something reminded of its existence and I decided to replay it now as a non-goth young adult with a love for the macabre and the absurd.

Being a game almost two decades old, I was weary. I had to follow a guide to even get it to install properly. But after the first company logos came up, I was excited. Even through the low polygon graphics, the aesthetic still is compelling. Created years before the "gritty reboot" as concept was a punchline, the dark Wonderland featuring an Alice with a bloody apron and a vorpal blade on her hand is wonderful. A skin-and-bones Cheshire Cat guides you with his gruesome rhymes as you reparir this twisted Wonderland. The world is appropriately populated by common objects cast in a sinister light, such as the toys that are your other weapons and it contorts itself to create an oneiric atmosphere.

I would love to say that the gameplay was similarly well preserved but, alas, I cannot. After giving American McGee's more than its fair share of chances, I have to conclude that it looks much better than it plays. Everything in it goes against having a good gaming experience. The platforming is riddled with false landings and jumping is excruciatingly slow. Combat is indecipherable and clunky, with many overly hard enemies with annoying attacks. As an example, there's a incredibly hardy robot with an attack that is composed of two target-seeking missiles with area of effect. When encountered in close quarters (as it often is) is essentially impossible to dodge. There are also some bizarre design decisions, such as not being able to climb up to floating leaves in an area with a fish that can insta-kill you if you stay in the water.

Sadly, all those faults are too big and make playing American McGee's Alice in 2019 more a chore than an enjoyable ride. I could recommend it as an historical experience not shying away from quitting early. It's also a good contrast to the 2011 sequel I'm playing right now that (spoiler alert for a future review) seems to be much better.

I played Alice on PC through the Alice: Madness Returns Complete Collection . I almost wish I had physical copy of this to sit on my shelf with some of my other ancient physical copies of pre-steam stuff like Half-life, Deus Ex, Diablo II box set, and Fallout 2.

This game is great. Of the handful of reviews on here, many people seem to suggest that this game is less gud on Ps3. I was advised via gamefaqs (i think!) to play this version. I cannot vouch for the other instances (or the original), but this one is quite good, supposed it supports higher resolution easier or supports modern windows or something. It runs just fine in borderless window mode using the windowed borderless gaming app. It took a bit to get used to but The dobly audio mode is really cool. thick and exagerrated stereo seperation. the sound effects and music in this are killer, quite bent, and extremely hallucinatory. if you play it check out the dolby mode, (but play it on proper amped headphones of course!) Not all is gravy however, and some of the audio (voice mostly) is a bit poppy and seems lower quality, but its not something i found myself noticing as i played this game.

Visually i feel it looks great. For it's age it is top of the class. Color is good and lighting is cool. I actually found myself enjoying the various weapons and fighting things in this game. overall they all have a good balance. Some of these levels are super cool concepts and most are enjoyable. Only a handful of areas i found myself not liking and found them to not be that fleshed out fortunately they are a bit short and are fundamentally different from the rest of the game (chase something swimming, a ride on rails)

It seems common that many people skipped this game and never got around to playing it when it was fresh. Fortunately it is playable and still fun. Overall It is creative, different, looks good and actually functions well as a platformer. It is also a PC Platformer, and its running a 3d shooter engine. It's every bit as violent as early quake games, (and arguably much more distrubing...)

where does alice fail? the combat definitely feels dated to me... it consists mostly of kiting and mana managament. tougher enemies take more time to down and its best to engage one thing at a time, so it can become a bit monotonous or matter of patience. boss battles can be an extreme case of this.

auto target can be a bit buggy if aiming at something at higher elevation with certain weapons, such as the croquet bat.

There were also a few times I found had some switch or puzzle bit that I got snagged into missing as most are very much a quick breeze to go through. and there was no hint, journal or other way to know exactly what it was i really needed to do.

i also am unsure of the replay value. increasing the difficulty isnt something i would expect to be that much fun and i think i got the whole thing in one go.

Overall I found this game suprisingly playable and I was actually really afraid I would not enjoy it properly from it's age, as I have a prejudice towards platformers but wanted to play it for historical reasons regardless and was glad i did. This and Metal Gear Solid are my top two retro-regrets for the year which I have dug up, with Sonic Adventure coming in at third place.

if you have an interest in historical games you should play this for sure as it is a gem of its day. It's also quite fun and different even if one were to pick it up and know nothing about it would still be fun if you can look past some of the aged bits i mention and can stomach the dark and sinister tone (I feel this one has actually aged better than a lot of my favorites, which i really couldnt recommend.)