Download American McGee’s Alice (Windows)

Not living happily ever after

Ever wondered what it would be like if Lewis Carroll’s infamous Alice were to revisit Wonderland several years after the original tale ended? Me either, but that’s precisely what has happened in EA’s latest release, American McGee’s Alice.

All is not well as we first meet our heroine in the stylish FMV introduction; lying comatose in a mental asylum bed, poor Alice has been traumatized by the death of her family in a house fire, which only she escaped alive and was then forced to stand back helplessly and listen to their final screams. Clutching at her last shred of sanity, Alice appears to have journeyed back to a very different Wonderland, deformed and macabre. Old friends, the white rabbit and Cheshire cat, are pleading for her help — can she rescue her familiar yet altered fantasy world from the evil Red Queen’s clutches and perhaps save herself along with it?

Intriguing plot, wouldn’t you say? Dreamt up by ex-id Software level designer, American McGee (yes, his real name), he and Rogue Entertainment(creators of several successful Quake/Q2 mission packs) chose the 3rd-person action/adventure format to tell this exciting new chapter based on the Alice in Wonderland story.

He’s still late

As you begin the game, Alice finds herself once again chasing after the white rabbit — he’s no longer the adorable bunny people will remember from the Disney cartoon. His face crinkled menacingly, ears bent back behind his head and an overbite that looks like fangs is just an example of how things in Wonderland have been skewed. It’s Alice’s job to traverse the 15 massive environments, jump some platforms, pull a few levers, and fight the hazards of the land and Red Queen’s minions once again.

The controls and interface are pretty much as standard as they come — seasoned gamers can dive right into the customization screen and set up their mouse/keyboard combination, just how they like it, in no time at all. Alice has little in the way of special controls — just an alternate fire option for certain weapons and a key to call on the Cheshire cat’s (enigmatic, and usually quite useless) advice when you need it.

Most noteworthy is the very well designed aiming system, which can often be a pain in the unmentionable bits for most 3rd-person games. Whenever you carry a ranged weapon, a targeting reticule is always visible to show you where you’re aiming; more importantly, when you manage to get it over an enemy, it circles around them to denote Alice has locked in on the target, so the issue of preciseness and never knowing exactly what you’re aiming at is not a problem. Another smart feature involves when you look towards the ground — footprints will appear to help you anticipate where Alice is likely to land if you jump forward from your current position. This is immensely helpful for tricky platform hopping, which was also a common frustration with the 3rd-person viewpoint.

Fundamentally, gameplay remains pretty conventional for the genre. In true Tomb Raider fashion, your underlying objective is to always push linearly forward, find the exit, and possibly trip upon a few secrets/bonuses along the way. As Alice enters a new area, you’ll usually get a helpful camera pan of the nearby environment — it’ll often show you the exit you need to reach, which isn’t much of a spoiler, because it’s getting there that’s the real challenge. With a few exceptions, puzzles remain simplistic enough; agility (ie. jumping) and exploration are the keys to progressing.

Original

But wait – Alice is far from being easily dismissible. It’s obvious that in the early developmental stages, instead of the traditional focus being on gameplay with a half-baked story tacked on at the end, the Alice universe is so finely and professionally crafted, it doesn’t just mask what is essentially generic gameplay… it makes it completely irrelevant. The story, characters and overall attention to detail in the many wondrous environments is the driving force behind what is otherwise a tried-and-tested gameplay formula, and that’s why Alice is a significantly more exciting title to play over other offerings in the genre.

So, what makes it special? Firstly, Alice utilizes the Quake3 engine in probably the most stunningly impressive way to date. Technically, everything about the graphics is first-rate: beautiful crisp textures, highly detailed characters, great animation etc. But it’s the creative side of things that makes you literally gawk at the screen. There are not many action games where you’ll find yourself wishing some sections weren’t so fast paced, because you really just want to stop and take a look around. The endlessly unique and inventive level designs are constantly a sight to behold, and what better theme is there for levels like these than a warped Wonderland? From the floating “fortress of doors” to the colorless chess land, to the looking glass hall of mirrors, the environments almost make the levels in MDK2 seem common and dull! Combine these fantastical locations with an absorbing plot and characters, and Alice keeps you pressing on just to see what happens next.

I rarely pay attention to in-game music but in Alice’s case, the ambient soundtrack possesses a fantastic chilling quality that perfectly complements the dark and sinister atmosphere of the game. While there are no real scare moments, the chorus of young voices and creepy instrumentals in the score (all originally composed by former Nine Inch Nails member, Chris Vrenna) keeps tension levels high. Sound effects, on the other hand, do not have as much presence and the voice acting could have been much better – it’s not that the characters sound wooden per se, but you can tell each of the actors recorded their lines separately and the dialogue doesn’t flow smoothly.

The minions

There are quite a number of enemies vying for Alice’s blood, mostly from the Red Queen’s army of card guards that chase you throughout; they get tougher and wield more powerful weapons as the game goes on. You also spend a good portion of the game shrunk down in size to only a few inches tall (much of the game parallels the original Alice in Wonderland story), and so come up against many enemies of the insect variety, such as huge bayonet-carrying ants and mutated ladybugs. You also have to be careful of the hazards in the environment itself — flowers will pop up and spit spikes at you, and mushrooms come alive trying to suck you into their fang-filled orifice.

As in any action-adventure, you can expect to find your share of boss creatures to deal with too. Many of the bosses are also twisted incarnations of the characters from the original story that the rather snobby Alice didn’t get along with, including the Mad Hatter and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. The Hatter’s lair is actually one of the most depraved environments, as he’s turned his home into a factory that manufactures automatons from living creatures. And what of the Hatter’s companions, the hare and sleepy dormouse? You can find out their horrible fate if you delve far enough in.

On the weapons side, things remain just as imaginative and bizarre. Alice starts with a rather standard, but icky, blood-stained kitchen knife (or “vorpal blade”); but from then on, she finds much more interesting contraptions to fight with. These include the playing cards, which you can rapidly hurl; the mallet that serves as a club and a way of lobbing fiery Croquet balls at the bad guys; the Jackbomb that’s a Jack-in-the-box which can explode like a timed bomb or rotate while breathing a stream of fire; and don’t forget the toy “Jacks”, which home in on targeted creatures and pummel them to death.

Conclusion

Admittedly, underneath the incredible level designs, absorbing original storyline and constantly delightful visual assault is your standard 3rd-person action/adventure, with a few of those familiar frustrations, like having to reload ad nauseam when you keep missing that required perfectly-timed jump. But what makes American McGee’s Alice stand out is that it’s the sort of game that you don’t play for the usual satisfaction and ego-boost of completing the last level; you play because, like any expertly-crafted tale, you want to know what happens next and see more of the fascinating, seemingly alive world of Wonderland in its new, depraved form. If id were having any problems selling their Q3 engine license, this would be the game to showcase that anything in your imagination can be magnificently crafted onto the screen. The new variation on the Alice theme is obviously intriguing enough to attract attention from the mainstream crowd outside of gaming, as it was recently announced that Nightmare on Elm Street creator, Wes Craven, has signed up to direct a movie based on this game.

Alice is suffering and she needs help out of her dementia — and even if you can’t save her, you still get to venture forth through an obscenely twisted Wonderland. It’s really a no-lose situation.

Review By GamesDomain