American McGee's Alice (Game)

American McGee's Alice

GAME » on October 6, 2000

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American McGee's Alice is a pseudo-sequel to Lewis Carroll's classic. Alice, scarred by a horrific childhood trauma, must return to a dark, nightmarish version of Wonderland. Alice must restore its former harmony by defeating the Queen of Hearts in order to vanquish her own inner demons.

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Overview

American McGee's Alice is a third-person action and platforming game, styled as a darker sequel to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". The game uses a heavily modified version of the Quake III: Arena engine.

Plot

The Cheshire Cat

The game is set ten years after Alice's previous adventures in Lewis Carroll's Story, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", with players taking the role of Alice. In the opening cinematic, Alice's house is burnt down by an accidental fire, killing her parents. As a result of her survivor's guilt, Alice attempts to commit suicide and is sent to the Rutledge Asylum. After years of unhelpful counselling, Alice is near catatonic until the White Rabbit summons Alice to aid a radically altered Wonderland, now under the tyrannical rule of the Queen of Hearts. The Cheshire Cat (Character) serves as Alice's companion through the entire game, frequently appearing to guide her with cryptic riddles.

Various famous characters from the books of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" make appearances in the game such as:

The Mad Hatter (Character)
Humpty Dumpty
The Dormouse
The March Hare
The Mock Turtle (Character)
The Gryphon
Tweedle Dee (Character) and Tweedle Dum (Character)
The Caterpillar
The Jabberwock
The Duchess
The Queen of Hearts (Character)

All of these characters have however been horrifically twisted or reconstructed.

Gameplay

American McGee 's Alice is a third person action game, emphasizing heavy platforming and third person shooting elements. Gameplay also consists of large puzzle elements, requiring Alice to traverse the environment and utilize her various weapons and powers obtained during the game. Using id Software (Company)'s Quake III: Arena engine, The game is displayed in fully 3-D environments with smooth character and environment textures and animations.

Combat

Combat takes place from a third person perspective, with various items related to Alice's journeys acting as weapons. A deck of cards serve as a weak projectile type weapon, whilst a Jack-In-The-Box serves as a makeshift grenade. All weapons have a differentiated second function, often acting in new and different ways to the original function (i.e. Throwing Alice's Vorpal Blade, launching a barrage of cards at once). The varying effects of each weapon and its sub-function add a degree of depth and difficulty to combat. Other weapons include demon dice, a blunderbuss and the Jabberwock eye staff.

Toys

Toys are what Alice uses to combat the malevolent forces of the Queen of Hearts; most have two distinct methods of operation, the ones that don't activate their primary fire when you push the alt fire button.

Toy	Description	Primary Attack	Secondary Attack
Vorpal Blade	This weapon, visually a butcher knife, is named after the sword used to kill the Jabberwock in the original poem. Primary fire slashes and stabs, alt fire throws it at enemies. The Vorpal Blade uses no Will, but throwing it causes it to disappear, and Alice will be unable to use it until it magically returns to her a few seconds later.	Slash	Throw
Deck of Cards	The Deck of Cards fires slow-moving, target-seeking projectiles in the form of razor-sharp playing cards. Primary fire launches a steady stream of cards as long as you hold the button, and alt fire launches a short-ranged blast of cards with a shotgun effect.	Card Throw	16 Card Blast
Croquet Mallet	Primary fire swings the Mallet, and successful hits electrify enemies. This has a a slightly longer reach than the Vorpal Blade, and hits significantly harder, as well as using no Will. Alt fire consumes Will and launches an electrified croquet ball at your target from a distance.	Bash	Electrified Croquet Ball
Jack-in-the-Bomb	Primary fire tosses out the Jack-in-the-Bomb; it plays its jingle and then explodes with great force, like a grenade. Alt fire tosses it out as well, but this time it immediately begins to emit a powerful gout of flames in a slowly rotating blast, then explodes into a fireball once it runs out of power.	Explosion	Flame-Thrower / Explosion
Ice Wand	Primary fire sends out a constant stream of frigid air that deals extreme damage to fire-based enemies, and heavy damage to most others. Killing an enemy with the Ice Wand causes them to freeze solid. Alt fire creates a small shield of ice directly in front of Alice that blocks enemy projectiles in theory, but given that in practice you really need to keep moving constantly, it's basically useless.	Ice Blast	Wall of Ice
Jacks	Primary fire launches out the spike-tipped Jacks, which seek out an enemy and pummel them without mercy or hesitation for a short time, then return to Alice. As long as the ball is bouncing next to Alice, the Jacks are doing their thing, but they cannot be used until they return. Alt fire throws out a handful of Jacks in a similar manner to the Cards' alt fire. It deals almost no damage, though, so stick with primary fire.	Jack Barrage	Jack Throw
Diabolical Dice	Depending on how many Dice you have, and what you roll, you can summon demons with these malevolent cubes. There are three types of demons that can be summoned, with this group destroying weapon, but be warned, summoning demons when no enemies are around will lead your summoned monsters to attack you. Small Demon -- uses ¼ of your Will meter; the demon is small and winged and has a mild electric beam Medium Demon -- uses ½ of your Will meter; the demon is snake-like, with both slashing and flame attacks Large Demon -- uses ¾ of your Will meter; this is a large and mean demon, and it has electric and pounding attacks\|\|Throw Die/Dice\|\|-----
Jabberwock's Eye Staff	Primary fire charges up for a few seconds before unleashing a purple death ray that causes extreme damage to whatever you care to point it at, and lasts until you run out of Will. Alt fire launches a number of purple projectiles into the sky, which soon come down in the direction Alice is looking.	Eye Beam	Meteor Shower
Blunderbuss	This is the most powerful Toy in the game, it takes a full Will meter to use and kills every enemy in the area you fire it into. Only bosses can survive even a single blast from this devastating beauty. Unfortunately, it's hidden...	Burst of Will	-----
Deadtime Watch	This watch will freeze time, giving you twenty seconds in a frozen world to do whatever you want, and it's always amusing to watch a group of enemies drop dead the second time starts again. Unfortunately, it has a very long cooldown.	Time Freeze	-----

Levels

Fortress of Doors

The Pale Realm

Water Logged

Dementia
Pandemonium
Fortress of Doors
Beyond the Wall
Fortress of Doors, pt. 2
Skool Daze
Skool's Out
Skool Daze, pt. 2
Pool of Tears
Hollow Hideaway
Just Desserts
Wholly Morel Ground
Dry Landing
Herbaceous Border
Rolling Stones
Icy Reception
Fungiferous Flora
Catterpillar's Plot
Pale Realm
Castling
Checkmate In Red
Mirror Image
Crazed Clockwork
About Face
Burning Curiosity
Jabberwock's Lair
Catterpillar's Plan, pt. 2
Majestic Maze
Airborne Terror
Mystifying Madness
Water Logged
Labyrinthine Revenge
Machinations
Royal Rage
Battle Royale
Ascension
Castle Keep
Hearts of Darkness

Enemies

Common Enemies

You'll see these guys a lot

Club Card Guards
Diamond Card Guard
Boojum
Mechanical Ladybug
Army Ant Soldier
Snark
Army Ant General
Mushroom
Pink Rose
Antlion
Fire Imp
Lava Man
Phantasmagoria
Spade Card Guard
Heart Card Guard
Red Pawn
Red Knight
Red Rook
Red Bishop
Clockwork Guard
Lantern Spider
Fire Snarks
Jabberspawn

Bosses

Mad Hatter's Concept Art

The Duchess
The Centipede
The Red King
Tweedle Dee (Character) and Tweedle Dum (Character)
The Mad Hatter
The Jabberwock (Character)
The Queen of Hearts

Voice Talents

Susie Brann -- Alice
Jarion Monroe (Person) -- Catterpillar
Roger Jackson -- Cheshire Cat / Jabberwock / The Dormouse
Andrew Chaikin (Person) -- The White Rabbit / The Mad Hatter / The March Hare
Anni Long (Person) -- The Queen of Hearts / The Duchess

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for American McGee's Alice was composed by the musician Chris Vrenna (Person).

Track No.	Title	Running Time
<div class="js-item-cage">01</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Falling Down the Rabbit Hole</div>	01.20
<div class="js-item-cage">02</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Village of the Doomed</div>	03.35
<div class="js-item-cage">03</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Fortress of Doors</div>	03.51
<div class="js-item-cage">04</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Fire and Brimstone</div>	03.46
<div class="js-item-cage">05</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Wonderland Woods</div>	03.59
<div class="js-item-cage">06</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">The Funhouse</div>	03.39
<div class="js-item-cage">07</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Skool Daze</div>	04.10
<div class="js-item-cage">08</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Time to Die</div>	03.55
<div class="js-item-cage">09</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">I'm Not Edible</div>	03.09
<div class="js-item-cage">10</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Taking Tea In Dreamland</div>	03.44
<div class="js-item-cage">11</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Fungiferous Flora</div>	03.35
<div class="js-item-cage">12</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum</div>	03.46
<div class="js-item-cage">13</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">The Centipede</div>	03.31
<div class="js-item-cage">14</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Pandemonium</div>	03.55
<div class="js-item-cage">15</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Floying On the Wings of Steam</div>	04.35
<div class="js-item-cage">16</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Late to the Jabberwocky</div>	03.17
<div class="js-item-cage">17</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Pool of Tears</div>	04.08
<div class="js-item-cage">18</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Battle of the Red Queen</div>	04.11
<div class="js-item-cage">19</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">A Happy Ending</div>	03.44
<div class="js-item-cage">20</div>	<div class="js-item-cage">Flying On the Wings of Steam (remix)</div>	04.03

PC System Requirements

OS: Windows 98/ME/2000
Processor: Pentium 2 @ 400 MHz
Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive: 580 MB Free
Video Memory: 16 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 7.0

Trivia

The game's release offered a pewter Cheshire Cat figurine (approx. 2 in. tall) as a Gamestop/EB Games pre-order bonus.
An alternate front cover was attached to later releases of the game; it appears almost identical, but the Cheshire Cat is less bony and emaciated, and Alice is carrying the Ice Wand, not the Vorpal Blade (Object). A third cover was later attached which appears identical to the second one except that Alice is carrying the even less threatening Deck of Cards.
At one point in development, the team considered casting Marilyn Manson (Person) as the voice of the Mad Hatter, but decided against it.

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