Alice: The Madness Returns is the latest game from American McGee’s
studio, Spicy Horse. It is a game that uses some strange design
decisions that separate this game from the majority of the games that
are being realised currently.
Alice: the Madness returns is a
third person action-adventure game that plays very much like an
evolution of the games of the previous generation of action adventure
games. You spend the majority of the game jumping across platforms,
dashing past slamming pistons and shrinking to crawl through holes in
the walls. This is done reasonably well with tight, well-made controls
that mean that you generally don’t find yourself dying because you
couldn’t see where you were meant to jump. However, during the combat,
more than a few times the camera would whip around and face the wall
while you get beaten to death.
The combat is basic, you have two close attacks and two range attacks. The main part of the combat is sorting out your target priority, do you deal with the basic guys before the elite or do you take the elite out first. This keeps the combat interesting when they throw in new enemies, more enemies and environmental hazards. While the combat is at times challenging, besides the camera issues, you never feel like you have been cheated out of a life.
The biggest problem with this game is the pacing. There are five chapters in this game, each going for about 4-5 hours each. This is only a problem in that you feel like you are spending hours and hours doing things for no pay off. If they had broken it up into six or seven chapters the game would have felt like a substantially less time wasting game. However as it is, you feel like you should be getting more at the end of each section.
The game is visually stunning. While the idea of a dark version of the tale of Alice in Wonderland is nothing new, the turn the century, industrialized style of the game helps it to stand out from the crowd. And the hair, wow. This game has the best hair technology that I have ever seen in a game. When you jump the hair flows and moves in an uncannily realistic fashion. There are a few problems with the visuals. In large parts of the game is located in workshops and factories so you get used to seeing a fair bit of brown and grey. This is not all the game, only a few specific areas. In addition, there is the texture pop-in that the unreal engine is well known for displaying prominently.
The story of the game is told through in engine cut scenes and some well-made pre rendered scenes that are all in a two dimensional style that looks really nice and complements the design of the game well.
Alice: The Madness Returns is a game that tackles a genre that is not normally done in this day in age and innovates and makes it still play in this generation of games. Pacing issues aside, this is a game that will please most people that are looking for something other than another FPS or cover based third person shooter.
8/10
