American McGee's Alice

The Good
There are many things to like about this game. First off, the graphics are just drop-dead gorgeous. The scenery is as spaced out as one would expect from a game with a knife-wielding Alice. From the lush outdoors to the spooky buildings, the graphics are always a pleasure on the eye. Secondly, the levels are great. Every level has its own unique graphics, and design, giving the player the feeling of being totally immersed in another world. One of the best levels, for instance, is one where the surfaces of the walls are like mirrors, reflecting other walls. Thirdly, the controls are great: it doesn't take very long to learn how to move about and fight. Finally, the game's difficulty slowly increases as you get more used to controls and gameplay. For instance, the first few levels pits you against cards that die with one or two hits. Later however, you battle rooks and knights, each of which attack in different ways, and require a different amount of hits to dispatch.

The Bad
The requirements of the game are a let down. The first time I played it, I reached a point after which none of the game's sprites would show up. So everything was white, except for the levels. This made playing difficult. Of course that was because my video card was a stinky one. After getting a new system, however, the game screams to be played. Also, at times, the controls can be over-sensitive. This is esp. frustrating when negotiating jumps: sometimes you jump onto a platform, only to land near the edge. Desperate to avoid falling off, you quickly move back, only to accidentally run off the back.

The Bottom Line
The gameplay is good, the voice acting is great, and the graphics are superb. This game will definitely appeal to fans for 3rd-person perspective 3D games, and maybe even the RPGers (I mostly play RPGs myself). Words cannot describe how great a gaming experience this was, esp. since I'm playing it for the umpteenth time.

The Good
American McGee's Alice is a fascinating game - at least it is for me. But where does this fascination come from?

The first and foremost thing about this game is its atmosphere and style. In my opinion it's sheer genius to expand the nice Alice in Wonderland story into a tale of death and murder, blood and torture, and pure paranoia - a tale for grown-ups. But it is one thing to have a good idea, and something completely different to make a good game of it. But here, the designers did.

The level designs and graphics all resemble the "known" Wonderland, but this time a Wonderland gone really bad. The game throws levels at you that vary from stunning beauty to mind-twisting surreality. This alone kept me playing, just to see what crazy stuff the designers had up their sleeves, yet. And I wasn't disappointed when with the conquering of the heart queen's castle near the end game, another visual blast was waiting. The enemy and weapon design also fit well here, both adding to this wonderful dark and paranoid atmosphere this game delivers.

Speaking of enemies, I really liked my cannon fodder, as no two enemy kinds are the same to kill. There are the lava monsters that are fluid and easy to kill when they come out of their lava pit, but turn to stone and, therefore, get harder to kill by the second. There are those little devils that just take one hit, but come in hordes. There are those fish pests that charge at you while swimming and throw acid and lava when you're standing at the shore. And the list goes on. Every enemy kind is well thought out and has its strengths and weaknesses to be discovered. And when you found out how to kill them more or less easily, they will team up to make your life harder again. The same goes for the boss fights, pure adrenaline.

Speaking of weapons, those all are Alice's toys gone dangerous. There's her cards, her cricket bat, her jack-in-the-box, her dice, and so on. They all kill the enemies in two different modes, can be used short or long range, are toys of single or mass destruction. It's part of the fun to try out all these funny goodies and see what they can do to your opposition. And you should know your weaponry well, as there will be fights that are impossible to win with one weapon, but easy going with another one or a combination of them.

The Bad
Some things hinder this game from becoming a true classic, though.

If you put aside the covers of cool design and style, a linear action platformer is left for you to play. A good one, that is, but somehow the actual gameplay can't really keep up with the presentation. The level designs vary in quality, top notch levels make room for huge mazes with spawning enemies that are an exercise in anger management. Furthermore, the cool background of Alice freeing her own fantasy world of her problems and sense of guilt isn't developed well within the game. Here and in those enemy-ridden mazes you will most painfully notice that the developers of this game have a history of developing 3D shooters.

The controls sometimes annoyed me, especially the jumping didn't work as expected, more than once it wasn't clear to me whether Alice can grab hold of an edge in front of her or not. Falling down into nirvana too often is the result of all this.

Last thing, fighting enemies it's sometimes not obvious whether you're doing damage or not. Especially when battling the centipede boss monster, I spend half an hour throwing everything at him until I finally looked up in a FAQ that there's a special area where he can be hit.

The Bottom Line
I love this game, no doubt about that. But still, I sometimes dream about it done right from start to finish. With a good storyteller to develop Alice's problems, with a huge Wonderland for Alice to roam freely, maybe with an RPG-like experience and questing system. The sky was the limit...

But heck, a sequel is in the making, let's see what they'll do with this legacy.

The Good
When I first started the game I did not know exactly what to expect. First I was impressed by the graphics. Not only they are technically good, but the artists in this are awesome. Especially the menu background image of Alice in the mental hospital is awesome. Awesomely disturbing. And that is the best word to describe the whole game. Everything you see is sick, perverted, twisted, warped or otherwise odd. Mr McGee must be at least a LITTLE mad to do something like this. Weapons in the game are totally different than any normal point-shoot weapon ordinarily seen. And the music is excellent. It fits perfectly in the game. Also the voice acting is, for a change, good.

The Bad
The voice acting, while it is good, is clearly recorded a line at a time. You never get a real feeling of a conversation. And there is a certain part where you just keep getting the feeling that you are playing "a bug's life" with your little brother. The plot is also very linear, making replay value nonexistent - especially when there is no multiplayer option.

The Bottom Line
This game is pretty much different from anything else. So weird it makes Silent Hill feel sane and so twisted that Undying looks like a cute childrens game. Definitely worth a look - if you are up to it.