Official Web Page: Alice: Madness Returns Official Website Developer: Spicy Horse Publisher: Electronic Arts Genre: Action Adventure/Platformer Release date: June 14, 2011 (North America), June 16, 2011 (Europe) Engine: Unreal Engine 3
Description:
Alice: Madness Returns is an Action-Adventure game that delves deep into the dark and violent side of the imagination, creating a nightmarish Wonderland where Alice must face the demons that haunt her visions. Visit the grim reality of Victorian London and then travel to the beautiful yet ghastly Wonderland to uncover the root of Alice's madness and discover the truth behind a deadly secret, kept hidden for years. Features include: upgradable melee weapons and magic abilities, a shattered gameword filled with altered versions of Lewis Carroll's famous characters and intuitive and rewarding puzzle play.
* Intense 3rd-person Action - Use multiple upgradeable melee weapons, including the explosive Teapot Cannon, the punishing Hobby Horse, and the classic Vorpal Blade.
* Explore a Dark and Shattered Wonderland - Encounter familiar, but now strange characters including the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar and the Red Queen.
* Magical Abilities - Obtain peculiar abilities in Wonderland such as floating with Alice's dress, shrinking and growing to towering sizes in order to crush enemies.
* Interactive Puzzles - Intuitive and rewarding puzzles such as transforming obstacles, musical memories chess and picture blocks.
* A Visually unique Gameworld - Delight in the whims of the ever-changing visual aspects of the gameworld which visually affect everything in the game, including Alice and her attire.
* OS - Windows XP (SP3) / Vista (SP2) / Windows 7
* Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo (or equivalent) running at 1.6 GHZ or greater / AMD Athalon X2 running at 1.60 GHz or greater
* RAM - 2048 MB or greater
* Disc Drive - DVD ROM required for installation only
* Hard Drive - At least 8.5 GB of free space
* Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce 7600 256 MB PCIe or ATI Radeon X1650 256 MB PCIeor greater*
* DirectX - DirectX 9.0c compatible (XP or Windows 7 required for DirectX 10/11)
* Input - Keyboard and mouse or dual analog controller
Well gameplay looked good to me although graphics were not that great. I like female protagonist. I hope the end product would be that nice that I would play this game.
I played this game for about 2 hours now and I have to say that it's quite impressive. Although, my full opinion may differ, depending on how the full game turns out, I'll just dish out my thoughts from what I've experienced so far.
Now, I had never heard of American McGee's Alice ever, before this title was announced. What irked my interest in Madness Returns was obviously the gameplay, which was hack-en-slash and puzzle/platforming. After watching so many trailers and videos, I realized this game was a completely bizarre and came from a very twisted mind of American McGee. What we have known of the wonderful childhood fairytale, was turned into this dark and horrific vision our young British lass. Any-hoo, after doing some further digging, I found out that this game was a sequel and the first one had released back in 2000. With very little knowledge of the plot, I have decided to play this game.
Enough with the history lesson, let's get down to business. The sequel takes place 10 years after the event of the first game. Alice is now a young adult and is in an orphanage in London, still haunted by the memories of her dead parents. The intro begins with her shrink, Dr. Angus Bumby, attempting to suppress those memories by hypnotizing her. Unfortunately, it's not easy for Alice to let got of those horrible images, she tries to go off into Wonderland, but even there, things go amok. The doctor wakes her up and tells her to get some pills from the market, where she meets up with Nurse Witless. Apparently, Witless was a Nurse in the Asylum, where Alice was locked down in the first game. On meeting up with her, she has a strange vision and falls back into Wonderland. Here, she is greeted by the Cheshire cat who informs Alice that a new law has taken over the wonderland and must be stopped. From here, we begin our journey.
The gameplay is primarily based on platforming. Alice can jump, double jump and even triple jump. AND yes, she can even float too (). You can also use dodge/dash ability, which is very useful, both in combat and platforming. Alice also has the ability to shrink her size and traverse into smaller areas. Platforming is mainly spent in jumping across across spinning wheels, large dices, propelling mushrooms, gas pipes etc. Some are time based obstacles and others could be traveling through invisible paths, which are mainly revealed by using your shrunk form. The world offers a lot of collectibles of your memories, random bottles and teeth (for weapons upgrades). For most part, the platforming is decent, but you'll occasionally run into invisible walls and awkward camera angles. As for the combat, you'll obtain the Vorpal blade and the Pepper Gun, right in the first level. Enemies are predictable in terms of their attack patterns and you'll have no trouble finishing them off. I'm playing it on Normal, but trust me, it feels like a level below easy. Till now, no enemy has been able to drain even 2-3 slots from my health bar. My only deaths have been due to platforming falls. So my advice; start the game with anything above normal. You can upgrade your weapons with the teeth you have collected and it's not a complex upgrade pattern, just simple level upgrades. Wonderland offers some secret hidden locations, which are revealed by a flying Pig Snout. Fill them with enough pepper shots and they will reveal the location. When you're in your shrunk form, the world with turn dark blue and some clues will be highlighted in glowing signs. It's useful in finding your way around (if lost), hidden location revelations & finding hidden paths.
Graphics are really gorgeous. We are once again graced by the ever popular, Unreal Engine 3, combined with nVidia's PhysX. From the lush landscapes of the Wonderland forests to the ruined Mad Hatter's domain. Everything is a work of art. The level design is fantastic. The world just begs to be explored. The game runs very smooth using the .ini tweak to 60fps. I have set PhysX to low, for obvious reasons. Speaking of PhysX, has the technology evolved or what. Alice's hair animations, cloth physics, object destruction etc are brilliant. There are some hiccups in the performance though and frame dips at times. Visually, this game looks stunning on the PC. Every bit of effort of taken to provide a dark and beautiful appeal to the game.
Coming to the sound aspect, the soundtrack is fabulous. It's filled with haunting violin and piano tunes. It's not overly dramatic, but soft and subtle. The switch of tune occurs, depending on the situation. It blends in perfectly with the dark and deary set-up of the game. The other sound aspects of the game like weapons sounds, creatures sounds, object & nature sounds are pretty good. Voice acting is absolutely spot-on. Every character has their unique personality and are really sarcastic.
The game offers a lot in terms of content. For people who haven't played the first game, a re-mastered version is available, which has all the recent resolution support and heck, even has 360 controller support. There is an in-game manual, which has detailed information on how to go about the game. It also has a past history guide, in which you can read through the events of the first game. It also allows you to access all the memories that you have collected from the game and view the cut-scenes which have been unlocked. People who have pre-ordered the game from EA, must already have the 'Dresses and Weapon pack' DLC included in the game. These are all the different costumes you'll have access to:
This is just a small gist of what the game will offer. People who love adventure games, this is a good title to try out.
Also, check these Alice art-work:
For anyone who doubts that video games can be art, look no further than American McGee. (...)
To celebrate his creation and it’s sequel Alice: Madness Returns, McGee worked with Los Angeles venue Gallery 1988 to commission several artists, including Chet Zar, Dr. Romanelli, Luke Chueh, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, Kevin Tong, Angryblue, and Phantom City Creative, to reinterpret his titular character for a showing during video game expo E3. “The art show really drove home my sense that this interpretation of Alice is a very natural and appropriate one. In creating the franchise, my goal was to create a branch in the Alice universe that would always feel like a natural, logical extension to the original stories everyone knows and loves. To see how that new telling is then re-interpreted, while still capturing the essence of a darker, more mature Alice has been like witnessing a shared dream.”
I guess I'll play it once I complete DAO completely. I tries it for about 30 min and I must say that I loved it. Its the best hack n Slash game I have played since DMC4. Yes Darksiders was also very good but environments in this game are freakin awesome.
As far as i am concerned those quotes are true!In fact the whole review can be concluded with that first statement only.
I tried very much to enjoy the game! But everytime i had my expectations high they were brutally shattered on the next level.Then again it rises and this goes on.
Alright lets jump into the game now !
Positive points
1.The story starts and concludes beautifully.
2.The visuals at most of the places are indeed admirable.
3.Fluid gameplay:-combat mechanics, platforming etc.
4.variations in levels.Some puzzles are quite good and fun to solve.
5.unique Art style in some levels.wonderland indeed has been beautifully made.
6.variety in enemies.
Negative points
Unfortunately here the game takes a huge hit.
1.There are some issues with the gfx.sometimes you can see the black border or outline of some objects or characters.
2.Though its rare but the fps does freezes for sometime at some levels.it is very very annoying when you are in middle of a fight or alice is sliding!
3.Repetitive levels.some levels are dragged too much to increase the time.
4.Improper save points.This is the most significant part which will irritate you the most.This makes the game very frustrating.
5.which collectible items unlocks which extra features are not mentioned.
Though i dont like ratings but if rating is that much important.Then i will rate this game the way it has been designed to be rated.(like i had mentioned this game has various ups and downs therefore heres how the rating has been done.)
The rating will be done on the chapter basis.
CHAPTER 1 Hatter's Domain :-7/10
CHAPTER 2 Deluded Depths :- 7/10
CHAPTER 3 Oriental Grove :- 5/10(Becomes too repetitive and boring from the next half.)
CHAPTER 4 Queensland :-8.5/10 (Best.better than others.)
CHAPTER 5 The Dollhouse :-5/10 (Too much dragged.)
CHAPTER 6 Infernal Train :-8/10 (nice boss fight to conclude!)
Guys please note that this game does not falls completely in the hack n slash genre!It depends too much on platforming.Around 90% of it is based on platforming.Most of the time you will find yourself deciding in which platform to jump to!
Common observation will say that the negative points are less compared to positive points therefore it should get a handsome rating.
Well the actual fact is that though the flaws are less in quantity but their height is so much that it managed to pull me out of the experience more than I would have liked.
Anyways FAQS
1.Should i buy this game?
A.First try. borrow or rent a copy.Then download all the saves.Then play a bit of chapter 1, a bit from the middle of chapter 2 and and the starting of chapter 4 then you decide.
2.Is this game too much repetitive?or is it so bad?
A.No it is not that bad if you have lots of patience then do try it.
3.Which mode is best suited to play this game?
A:- Select nightmare if you have the above mentioned quality.
4.Is this game worth playing again.
A.as far as i am concerned no.Collecting extra items are not that much fun.
5.Is the story good?are boss fights good?
A.as mentioned it is proper and beautifully told.Only the gameplay kills it.
There is only one boss fight and that too towards the end.
6.Is it good for playing with a keyboard and mouse?Does it only supports xbox360 controller.
A.Though it has been made to be played with a controller.But keyboard and mose works fine! i completed it with kb and mouse.
It supports xbox 360 controller only.But if you have a generic ps2 type controller you can use that too using the xbox 360 hack.But note that you wont be able to change the keys.
Well atlast if you ask me for a overall rating then i will give:- 7/10
those who have given it score lower than mine i am also not against them i can understand why they have given it.
This game is totally made for below 18.Those adult dialogues and some lengthy combats were not at all necessary.i think it was just added to attract a larger community.
Hope this helps.if i have missed or mentioned anything wrong the do forgive and inform me.
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