A return trip into MADNESS
Alice: Madness Returns brings Alice forth once again into the depths of madness and chaos. Familiar faces return, new faces emerge, and Alice must once again confront her inner demons while dealing with her past, the biggest demon of them all.
Even more than a decade later, Alice continues to suffer
Madness Returns sets itself 11 years after American Mcgee's Alice. Alice was released from the asylum and now lives as an orphan in a village in London. Alice has been consulting a hypnotist to suppress her memories which are the source of her hallucinations and madness. However, Alice continues to suffer from hallucinations, and they are now even more horrid than before. During a trip to acquire some medicine, Alice ends up following a white cat and ultimately stumbles down the rabbit hole again and into Wonderland. Alice finds that Wonderland has changed since the last time she was there, as a "new law" has corrupted her sanctuary and turned into into a land of chaos and madness (no pun intended). Alice must find the root of this corruption, which may actually be tied to her memories and may have been done unknowingly by her own hand.
Surely Alice isn't much of a fighter...
On the contrary, Alice has access to a....unique arsenal of weaponry and abilities fitting for her journey and settings. One of the first weapons you get early on in the game is Alice's signature Vorpal Blade, a kitchen knife (yes, a kitchen knife) that can be used to hack and slash enemies with combos. This was her signature weapon in the previous game. Not too soon after that you come across the Pepper Grinder, which is just what the name says. Alice aims an over-sized pepper grinder and, with the turn of the knob, fires pepper shots at the enemy. This is most commonly used for the puzzle aspect of the game, as firing at snouts can reveal hidden paths and items. If that hasn't gotten you thinking yet, let's talk about wielding a teapot as a cannon. No dice? How about using a horse head on a stick as a power attack? Wow, you must be used to crazy. What about using an umbrella as a shield? Okay, okay, that actually sounds normal. You get the point, though, and I haven't even covered half of the weapons.
As the game has an abundance of platforming, Alice can jump up to four times, and each time after the second jump, can float to slow her fall. You will be doing this a lot, so get used to it. Another little quirk which I found interesting is the Shrink Potion that is obtained at the beginning of the journey. By holding a button, Alice shrinks herself down on the spot. This also has a lot of uses for puzzles and finding hidden paths and items. If you find yourself getting stuck, take a swig of the potion and look around for clues.
You'll be doing a lot of fighting, so of course there's the dodge. Alice turns into butterflies and dodges in a direction, usually forward if she's targeting an enemy but the direction can be influenced by holding a direction. This can also be done in the air, which comes in handy for extending your jump distance as well.
A new and very cool mechanic in this game is Hysteria Mode, which is like a (excuse my language here) "Fuck Everything" mode. When Alice is near death, this can be activated and it makes her invincible during its duration and drastically increases her attack power, turning her into a walking death machine. Just be sure to find those Roses so you can get some health back during that point. You don't want to be waiting to use that mode again and suddenly get killed.
An Unreal style of visuals for Alice
Madness Returns uses the Unreal 3 Engine and PhysX (GPU acceleration only on PC) and I must say, the game does look good. The environments are extremely detailed and are brought to life through activity. There isn't an area in which something isn't happening in the background or even around Alice. I've never quite seen hair as free-flowing as Alice's. It really feels like a fairytale that has gone to hell, which is the setting of Wonderland.
Hey, I've noticed that Alice doesn't always wear the blue/white dress
Oh you mean seeing Alice like this?
I actually liked what they did with this. Depending on the world Alice is in, her dress changes to fit the setting. I got far enough in the game to get the dress seen in the screenshot (it's called the Royal Suit), which is my favorite dress followed by her Steamdress, which is the first dress she changes to from the Classic dress (that's what the blue/white dress is called). If you don't like a dress she's wearing, you can always to go the main menu and switch the dresses (make sure to save beforehand so you don't lose your spot if you didn't hit a checkpoint).
Alice is the world's most unique collector
As you journey through the game, you will acquire Teeth which is the currency and can be used to upgrade weapons. Collecting bottles unlocks stuff in the Extra Content menu (doesn't unlock anything affecting the game). However, the most important thing in the game are Memories. Memories not only help ease Alice along in the game, but provide backstory in case you haven't played the first game. Actually, some memories also relate to how you play the game. For example, if there was a platform segment in which you had to navigate a certain way, you may find a Memory afterwards that will describe how Alice was in the real world in that exact manner. It's a rather interesting way to keep the player interested in the story while encouraging exploration and collecting. Collections can be tracked in the pause menu and in the main menu.
What does the player get for beating the game?
The player is allowed to start a New Game+ in which the game is started over but with everything obtained in the previous run, so no having to get everything over again. Yay for making collecting much easier! In addition, the player will have access to Dress Specials. Dress Specials are special effects that are active when Alice wears a dress. For example, wearing her Steamdress will make breakable boxes drop twice the amount of Teeth and Roses than usual.
What does Twenty Cent Gaming think?
As exciting and interesting as I can make this game sound, the truth is that both components are lacking in some areas, the story being the biggest one. You get the occasional real world scene, then back to Wonderland for a while, then that one scene, then back to Wonderland, rinse and repeat. Most of the interaction is in Wonderland, but even that feels heavily underwhelming.
The fighting isn't completely repetitive due to the arsenal, but the enemies sure are. There tends to only be one or two definite ways to kill an enemy, and those enemies will spawn a lot, so be prepared to do the same thing over and over again until you run into a boss fight that didn't feel much like a boss fight and you end up seeing said boss multiple times as a common enemy.
Jumping around and solving puzzles is the bulk of the game, but that's not really bad considering this is an action-adventure platform game. It just feels like I did too much at once without proper story breaks or seeing much interaction between characters.
This game had tons of potential but it feels like only about 70% of it was used.
However, in the end, I will give this game the Twenty Cent Stamp Approval of Recommendation. If you just zoom through the game, it won't take long to beat. However, if you're a completion-type of player, be prepared to spend some time with Alice.
What's the Downloadable Content?
You can obtain American McGee's Alice, the original PC game. For 10 bucks you get some Achievements/Trophies, and story before Madness. However, brand new copies of the game came with this for free (The game's about 34 days old so this still may be happening. You need an EA account to get the game this way, however).
Next, you can get some special dresses not available in the game and you can get an automatic level 4 upgrade to all weapons (level 4 in the max). This will set you back a couple bucks.
While you could possibly forget about the DLC, I would recommend getting it for the full experience that Alice has to offer. I can guarantee that a lot of players do not know of American McGee's Alice, so it's a good thing the game is available as DLC. However, I will warn you that the game is a straight convert from the PC version, which means HD visuals that don't quite help. It would have been nice for American McGee's Alice to be remade.
And a trailer :D
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