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RATING: (weak) 1 2 3 4 5 (awesome) (No Rating Assigned)
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IN BRIEF
Pros: Great design and music. Cons: Story and intensity wane as game progresses. In a nutshell: The stunning beauty and artisitc talent make up for the game's weak storyline. Multiplayer: None *ESRB rating: M |
FACTS
Game Title: American McGee's Alice Platform: Windows Developer: Rogue Entertainment Publisher: Electronic Arts Release Date: December 6, 2000 Price: 39.99 |
THE REVIEW by Steven Kent for Gamers Today
MALICE FOR ALICE
The opening scene of American McGee's Alice: cute little Alice (of Looking Glass Fame) tucked sweetly in bed holding her stuffed rabbit toy when a fire destroys her home and kills her parents. Alice would have died too had she not been warned from Wonderland.
Fast forward to Alice an older Alice lives in an asylum. She still has her girlish hairstyle and her pretty blue dress with the smart white apron, but this Alice has a biting insanity about her. When she is pressed back into Wonderland to save its inhabitants from their oppressive queen, our new Alice is well equipped for violence and ready to fight back.
In American McGee's version of Alice, the Wonderland to which our once-sweet girl returns is neither in Kansas or Oz. This is a dark and menacing place with slavery, brutality, and violent card guards. The once chubby Cheshire Cat is now mangy, worn down to skin and bone, and bald. Alice's other friends have changed or turned weird as well.
American McGee, a former id Software luminary who worked on such games as Doom and Quake, has put his unsettling imagination to work in brilliant fashion. Leaving the familiar trappings of first-person shooters, McGee has created a deranged third-person Tomb Raider-style adventure that seems oddly like a cross between Lara Croft and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
McGee's vision of Wonderland gone dark is possibly one of the darkest worlds to emerge in computer gaming. His butcher knife-wielding heroine is also dark. Though she seems brave and ready to help the oppressed, there is something wrong about her, and she accepts the changes in her imaginary world all too easily. In other words, McGee has rejected Alice out of her familiar Disney-esque Alice, ratcheted the oddness of the original Lewis Carol world, then molded the original Alice until she could handled its shadows.
McGee has done more than create an eerie atmosphere, he has also designed an excellent game. The levels in Alice are well laid out for exploration and confrontation, and McGee's new running, swimming, shooting, and rope-climbing Alice is as easy to control as Eidos's Lara Croft. Alice may not be as agile as Lara, but she jumps and moves pretty well for a gal in a dress.
Make no mistake, however, American McGee's Alice is not a game for kids. It is a twisted and wonderful game. It is a bit depressing, but hey, through this looking glass you will find the stuff that nightmares are made of.
*For a complete explanation of ESRB ratings, check out the official ESRB Web site.
