CLASSIC GAMING
American McGee's ALICEDeveloper - Rogue Entertainment
Publisher - EA Games
Genre - Action/Shoot-em up
Year of Release - 2000
System - PC
(We're all mad here, you know.)
It has been a tradition of the entertainment industry to make movies out of books, since the first creation of a movie. But rarely has it ever been a case when a videogame has been made from a book. This is one of these cases, and a very surprising one it is too.
American McGee's ALICE is a dark journey into a world that all of us are familiar with to an extent, the upside-down inside-out world of Wonderland, created by Lewis Carroll from his classically famous book series and made into several light-hearted children's films.
Now, at this point some of you are probably thinking "what sick bastard would do that to a classic children's story?". I thought this question until sometime before I bought it and decided that perhaps it was actually well-written.
And trust me on this, as a gamer but also as a fan of the original books, this game delivers on both fronts.
(Wonderland Rule #1: NEVER reason with logic.)
Story - The story of the game is actually well-played and the game gives an overall Wonderlandian feel that no one else has been able to master and twist to this dark extent. Not only are the levels beautifully portrayed enough that you can recognise some of the remnants of the original land, but also despite its completely gothic form it still feels like Carroll wrote it, or programmed it if were alive and a games programmer high on something.
The story starts out with our blue-dressed heroine Alice lying in bed and dreaming of her world of Wonderland and taking teatime eternally. One day however, a fire starts in Alice's house and her friends in her dream world, sensing the perilous danger she was in, awakened her to reality where she runs escaping the place at the pleas of her parents.
Traumatised by the loss of her home and family, she recedes into a coma and we skip to her teenager years, within Rutledge's asylum as a coma-ridden suicidally disturbed girl. One day, she hears a message from her Wonderland friends, pleading her to save them. She so heads into Wonderland within her deepest coma yet, and finds it to be a horrifically altered world of evil and pain, under the rule of the wicked despot, the Queen of Hearts.
(The Pool Of Tears is aptly named for its sad bastard inhabitants.)
Gameplay - Now here is the part that matters next. How well can you play this game? Well, the keyboard controls are actually not too complex if you aren't too bad with a computer, and the options allow you to assign your own keys to the commands. The mouse is naturally used for aiming with the keyboard doing everything else. Jumping is your main concern as is the case with all games of this genre. Glitches are normally rare and not too big a concern unless you get fully trapped in between something and either lose all of your health automatically, or just have to load an older save file.
Saving is quite fair in this game. With the cleverly entitled Bandersnatch Opticals screen in the menu, you can save, load and delete files at any time in the game you want. Saves automatically happen whenever you enter a new level though.
The enemies of the game are quite challenging, but not necessarily clever. The AI is really just "charge and destroy" but sometimes that's all it takes for you to get killed so you'll have to be the smart one.
The weapons are very nice and given a dark humorous twist of children's toys, having such choices as Devil Dice, a deadly Pack of Cards, a Croquet Club (do some vengeance GTA Baseball Bat style) and the first (maybe your most frequently used) weapon of the game, the Vorpal Blade (as taken from Carroll's Jabberwocky poem).
(Rabbit was right, they WERE late for the dinner party!)
Graphics - Although they seem blocky by today's contrasts, they were top marks for 6 years ago, because it uses the Quake III Engine from Id Games (a company American McGee worked in for a while). The world of Carroll's Wonderland is very well portrayed in a demonic demeanour with dull yet clashing colours that battle the senses and continuously make you feel confused, with a vivid range of colourful inhabitants from Centipedes and Card Soldiers to the White Rabbit. While the characters have been altered out of their original proportion, they still hold some reminiscent features that make it easy for you to recognise them from the original drawings in the books, or from that ever-classic Disney film.
(Imagine Alice as Tommy Vercetti, and the guards are the police, and there is no Wanted bar.)
Music - Another thing about this game that's brilliant, is its music. Each level has a wonderful feel to it thanks to the background music playing out in fine accordance to the scenery, from the odd to the creepy. The boss battles probably have the finest piece of music in this game, for every boss has their own tune that manages to fit them nicely enough for you to understand the thing you're facing, as well as its mentality, from the pompous yet creepy air of the Duchess, to the orchestral air of the final battle.
And I know some of you will love the music, as it is played by none other than founding Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna, along with some contributions from current Marilyn Manson keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy and sampled female chorus by Jack Off Jill singer Jessicka.
Despite such a strange musical cast for a game, Vrenna is a master with his music here and showing nothing of his usual metal-sounding music that has become NIN's signature, but instead he has used more orchestral atmosphere, a twisted opera out of children's toys and delusional thoughts, trying everything from creepy twinkling sounds and twisted strings, to broken toys and female voices. He is a true player here, orchestral and creepy yet with the underlying feel that has become his trademark with his band.
(She's walking in the aaaaaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrr....)
Final's Final Review - 8/10"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto
Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!