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American McGee's Alice

American McGee's Alice

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: This game was one of the most fun games i've ever played. It was so fun I think that I had to buy it. The senerio is Alice's parents have died in a fire. Alice got sent to a mental instition. You don't quite know what happens but my guess is that she falls asleep and all of a sudden your falling down a rabbit's hole. You start out with no weapons but pretty soon you have a knife, throwing cards and much more. This game is so worth it. Please try this game it is worth every penny.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Story, Great Art, Fun Action
Review: I loved this game. Its puzzle's were not hard and it was a bit short. It also had a little to many cut scenes. Having said this however, I really liked playing this diffrent kind of first person shooter action game.

The story line was actually great versus the usual repetitive saving the world theme. The art was original and wonderful. The bad guys were a blast for one who is tired of the usual medival lineup. The weapons were a blast. If you like this type of game but like one that is imaginative too... then this is your game. This from a 45 year old guy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: This title has single-handedly revived my waning interest in the current PC game offerings. It was an impulse purchase for me - I had only been told by a friend that I should "check it out" during a brief conversation. Right from the opening credits I was hooked. The artistry, maturity, continuity of style, and emotional evocation that "Alice" brings to the genre is quite stunning.

Graphically, it is unparalled at present - I have yet to see another more visually impressive title. On my PII-400 and 3Dfx Voodoo 5500, the effects and fluidity of motion in 32-bit color and at resolutions in excess of 1024x768 amazed me. Even at lower resolutions this is a magnificent piece of level design, texture artistry, and 3D modeling. The music and EAX2 sound effects are chilling and disturbing on my quad speakers - and the most wonderful surprise - the voice acting is superb. A little over the top at times, but even that fits in with Alice's twisted wonder-landscape. The hairless, tattooed Chesire Cat that serves as your guide is wonderfully creepy.

The action is less frenzied than say, the excellent Unreal Tournament, or other shooters, but I don't think it was meant to be. I think it's strikes a great balance between combat gamplay, puzzle solving, and exploration/discovery. Just picking up the croquet mallet for the first time is sheer joy in itself as the Cat materializes and says: "Here's a riddle for you...when is a croquet mallet like a billy club? I'll tell you! Whenever you want it to be..." and recedes into the darkness, teeth glinting and eyes glowing.

The puzzles are sometimes overly simple, but they are never frustrating or stumping, which is good when the real gameplay comes through as exploratory - the biggest thrill (and apprehention!) is discovering the next complelling and odd corner of Alice's world.

It's not perfect, maybe, but it's definitely one of those must-have titles because there's nothing else quite like it. Fans of almost any genre will appreciate this in some way or another. Play it alone in the dark and see if it doesn't have you looking over your shoulder with it's "Salvador Dali meets H.G. Giger meets the Twilight Zone" eerie style. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Visually Stunning
Review: Electronic Art's new game Alice is a visually stunning masterpiece complete with beautiful graphics and sweet gameplay. Your character is Alice from the Wonderland books who is now older and a touch on the psychotic side. Unlike the older adventure games that come before this like Alone in the Dark and Tomb Raider, Alice is more artistic. Also on the downside it is highly more violent. Though it is definitely a game to be kept away from younger children, it is spectacular enough so that it can not be ignored.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: Alice is a game with tremendous potential that seems to have slightly missed the mark. The dark-yet-childlike world of Alice evokes the mysterious but the game play simply doesn't drive it home. In this sense, it is a very frustrating game. Why put all the effort into amazing graphics and environment and then let it go to pieces by not balancing the game play? Too much jumping, too little action, and definitely not enough mental challenge.

That said, I find it is one of the few FPS (technically, third person shooter) games that have really captured my attention. Perhaps it is the due to the tremendous graphics (giant swirling backgrounds and chess boards seem to dominate) or the wonderful sound (I can't get enough of the Cheshire Cat's voice - even if his cryptic messages border on melodrama). And Alice is a very sympathetic protagonist.

I only wish more attention was paid to the actual mechanics of the game. It is too bad that this game doesn't ship with MOD tools. I bet the players could build additions that would rival the original.

Interesting, definitely worth playing, but just not five-star quality.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A lot of potential, falls short
Review: It's obvious that the designers of this game wanted it to be something special. You get a lovely booklet with the game that actually gives you the notes that Alice's doctor took while he was attending to her after she "lost her sanity", which is facinating to read and puts into the right atmosphere for the game. Even the video segment in the beginning looks very promising; the animation looks professionally made, it is creepy and exciting, and it puts you right into the story. The problem is, that this is where the story ends.

"Alice" begins when the girl, now an adolescent with attitude to spare, falls back into Wonderland to "save" its creatures from their dark fate under the cruel hands of the evil Queen of Hearts. From there on, Alice doesn't do much but run, jump, and kill. Nothing special. Occasionally you get silly little animation bits of talking between Alice and the ugly creatures of Wonderland, but other than that, this isn't an adventure game. It's a 3D shooter in disguise. A lovely disguise indeed, but still a disguise. The designers could have turned this into a facinating adventure game, but instead, they turned it into Lara Croft of the 1860's... Although Tomb Raider games usually have an even better plot than that.

The good points in the game are the graphics-- Their stunning and you probably know this already-- and the sound, which is very atmospheric and puts you right in the game. Other than that, controlling Alice takes a while to get used to: She's not graceful in her moves. Running into walls is an easy sport in this game and jumping into pits is even easier. Plus, using the mouse to hit or shoot your enemies while frantically tapping different keys on the keyboard with your left hand isn't an easy task. The fighting in this game isn't fun or challanging-- your enemies are very stupid and while you might accidentally die because you ran into a wall instead of running towards the enemy, killing them is usually an easy task. But easy doesn't mean fun, and that's where the game fails: It's not very fun at all.

I gave this game 3 stars for the graphics, sound, and animation. When I bought it, I was hoping it would also be challanging, fun and interesting. Too bad I was wrong.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Game I've Seen In A Long Time.
Review: With most of the new games coming out today, I tend to either get bored, causing me to lose interest, or frustrated, prompting me to get all the cheats I can. With Alice, there is enough of a challenge to keep me interested, but not enough to drive me to cheat. The gameplay, coupled with the intensely stunning graphics, and a captivating story has kept me rivited for hours. The only low point that I can think of is the interface. Sometimes it gets very unwieldy, especially when the action gets hot. But even with that flaw, this game is still well worth twice the price.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Oh my GOD. Is NOTHING sacred or precious anymore???
Review: (This review is meant to be NO stars.)

The poor Reverend himself must be wailing from heaven for someone to stop ripping to shreds his beloved masterpiece. The well-meaning, shy, Christian author has had his work both praised and butchered throughout the decades, but never before have I ever encountered such a thorough and tasteless job (no wonder the C.S. Lewis estate is so notoriously protective! Can you imagine this happening to "Narnia"?!). First of all, I'll just say this for the concept--it WOULD have been VERY possible to do an ultracool and psychedelic action game of Alice without resorting to the cheap shock tactics McGee pours on here. He obviously got so carried away with the fact that he *could* do this that he didn't stop to think about whether he *should*. I'm not going to go into some long discussion on violence and inappropriate material in videogames, I'm just going to say that first off I think it stupid that the press is praising this game and treating it off the bat as though it were a "long lost" chapter of Lewis Carroll's work just now brought to light. Modern alternative audiences love the idea of a nightmarish Wonderland, and the attitude right now seems to be that this game is automatically a classic simply because it's a version so many out there want made. And all without respect to Carroll's memory or personal feelings. But enough of all that, as I certainly don't need to say any more. The important thing to get to here is the gameplay: strip away the shock factor of seeing Alice's Wonderland twisted into a nightmarish freakout and you'll find that the whole concept is just meant to add interest and flavor to what is in reality a stupid videogame. There's not a single element, control or weapon here that hasn't been done before and better in other videogames such as Mario 64 and even Doom and Quake themselves! Take a close look at the review of PC Gamer's opinion and you'll notice what they are really praising is the attitude and visuals but weren't impressed by the gameplay itself, and that's because the game's physical structure is completely unoriginal. The controls are terrible and clumsy, the weapons are simply dolled-up versions of weapons done before, and the art design is simply a Tim Burton ripoff. It's ludicrous to say that this game is anything else other than a mere reflection of McGee's own personal tastes and whims. A complete waste of time and an insult to a beloved childhood memory at the same time, it's guaranteed to infuriate both Lewis Carroll admirers and bore action gamers. All in all, no matter how you choose to look at it, a bad idea.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: beautiful & disturbing masterpiece!
Review: This is one of the most visually & thematically striking games I've ever seen. The incorporation of the Lewis Carrol novel material is exhilarating. It is very challenging, especially @ the higher levels.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Lewis Carroll Would Have Hated This
Review: Lewis Carroll, perhaps the greatest children's author of all time and definitely my favorite, is probably rolling over in his grave right now.

American McGee's Alice is imaginative and visually amazing, but it certainly isn't something that Carroll would have wished upon his cherished book. Don't get me wrong...as a game, I enjoyed it. But as soon as I came across the "modified" dormouse and march hare, I began to question whether or not it was done in good taste. Let me split American McGee's Alice up into pro's and cons:

Pros: Incredible graphics...true eye-candy; creative and diverse worlds; intense involvement--really draws the player in; jaw-dropping, almost disturbing morbidity

Cons: FAR too many lava pits and ledges to fall from; very annoying player movements (especially jumping); really, really, really big bosses. Why is everyone so big? I mean, Alice DID bite into the mushroom; lackluster, unexplained progression of levels and events; I used to like the mad hatter

There's no doubt that there's a ton of talent and imagination behind Alice. The visuals alone were enough to make this game a classic, but Lewis Carroll fans may not appreciate it as much as someone who's never read the novel. I began the game thinking it would be a fine variation of the Alice books, but as my character journeyed deeper into this new world, I began to lose enthusiasm. American McGee gets the award for making a visually breathtaking and psychadellic game, but Wonderland still belongs to Carroll.


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