American McGee's Alice

Rating:
Summary: This is not a game... it's a movie, and you're the lead!
Review: I've just read over most of the reviews here, and thought I'd add my two cents. I just completed the game, and as is the case with successful games, I'm ... wired?

I was very tempted to give this game a 5 star rating, but there were a few points that were unnecessarily frustrating (the leaf ride, for example) and struck me more as some tacked on "console-itis." However, they were few and far between and didn't really detract from the overall experience.

To sum the plot up... Wonderland exists only in Alice's mind. The original Wonderland stories were told to the little girl when she was a child by her uncle (also the author), as I understand. Well, this is the story of that little girl... fictionally extended. In this plotline, young Alice has been reading her favorite book (guess which one), with her favorite stuffed rabbit with her. Her pet cat is in the room with her, as well, and the cat knocks over the oil lamp she was reading by... resulting in a fire. Alice leaps to safety, but the rest of her family dies. Only Alice and her stuffed rabbit survive the fire.

Move ahead some five to ten years... Alice is a late-teenage girl, confined to a mental institution, effectively catatonic, but if you look closely you can see that her wrists have been slit recently. One of the nurses finds the rabbit, and gives it to her before bed, hoping that it will stir something in the zombie of a girl.

And Alice's fractured mind reacts... taking us into a Wonderland that is CLEARLY representative of her fractured psyche. The entire game is not about killing monsters, at least not in the traditional sense. The monsters that Alice is fighting are the horrors in her own mind. The goal of the game is to fight back to some semblence of sanity.

Each and every scene in the game is a reflection of something that was both in the original books and ALSO in Alice's bedroom the night of the fire. One example would be the "Fortress of Doors" (Alice was unable to get the door open to get to her parents).

If you want a random techno-slaughterfest, pass this game by. Like you'll read in other reviews, the gameplay is linear, and all the architecture is symbolic (which to some people is "unimaginative?"). If you get a thrill out of killing people on the 'net... don't waste your money.

If you enjoy FICTION, however, and like to imagine yourself as the hero/heroine of that story, this is definitely your kind of game!

Next summer, the "Alice" MOVIE will be coming out. We're all used to movie-tie-in games... and we've seen some cruddy "movies from games" in the past... but this one will be different. This IS a movie, and it always was.

So go turn the lights out, and prepare yourself for immersion into the subconscious of a traumatized mind. And bring Alice back to real life...

Rating:
Summary: COOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!
Review: Hello. Firstly, I know this is a Mature game but when I bought it it was a 15's and I think it could be lower. Okay, it has a little gore in it, but hardly what I'd call "Realistic Violence". You're hardly gonna wake up one day and think "I'm going to go and chop a living card in half". I was only 13 when I got this game and the violence is more cartoonish than anything else. Not realistic or disturbing at all.And Alice doesn't act crazy, she's always nice and polite. I just wanna say this, if you've got a PC that can handle the graphics, get this game. The gameplay is lush, the characters are fab and chopping up some cards is a great way to get rid of built-up frustration. So it's healthy really. That's all folks!

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite
Review: Alice must be the best computer game I've ever played. It is a platform game (with lots of jumping), and also an action game. It has great creepy atmospheric music. Dive into the twisted worlds of cards, chess and clocks. At the beginning, it has a spellbinding opening sequence. The Cheshire cat is your companion along the way. Alice has dazzling visuals which is showcased in a variety of environments. I played it on medium difficulty, and I found it to be quite hard. But it was so enjoyable. I didn't usually get too frustrated dying several times in the same part because I got to view the environment again. It's wonderful that you can save anywhere you want, even during a boss battle. I beat the game and it is quite long. Lewis Carroll was begging for this to happen to his story! It's clever that the programmers are aware of briticisms in the book and bring them into the game. You gain a nice variety of weapons for attacking the enemies, including a knife, bombs, flamingo croquet mallet and my favorite, jax. The AI isn't too good, but this prevents it from being exorbitantly difficult. It has fully customizable controls. I had a lot of fun with it. Cool game! If you like challenging (but not impossible) platform games, what are you waiting for? Buy it. May I also recommend the book "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman, because it is also about a girl oppressed in a twisted otherworld.

Rating:
Summary: Visually stunning, deliciously twisted, but overly tedious.
Review: The premise of "Alice"'s plotline will certainly offend the sensibilities of die-hard Lewis Carroll fans; the Alice of American McGee is a delusional mental patient haunted by the fiery death of her family for which she blames herself. If you can accept that this is not meant to be an accurate representation of Carroll's vision and is instead a derivative work, it's a deliciously twisted and original take on the whole Wonderland universe.

While the graphics are truly eye candy, the music appropriately creepy and complex, and the Quake III engine impressive, a game with this much plot potential is rendered flat and uninvolving by the strictly linear progression of the story line. Even if taken as a straight first-person shooter, the game still does not vary much or require significant strategy to progress. I also found Alice's dependence on the jump-but-don't-fall-off hurdle to be overused and annoying; it certainly was not so heavily depended on in any Quake incarnation and did not need to be Alice's only substantial challenge.

It seems as if "Alice" tried to merge the fast-paced action of a first-person shooter and the compelling plot of an RPG with stunning visual and auditory embellishments, but fell far short of the engrossing experience that a game such as Half-Life accomplished.

Rating:
Summary: Could've been better
Review: This game has great graphics, but it's too hard to play. The jumping forward is hard to control and I keep falling into the pits. And just a few levels into the game the enemies strength becomes overpowering and in many cases they are impossible to beat and I can't win the level. I was resorted to use the cheats to make it through. And to add to that, starting a new level can take five minutes to load. The only thing I enjoyed about this game are the great scenic environments and well drawn graphics. Overall I give this game a thumbs down.

Rating:
Summary: Could've been better
Review: This game has great graphics, but it's too hard to play. The jumping forward is hard to control. And just a few levels into the game the enemies strength becomes overpowering and in many cases they are impossible to beat and I can't win the level. I was resorted to use the cheats to make it through. And to add to that, starting a new level can take five minutes to load. The only thing I enjoyed about this game are the great scenic environments and well drawn graphics. Overall I give this game a thumbs down.

Rating:
Summary: Great Fun (for the most part)
Review: The game begins with a video that shows Alice's hous in flames. Alice is the only surviver of the fier. Alice can't deal with it all and goes crazy. She wakes up in a mental hospital. Her stuffed rabbit then turns its head and says something; then the game begins. You meet many familiar characters frome the book some of whitch are your ally but most of them have turned against you. You have to fight againt pike bearing cards, deadly chess pieses, bloodthirsty jaberwalkies, and many more terifying creatures. The grafics are great and the game play is exeptional. The only problem is that when your about five sixths through the game you sart to want more from it and stop playing (that was only my expierience).

Rating:
Summary: TWISTED< EVIL< TRIPPED OUTReview: American McGee's Alice is one of the most unique games that I have ever played. Well worthy of 5 stars and even beyond that, you will find that Alice is quite simply one of the finest made, most unique, and overall one of the most fun of any games of it's type. The game plays great on my Dad's Compaq, 128MB Ram 16MB Voodooo3, 700MB Celeron machine, but SCREAMS on my Dell ,768MB RAM, 64MB GF3 1.3GH P4 Machine. Enough of that though. If you are looking for something a little different than the normal shoot em' up game, than this is one worth picking up. Alice comes packed with plenty of twisted characters, following in the tradition of the original Alice in Wonderland, this is a lovely view at how we all really hope that Wonderland should look like. I will close with this. BUY THIS GAME!!! You will not be disappointed in the slightest, unless you are totally borring with absolutely no sense of fun in your life at all!

Rating:
Summary: AN EARIE NONSTOP NIGHTMARE!...
Review: THIS GAME RULES!... It's not too hard. It's not too easy. The enemies are really freaky! The story is great! The scenery is probably the best part. With all of the floating platforms, castles, and portals & stuff! The music is really creepy. I'd give this 6 stars if I could! I wouldn't excaclty recommend this to fans of "Alice in Wonderland" though and I don't think I need to give you a reason why. (If you like this game, I'd highly recommend "Clive Barker's Undying". It's not as good as this, but it's still very creepy and well pieced together.)

Rating:
Summary: twisted and evil, I love it!
Review: I was on someone's site and saw a reference to this game. I looked into it and it seemed cool. Went out and bought it the next day. It is awesome!! Dark and gothic with very richly detailed worlds and levels and tonnes of interactive characters. I remember seeing this game for sale where I work but never really thought about buying it (never had the hardware to run it anyway). I've only just started playing but this game is worth it!! Top notch graphics and gameplay, I'd take Alice over Lara Croft any day. ;)