American McGee's Alice

This is a game I finally got around to playing what seven years after it came out, but I've done far far worse in years past, and let me tell you, it's the most consistently fun video game I've played for a long time. I've been put off video games recently and sort of stopped playing them much because a lot of them just grated on me and felt more like work than actual fun. I had a lot of fun with Kingdom Hearts II, but parts of it grated on me. (Though not nearly as bad as it's predecessor, which consisted of way too much crap before the good stuff occured)

I decided to hunt down Alice after a recent obsession with the works of Lewis Carroll, and similarities to other things I was interested in and the fact I'd been meaning to play it for a long time and it sure was worth it. The storyline is interesting, compels you to follow it, the gameplay isn't too easy but it's certainly not hard enough to make you give up, and the level design really is a joy to behold.

Basically, if you don't know, it follows Alice, from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the looking glass'. Her parents are killed in a housefire, but Alice escapes. (Possibly because she is warned by her friends from Wonderland.) She slumps into despair and winds up in an asylum. Eventually, around ten years later, after her sanity slips so far, she is called back into Wonderland. Wonderland however is, and always was in her mind however, but with the current state of her mind wonderland is warped beyond belief. The Cheshire Cat for instance, Alice's guide in Wonderland, is a sort of a scrawny gothic thing with an earing, The Duchess has cracked from hiding from the Queen of Hearts, the pepper has finally gotten to her. She's trying to make soup of the mock turtle. Humpty Dumpty is broken and smoking a pipe. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are running an asylum with horribly deformed children. My favourite character is certainly the Mad Hatter. He's really gone mad now and he's become obsessed with time and perfection. He's turned the march hair and the doormouse into deformed cyborgs and keeping their tea from them, he's turned himself into a robot as well, he seems to control the asylum, and he's repaired the Jabberwock from the damage down with the Vorpal Sword.Yes The Jackerwock is partly robotic now, the Queen's guardian.

Other interesting points are that instead of losing life Alice loses sanity, when she loses it all the game ends as her mind is completly gone. I didn't actually realise this on my first playthrough though so it makes no difference whatsoever. Her weapons, with the possible exception of the vorpal blade, are all toys, the deck of cards, the ice wand, and the croquet mallet. (As the Cheshire cat says, 'Here's a riddle for you, when is a croquet mallet like a billy club? Whenever you want it to be'.

All in all I highly recommend this game for anyone after an enjoyable and slightly different game. Also the voice acting is pretty awesome which is certainly a plus. It's available for Windows and Mac OS. They recently released a universal binary patch for it so you can play it with Intel Macs which is pretty cool.

Apparently there is a movie coming out this year. Currently Sarah Michelle Gellar is down for Alice, which is, I'm sorry to say, a horrible choice for the role. Oh well, could've been worse.