10 years ago, Alice Liddell's house caught fire and her parents and older sister died in the blaze. Badly burned and on the brink of death, Alice fell into a catatonic state, punctuated by moments of screaming madness. She was moved to Rutledge Asylum in London where the doctors tried all kinds of treatments to bring her out of her trance-like state. The methods used in asylums in the 19th century were not based on very sound medical knowledge. For example, Alice was given shock treatments, doses of poisonous substances, and leeches were placed on her. But nothing seemed to work. While Alice appeared to be a soulless vegetable, the real cure for her ailment was inside her own mind. In her mind she could seek solace in Wonderland, the fantastical land she had visited in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. But as seen in the game Alice, which came out on PC in 2000, and is available for download for free with new copies of Madness Returns, Wonderland wasn't quite the weird but delightful place it once was. The maniacal Red Queen was waging total war against the inhabitants of Wonderland and it was up to Alice to stop her. The health of Wonderland was symbolic of Alice's mental health. With the defeat of the Red Queen, Alice was able to win back her sanity as well....or so she thinks. This game isn't called Madness Returns for nothing, you know.
As the game opens, Alice has been released from the asylum and is working and boarding at an orphanage named Houndsditch Home and Refuge for Wayward Youth. I wouldn't say her sanity is 100%. She still sees visions and stuff but Alice is able to function pretty normally. She still has sessions with a Dr. Bumby in which she discusses her lost memories and visions. The thing that is really bothering her is her inability to remember what happened the night her family died in the fire. There are all kinds of different opinions about the fire's source. Some even say it was Alice that caused it! In order to find out the truth, Alice will have to return to Wonderland again in order to reclaim her lost memories. But just like her last visit, the threat to her mind has been made manifest by a new evil in Wonderland. A sinister train is winding its way through the environment, bringing death and destruction to those that live there. Once again, it's up to Alice to confront this threat, and again save her own soul in the process.
Even though Madness Returns starts in grimy Dickensian London, it's not long before you fall, literally, into Wonderland, and I have to say, the sequence of Alice landing in the Vale of Tears is a very beautiful artistic vision. Which kind of raises expectations about the rest of the game that can probably never be met. The true Wonderland is one of lush vegetation and surreal elements like miniature winged cows and 2001 A Space Odyssey monolith sized dominoes floating and schooling in the sky. If I could have Alice just sit in a chair and look around at the environment I probably could have sat there for a couple of hours just taking in the beauty of the surroundings. Unfortunately, once the evil train gets introduced and the conflict begins, Wonderland begins to break apart and you are left with what looks like Hell: Lava, spider-webs, chunks of cold rock, Gothic castles, intestinal body cavities, blood by the buckets, zombie-like deformed children, monsters, fire, perilous falls, and shadowy underwater creatures, all want to kill you.
I wish we had gotten to spend a little more time in the "nice" Wonderland before the whole thing went to shit, so I would know more what I was fighting for. It would be cool if someone could make a game based more on the books and somehow make it a Kinect or Move compatible. It's almost like you need to have read the books or seen movie adaptations to know what Wonderland used to be like.
While I might bitch a bit about the darkness of the game, I guess really that's what the gamemakers were shooting for. I could have done with a little break from the dreariness of the atmosphere, but the artistic design of the world and its characters were first rate. Of course, I have to start at the top with Alice. As she progresses to different areas of Wonderland, she has different dresses which reflect their theme. For instance, when she goes to the factory of the Mad Hatter, who is either a cyborg or and android, she sports a steampunk dress or when she travels to "The Mysterious East", she puts on a kimono inspired version of her classic blue and whites. I loved it when she would float or jump and you could have her drift for a bit and her dress and hair would move very realistically. Alice always had grace, even during combat. Her movements were fluid and she moved like a real person, not a digital one. You could tell a lot of love went into her just by how the wind would blow her long hair. To me, all the exteriors of the game were pretty good, but interiors were kinda dull.
Yes, Alice Madness Returns is at its heart a platformer. If anything, the game it most reminded me of was the original Tomb Raider. Having just finished Tomb Raider Anniversary a couple weeks ago, I know what I'm talking about. The thing about Tomb Raider that stands out to me is that a lot of that game was "OK, I need to get to point B from point A. Now, given the environmental aids at my disposal, how do I get there?". The same is true of Madness. You have to get from one side of the level to the other but you are given some leeway as to how to do it. The jumping is a little awkward at the beginning of the game but is easily mastered. You have to be precise about what you're doing, but the game is by no means insane in its demands.
One thing I did not like is some of the time, you have to jump to moving platforms which are also INVISIBLE. Sometimes you have to even do a sequence of timed jumps to invisible moving platforms which can be a little trying because you can only see them while you are holding the L button and you can't jump at the same time. Luckily, after you release the button, the platforms stay visible for a couple of extra seconds. This almost broke the game only once for me. I would suggest buying the downloadable content for Alice, which was only 160 Microsoft Points, which gave you new power-up dresses and weapons. One of those dresses allowed you to see invisible platforms at all times, not just when you held the button down. I don't think I would have made it past a certain point without that dress. You can find my blog entry about the downloadable content here:
http://thedeludedboy.blogspot.com/2011/06/alice-madness-returns-downloadable.html
There are some neat little 2D platforming sections that will surprise, along with a little bit of Marble Madness. There's a bit of puzzling as well. In fact I would say this game could be divided into about 60% platforming and puzzling and 40% combat.
As for combat, I thought it was pretty well done. Again, Alice's moves were fluid, especially with the Vorpal Blade. You collect teeth which which are used to upgrade your weapons. With more upgrades, your weapons not only become more powerful, but faster. With full power, the Vorpal Blade, leaving black and red line blurs of motion, almost reminds me of Nariko's Heavenly Sword. You can utilize the Pepper Grinder as a stand-in for a machine gun and a Teapot Cannon which fires tea grenades for more powerful but slower rate of fire area effect attacks. Then, finally, there's the Hobby Horse, which functions as a war hammer. There can be an issue with targeting when you have multiple enemies but it wasn't a big deal except maybe in two instances, and it just made it harder or more annoying, not a gamebreaker. Overall, the fighting was exciting and interesting visually, and you were equipped with weapons that served you well, if you also used your brain.
Now we come to what I think is the weakest link of this game: the voice acting. The voice acting is really divided into in-game interactions between characters and then cutscenes with highly stylized paper doll-like representations of the characters. As far as the in-game scenes, these were acted pretty well. The cutscenes where the most dramatic reveals are done are horrible. The voice actors read their parts really fast and no matter what they were talking about they were completely deadpan. It was a real shame. Due to this poor voice acting I didn't get very immersed in the story. I had to learn to care about the character of Alice from her design and movements alone. So I guess I admire the work of Alice's motion capture actress, Ana Swanson, more that her voice actress, Susie Brann. Why is it that EVERY English videogame voice actress sounds like Lara Croft? They just sound so generic.
So overall, I liked this game. Again, it reminded me a lot of the original Tomb Raider. Graceful character motion, precise woman vs. environment platforming with elements of free will. Puzzles that are interesting without being frustrating. There are also collectibles in the game in the form of your memories, teeth (which you use to upgrade your weapons), and bottles (which don't seem to serve any function in the game). I, for one, like to collect stuff. Some reviewers have complained that the game is one big fetch quest. I didn't feel like that at all. Could this game have been better? Of course. No game is perfect. I would have liked to have spent more time in the beautiful wonderland before it starts to slip into the horror aspect of the game. The voice acting, to me, was the biggest problem with the game. Another complaint I've heard is that the game is too long. I thought the length was just about right. Definitely worth playing. Amazon has the 360/PS3 versions on sale for $39.99 right now and the PC version for $29.99.
My Grade: B
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