There's going to be some non-linear storytelling going on here, let's start in the Summer of 2011 where I made a day one purchase on Alice: Madness Returns for thirty-eight dot ninety-nine British pounds. I played that game until I beat it, and it sure wasn't that great, it was a basically competent but dull 3D platformer that stretched 4 hours of ideas out to about 15. It was one of those games where word got around quick that it wasn't that great and it irritatingly slashed in price mere weeks later, which I was rather butthurt about. I held onto my copy because I needed it to play the free HD version of the original American McGee's Alice which I figured I might someday.
Flashback to the beginning of 2011 and I see screenshots for the first time of Madness Returns, it looked kind of cool and seemed to have some kind of creative spark behind it somewhere, which was somewhat uncharacteristic with it being an EA game and all. I'm not sure if they had stopped calling themselves "Electronic Arts" at that point, that was probably a smart decision to prevent GENIUS puns like "Electronic Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...en't you wishing you chose another game right about now?" etcetera . Well it turned out this Batman Returns thing was a sequel to some old PC game I'd never played, because it came out in 2000 and in 2000 I was too busy hitting my chunky desktop computer with a chair to make it run Lego Island (and later Lego Alpha Team).
Well in 2011 I got on the gosh darn internet and torrented the fudge out of that American McGee's Alice (I was a student so this is totally morally okay (I also did some carjacking on the side by dropkicked through the windows Dukes of Hazzard style (alright not really (wait let's just start this again, American McGee's Alice is an EA game so this is totally morally okay)))) and then I played that game until I beat it too. It wasn't that great either, but I was playing it with a keyboard whereas the new game was coming to consoles, and the biggest problem with it was god-awful combat and platforming which seemed to be the two big points of focus in the new one, so I was still vaguely interested.
Well a HD remake FOR CONSOLES of that 2000 PC game came bundled with Alice: Return of the Joker so three and a bit years later I thought I would give that a whirl and see how it holds up. And if I say right now that I'm writing this after only playing the game for about 10 minutes that's probably all I really need to say about it. I'll say more anyway; and this might come off as harsh; this game kind of actually fucking disgusts me. Without resorting to really dumb choices like Action 52 or something I honestly can't think of a game that has a worse jump or worse combat.
The jump is ridiculous because Alice jumps so insanely high that it seems to take the camera by surprise every single time, but is still problematic because the level design is so stretched out that it still doesn't feel like she jumps high enough. Not to mention every single time she jumps she makes one (and only one) grunting sound that sounds like she's being sexually assaulted in a wind tunnel. In trying to figure out how to skip them (lol) I hit the jump button during a non-interactive cutscene and the game glitched and started playing the jump grunt over and over again, you could probably play some of the Cheshire Cat's lines over that and make a pretty sweet remix.
EVERY ADVENTURE REQUIRES A SINGLE STEP, TR-TR-TR-TR-TR-TR-TR-ITE BUT *BAP BAP BAP BAP* TR-TR-TR-TR-RUEEEE~~~ *UH UH UH UH*
I don't think even the people who like this game can defend the combat, I'm down with making the default "free to use" weapon kind of rubbish and a last resort kind of deal, but that's only really good design when you make the other weapons worth a damn. Not to mention the default knife strike is a tiny little slash that you can barely see as the camera is always positioned directly behind you like God Hand (no wait! Not like God Hand at all, oh God Hand I'm so sorry I compared American McGee's Alice to you that is so not cool) so telling when your utterly useless weapon is actually connecting is a challenge in itself. I could make some joke about the deck of cards feeling like throwing soggy cornflakes (and I just did) but just thinking about this game is depressing me.
There's something misguided and slightly pretentious about the entire project, making Alice in Wonderland (which is one of the handful of novels I can actually claim to have read! Boy, I can't tell you a lot about books, but I can sure say that Alice in Wonderland is better than Great Expectations and George's Marvellous Medicine) all depressing and screwed up only makes it less interesting to me. I don't really see the appeal of making the inhabitants of Wonderland all depressed and bi-polar when their M.O. is usually to just be kind of insane. But hey, both the Alice games have some interesting ideas and visuals in them, so I won't knock it too hard I guess, but for my money neither of these games are truly as demented as the original source material.
Thinking about this I realise I have a stronger connection to the Alice games that will probably/possibly make me hate them forever. When I originally beat this game back in the early 2011 days I sure did post on social media about how it was kind of sucky but also sort of cool and I was looking forward to playing the new one, a girl who I really liked but didn't know especially well at that time revealed herself to be a pretty huge fan of these games. Man, that felt like destiny at the time, and was in no way merely two near-identically aged people being intrigued by a totally mainstream product pushed out by one of the largest entertainment companies in the world and experiencing a slight overlap in interests (Disclaimer: I never have actually believed in "destiny", I also tie my own shoelaces and butter my own toast).
Many months later the lady in question actually met American McGee at some book signing event or something, and she came away disappointed because he was just a "normal guy" and not some psycho-weirdo guy. I don't really know what she was expecting, maybe that he would slit her arm open with his nametag and sample some blood for "the collection", but the EA development system probably beats any kind of weirdness (or personality) out of you eventually so I wouldn't hold it against him. But still, that's pretty god-damn hilarious, I can't help but slightly love someone for being disappointed in someone else for not being enough of a weirdo. These two bitter-sweet memories (the full story will have to be saved for another day (i.e NEVER)) hit me whenever I think about the Alice games, even if it's just seeing Alice: The Killing Joke on my games shelf, maybe that'll stop me from ever appreciating the little nuggets of good that exist within them.
I don't feel bad about it though because they're still rubbish...OOOHHHHHHHHHHHH
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