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ALICE IN WONDERLAND IS not the sort of story that is normally associated with a hack and slash type of game. But American McGee's Alice is not the Alice that Lewis Carrol introduced us to in his classic tale. American McGee and the rest of the team at Rogue Entertainment have based their version of Alice several years after the first trip to Wonderland. Alice has grown up experienced the tragic loss of her parents in a house fire from which she was lucky to have escaped. This event severely traumatised Alice and she became comatose and was placed into the Rutledge Private Clinic and Asylum.
While in the clinic she was placed into the care of a Dr Wilson, whose case notes on the comatose Alice are included in a separate booklet to the manual. What Dr Wilson doesn't understand is that Alice, while in her coma, is embarking on an incredible journey (in her head) that coincides with the notes being made by the doctor. While these case notes are an excellent aside from the game, giving some information on Alice as well as her situation, the manual itself is a bit of a disappointment, containing only the bare essential facts.
When Alice first enters this warped version of Wonderland she meets her old friend the Cheshire Cat, and sees that even he hasn't escaped the drastic changes that have occurred. All the life and joy that was portrayed in both the novel and the Disney movie has been swallowed up and something more akin to a hell on Wonderland has taken its place. After having a small conversation with the Cat, Alice makes her way after the White Rabbit (who, by the way, actually looks more of a fungal green now, not to mention that he sounds incredibly anxious and paranoid) and begins her journey through her nightmares.
The general gameplay in Alice revolves around an adventure style (for example, the first thing Alice needs is a potion to make her smaller, and she has to complete several other tasks in order to get all the ingredients). Playing from a third-person perspective can at first seem to be a rather daunting task, especially as the first jump will most likely wind up with Alice taking a swim. But rest assured that this method of control is actually a rather good choice. The free-look with the mouse enables a fuller field of view as opposed to what a restrictive first-person view would have given and allows for some rather detailed animations for the story's heroine. Also, this viewpoint allows for a slightly more accurate jumping ability, which comes in very handy throughout the game.
But, while the viewpoint definitely has its merit points, it also has its demerit points. Aiming in Alice is at times rather limited with shots that would be easily made in a first-person viewpoint often going astray. This is alleviated, however, by the "lock-on" feature of some weapons (such as the playing cards). Another slight niggle is the amount of jumping problems in the game. As is the case with most third-person adventure games Alice involves a lot of exploration, and therefore a lot of jumping. This can be frustrating at times when a missed jump can often find you spending several minutes cursing before realizing that there's no way to make it back to the platform, meaning that it's back to the save game again. However these situations do not occur too often as the level design in Alice more often than not has a way for the player to recover to a position where they can get back to the missed jump. |
