Wonderland in ruins. Alice is still recovering from the fire that destroyed her home and killed her family. To her, Wonderland is a recurring hallucination that she has been trying to control. But now something is going wrong, and Wonderland is the only way she can piece together what really happened to her family.
1. Gameplay
Alice: Madness Returns is an extremely dark view of the tale. Forget the way that Wonderland is depicted in either of the Disney movies, this Wonderland is a tormented place where Alice attempts to reconstruct her memories. After her entire family was killed in a horrible fire, she has been working closely with a psychologist to try and get through her grief. Unfortunately, she occasionally collapses and hallucinates her way into Wonderland. But it is through these hallucinations that she is able to reconstruct her memories in order to figure out exactly what happened. I thought that platformer games went out a while ago, but Alice somehow made it work. It’s not as fast paced as Halo or Call of Duty, but it will still require some skill to get rid of enemies. You’re given four weapons to work with, but I found that the initial knife didn’t cut it. The ranged weapons, especially the pepper grinder, can easily take out most enemies from a distance, avoiding the risk of losing health unnecessarily. There was a lot to collect and the story was surprisingly interesting. It wasn’t as riveting as the original tale, but it was more than sufficient to explain why Alice is having these hallucinations and what the overall goal is. I thought the hell train should have been included and explained in greater detail, but that was a very small portion of the story. The only seriously negative thing that I encountered were the odd camera angles. When in combat, it was often necessary to target specific enemies. This was very easy to do and removed the necessity to aim while strafing. As long as the player kept the target at a decent range, there were no major issues. However, if the enemy got up close to the player or if the player was backed up against a wall, the camera would become unwieldy. On these occasions I had to play on instinct and hope that my shots landed in time to get me out. The common enemy (meaning not boss) I found to be the most annoying were the boltflies. These little dragonfly-like enemies had the nasty habit of fluttering around, camouflaged with the environment, attacking at the worst possible moment. And they would keep coming until you destroyed their nests, which were often in somewhat hidden locations. On their own they were fine, but they got absurdly annoying when I was trying to battle bigger, deadlier enemies. Overall this game was pretty amusing and was definitely worth playing. It’s not going to make a player laugh, but it’s a unique story that was fun to explore.
The campaign of Alice: Madness Returns took me around 14 hours to complete. There’s no multiplayer, but there is a NewGame+ feature that would allow me to replay on a harder difficulty with all of my weapons unlocked. It’s a great feature to add replayability if I want to go back and find all of the collectibles, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. My thoroughness in my first playthrough meant that I unlocked and fully upgraded all of the weapons. The story never changes, so unless I’m specifically going to look for the collectibles, there’s little reason to replay this game. Still, it was fun enough that I could see replaying it again.
The only frustrating thing worth mentioning is the camera. Normally the camera is fine, it follows the player at an acceptable distance and moves when locked on to an enemy to keep both the player and targeted enemy in view. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. That same formula that keeps the player and locked-on enemy in view has problems dealing with walls and when the player is close up to the enemy. Movement seems to have problems when trying to strafe around a locked-on enemy as well. 2. Parental Notices
Violence in this game is very odd. There’s really no other way to describe it. Most of the enemies don’t really “bleed” in the traditional sense. They’ll either lose a splash of the tar-like substance that makes up most of their structure or parts will shatter like glass. But some enemies, like the teacup goblin things, have traditional red blood. On top of this, they can be decapitated if killed with the knife. Since this is the first weapon the player gets, it will be used somewhat commonly in the beginning. However, once the other weapons unlocked, I found the knife less useful (resulting in fewer decapitations). There were other times where violence was even more obvious. For example, the very opening cutscene involves Alice finding herself in a boat with the White Rabbit. As he is talking to Alice, his eye pops out, and his head pops off his neck. Alice is then showered in a fountain of blood. Sometimes the environment will have creepy, somewhat violent images as well. For example, the player can find frozen owls that have had their internal organs exposed. The significance behind this was lost on me. Later in that same level, the player can see fish that have been violently skewered on fishhooks. This added to the creepy, violent, chaotic atmosphere, but if there was some other significance I couldn’t figure it out.
Even though one of Alice’s friends is a Madame and her prostitutes can be seen in one very brief section of the game, sex in any form is never discussed or seen. The only time when it is even remotely a factor is in one level when large porcelain statues of half-nude women can be seen. These are meant as pieces of art, though, not pornographic material.
Substances do come up a number of times in this game. The game does include the “Drink Me” and “Eat Me” substances that make Alice shrink and grow respectively. The shrinking potion can be used at any time, and the player will frequently make use of it to discover hidden areas or collectibles. There are other substances that do come up. On the way to visit the Caterpillar, Alice will have to take some puffs from a few hookah pipes. This only occurs in a single level.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factor
There are no modding tools available for this game.
Religion is not a factor in this game.
While Alice does get placed in jail because she passed out and was hallucinating, she never resists the police. As a result, anti-law is not a factor in this game.
There is no multiplayer game modes for this game.
Extreme sports isn’t a serious factor. Alice can jump absurdly high, double and triple jump, and float via her dress for a short distance. The actions she can take aren’t realistic at all. There is one section where the player briefly watches while Alice jumps into a teacup roller coaster to move forward. After a short roll the track goes into a sort of freefall. But the player can’t actually see the entire track and the game just fades out and fades back in at the end.
Magic, like a number of other factors already discussed, is a bit confusing and difficult to pin down. While there are clearly magical elements at play, the entire game is based on the idea that Alice is hallucinating. Therefore, all of the magic that she sees is not actually occurring. Even when ignoring this fact, it is often difficult to tell what is actually magical and what is simply part of the environment or physiology of a creature. For example, Alice has the ability to jump multiple times in the air or dodge out of the way via a burst of butterflies. These abilities are easily placed within the “magical” category. But the Infernal Train, which operates completely without a track, may not necessarily fall into the magical category. Because the laws of physics are completely warped within Wonderland, the idea of floating objects, falling great distances, animated objects, and flying trains, all of which would normally be considered magical, could be completely in-line with a non-magical, chaotic world.
Human Disfigurement In the few real world areas that Alice will move through, humans are grotesque but not really disfigured. They’re just grimey and hardened. That isn’t the case in Wonderland though. Most of the enemies the player will face will be based on animals or inanimate objects, but the characters in the dollhouse world are seriously disfigured. Fortunately they’re not in the player’s view very often. They explain what’s going on and, except for a few sections, they’re out of the picture. But when they are visible they’re impossible to miss. There are a few other antagonist characters that have been seriously disfigured in Wonderland, but these characters aren’t on the screen very much. Prostitution
In one section, the player moves Alice through a dockyard slum in London. She eventually finds some women who are clearly prostitutes and has a conversation with the Madame. But the overall effect is pretty subtle and there is no indication that these women are even peddling their “wares”.
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