Alice Madness Returns Review (PC)

Genre: Action/Platform/

Horror

Developer: Spicy Horse

Publisher: EA

Release Year: 2011

System: PC, PS3, Xbox

I had so so so long time to be amused by a classic platform/action game. You see, all those years we had sequels of the sequels and so on, Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed goes to Hollywood and blah blah... Nothing productive if you ask me or innovative. But surprisingly EA and Spicy Horse stood up by giving us in 2011 an incredibly nightmarish platform game (served in a psycological horror taste) that I have not played anything like it in a few years. In a few words I would describe it as disturbed grotesque english adaptation of the classic Alice's Adventures In Wonderland the classic novel of 1865. Quite cheap surely worthy of your attention.

PLOT: 8/10

Alice: Madness Returns takes place 10 years after the conclusion of the original game, with Alice struggling to recover from the emotional trauma of losing her entire family in a fatal fire. After spending a decade institutionalized in an insane asylum, she is finally released to the care of a psychiatrist who just may be able to help her conquer the nightmarish hallucinations that still haunt her. Alice embarks on a mission to root out the true cause of her family's mysterious death, jumping from a gloomy and stark London to a rich and provocative Wonderland.

GAMEPLAY: 8/10

"The Mangled Mermaid Bar"

The gameplay of Alice MR is a bit simple staying true to all that we know about action and platform games. There are two worlds to explore the real one and that of nightmares. To the real world all you can do is run around the city without being able to perform any other actions. Those become available once you enter the nightmare world. Once in there Alice changes appearance to a gothic Tim Burton-ish style while the environment is like a fairy tale but but dragged out of the mind of a lunatic. Strange mushrooms weird colors, even more weird creatures and flowers, out of place objects floating everywhere around you and many more obscure things are those everyone should see while playing.

Alice Madness Returns Real World

Alice can perform jumps with SPACE button while pressing it again will take her even higher and keeping it pressed will float her in the air. Early in the game she obtains the Vorbal Blade a legendary knife for melee encounters (left click) and a pepper grinder for shooting enemies from afar (right click, note that if you overuse the pepper grinder it will overheat and you must let it cooldown). She can also Shrink with CTRL button allowing her to reach places that her normal size can't fit into, lock onto an enemy with Caps Lock. Later in the first chapter she finds the clockwork bombs (Q) for breaking weak walls and floors and the umbrella for defense (E). 

The game is a bit of one way linear so its a bit impossible to get lost and with the difficulty level to Easy it flows really nice and smoothingly. All you have to do is run around jump on platforms defeat enemies with various ways mentioned above blow up walls and talk to a large number of freakishly drawn characters. It is sure that you will be amazed by how the world of AMR is drawn. Such misery, class, menace and insanity all in one combined can be found to very few games.

You can't save you progress wherever you want it just autosaves to specific spots on the profile you are currently playing. The game is divided in Chapters. In each one of them you have a list of objects that you should collect such as Memories, Bottles etc. Mario collects coins, Sonic rings, Alice prefers .. teeth!!! You can exchange, in the pause menu, the teeth you have collected with weapon upgrades.

GRAPHICS: 9.5/10

Chapter 2 Alice Madness Returns

Graphics is one of the sections of the game that made it really famous. Its 3D graphics are thoroughly designed with so much details that immediately put you in its world from the moments you see the title screen. From the very beggining the game gives a taste of silent grief. The tight rooms of the asylum the peculiar faces of the NPCs the dull colors everything point to the mood that it wants to emit. And once you step foot in the nightmares then you get carried away even more in the madness. Being designed with the Unreal Graphic Engine at least we are sure for the outcome! 

MUSIC/ATMOSPHERE: 10/10

And this is the cresendo of the game. The music and the atmosphere is chilling and causes goosebumps to say the least. Sad cellos and heart pumping percussions are present to dress musicaly every scene and point out their emotions. Classy, nostalgic, melancholic, creepy and insane! The fact that EA turned that classic fairy tale into a bloody twisted nightmare is enough. And such a music dressing would be expected in a game such as Silent Hill but in a game such as this ... It just makes it more and more weird!

OVERALL: 8.9/10

I usually don't like EA games and to be honest I didnt know what to expect until I got my fingers on the keyboard. Totally worthy of your time. An authentic and twisted adaptation of the classic work of Lewis Carroll.

AMR At hand!