American McGee's Alice

aka: Ailisi Mengyou Xianjing
Moby ID: 2703
Windows Specs

Description official descriptions

Shortly after Alice returned from the miraculous trip through the Looking-Glass, her house was burnt down, and her parents died in the fire. Alice was the only survivor of the terrible accident. After repeated attempts at suicide, she gets locked up inside a mental institution and is slowly wasting away there before she is summoned to Wonderland again by the White Rabbit. But this time it's a Wonderland gone seriously bad and gory. The only chance for Alice to restore her peace of mind and find out more about the death of her parents is to fight through Wonderland and free it from the evil powers.

American McGee's Alice is a direct sequel to Lewis Carroll's book Through the Looking-Glass, itself a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The player controls Alice as she tries to find her way and eventually escape from the demented surroundings of her own fantasy world that she's been thrust into. The surreal environments utilize themes from Lewis Carroll's original books, applying a noticeably darker and more violent edge to them.

The gameplay is third-person action with platforming, shooting, and light puzzle-solving elements. Alice starts with a knife, which can be used as a melee weapon or thrown at enemies. Later she acquires other weapons, such as a staff that shoots bolts of energy, dice that emit deadly gas, a time-stopping watch, and others. Weapons have an alternate fire mode, which usually inflicts more damage but depletes Alice's magical energy. The latter, along with Alice's health, can be restored by collecting the essence of defeated foes.

The game also features platforming sequences, during which Alice has to jump over gaps, avoid obstacles, or climb in order to reach her goal. Puzzle-solving usually involves manipulating the environment rather than using inventory items.

The game was re-released as part of select editions of the 2011 sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, as a downloadable extra. The content is identical, but with widescreen support, updated controller support, compatibility tweaks and higher-resolution textures.

Spellings

  • Америкэн Макги: Алиса - Russian spelling
  • 爱丽丝梦游仙境 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

102 People (90 developers, 12 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 62 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 146 ratings with 11 reviews)

Style over substance... but that's not COMPLETELY bad...

The Good
Everyone agrees that this game's LOOK is amazing, and a real winner. It's a fantastic experience just to wander around in, to experience. If every game's world was this... amazing-looking, immersive... well... real life would seem remarkably dull.

The Bad
...but aside from that look, that style, that flash and thunder... everything else about this game is straight out of some other game. Throw-the-lever puzzles, find-the-pixel puzzles, figure-out-the-sequence puzzles, and the ever-popular jumping puzzles. LOTS of jumping puzzles.

Bleh.

And then, once you get past the puzzles, it's fragfest time, as you hack and blast your way through a horde of enemies, culminating in a face-off with a level boss.

...and then you start all over again on the next level, with the last level boss's weapon in your arsenal. Can you say "Mega Man?"

Aside from some very original scripted sequences, it's really more of the same.

The Bottom Line
In many ways, this game could be described as "3-D Goth Super Mario On Serious Drugs."

On the other hand, if you LIKE Mario-style 3-D platformers... well... it's great.

Windows · by Dr.Bedlam (55) · 2002

Impressive as a visual experience but ultimately shallow as a game.

The Good
Well, even though the main idea is not really that original (taking Alice in wonderland and giving it a bizarre/dark twist) the game manages to stand out as a truly original experience. I guess that on it's own is a remarkable feat worth mentioning, yes it may be a platformer, but you ain't never seen a platformer like this. Of course, all the credit for the uniqueness of the game goes to the superb level design that combines weird curves and angles, radical lightning, psychodelic visual illusions and bizarre architecture to make a unique and beautiful gameworld. Such bizarre levels have been made before, most notably on Thief: The Dark Project (which seems to have had a major, let's say, "influence" in this game) but now you have a complete game filled with bizarre landscapes and places to visit.

Furthermore the Quake Arena engine, while not used to it's maximum extent, delivers some gorgeous graphics and effects (like mirrored corridors, etc.) which run surprisingly fast on rather wimpy computers like my own and allow you to see some of the best art in a 3D platformer in full glory.

The use of bizarre weapons and items also help the game stand out on it's own, with several original items like a set of deadly jacks or a deck of cards, each with two different firing modes. The enemies are also a breath of fresh air, from the super-cool massive bosses to the over-grown chess pieces that you encounter later on.

The game stands out on several other areas like sound with excellent voice acting that fits each character like a glove, good controls, etc. (this is after all an EA game, so you know you can expect a nicely produced package).

Lest I forget, a clever addition to the game is the inclusion of a jump targeting indicator to help you judge those nasty jump puzzles. It was about time somebody thought of something like that!

The Bad
Despite all the hoopla about the level design and the novel graphics, enemies, etc. the game is not a lot of fun to play. It is essentially a completely linear action platformer, and that gets old. Fast. Most good platformers add a host of secrets and bonuses to encourage you to explore the gameworld around you or extend the original adventure, not so in Alice. For as spectacular as the gameworld may appear to you, you are forced to move linearly from place to place following a single path towards the endgame.

But everything would be ok if that path was fun to play through, right? I mean, Out of this World wasn't exactly an exercise in non-linearity... Well, the problem is that Alice never seems to know what kind of game it is. You sometimes get inspired jump puzzle sequences, but a lot of moments in the game include Quake-like shootfests. And that's the game's biggest flaw, that it thrusts you into a massive amount of combat in a game that isn't really about that. I couldn't help but think that A. McGee just couldn't resist bringing some of the good ol' gameplay mechanics from his days on id and that stops the game dead. The inclusion of a Quad damage-like power up is a proof of that, as is the rather annoying tendency to place mazes filled with enemies towards the end of the game (be prepared to kiss that original level design goodbye every now and then pal!!).

Also I know originally you were supposed to be able to summon the Chessire Cat to fight by your side, but since that was removed I seriously question the point of keeping the "Chessire help" option. I mean, he's super-suave and all, but what's the point of wasting valuable cd space on generic one-liners that never help you??? It's like if Jedi Knight had a "Yoda" key which would allow you to listen to 4 or 5 generic words of wisdom...Next time add a text-only REAL tip system or nothing at all.

The Bottom Line
A rather poor gameplay experience masked under a beautiful if sometimes inconsistent level design. I guess this is one of those game you have to play just so you can experience something truly new and unique (at least when it comes to graphics) but the game is by no means a masterpiece, and I wouldn't recommend it except if you found it on a bargain bin.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2002

Wonderland gone REALLY bad

The Good
American McGee's Alice is a fascinating game - at least it is for me. But where does this fascination come from?

The first and foremost thing about this game is its atmosphere and style. In my opinion it's sheer genius to expand the nice Alice in Wonderland story into a tale of death and murder, blood and torture, and pure paranoia - a tale for grown-ups. But it is one thing to have a good idea, and something completely different to make a good game of it. But here, the designers did.

The level designs and graphics all resemble the "known" Wonderland, but this time a Wonderland gone really bad. The game throws levels at you that vary from stunning beauty to mind-twisting surreality. This alone kept me playing, just to see what crazy stuff the designers had up their sleeves, yet. And I wasn't disappointed when with the conquering of the heart queen's castle near the end game, another visual blast was waiting. The enemy and weapon design also fit well here, both adding to this wonderful dark and paranoid atmosphere this game delivers.

Speaking of enemies, I really liked my cannon fodder, as no two enemy kinds are the same to kill. There are the lava monsters that are fluid and easy to kill when they come out of their lava pit, but turn to stone and, therefore, get harder to kill by the second. There are those little devils that just take one hit, but come in hordes. There are those fish pests that charge at you while swimming and throw acid and lava when you're standing at the shore. And the list goes on. Every enemy kind is well thought out and has its strengths and weaknesses to be discovered. And when you found out how to kill them more or less easily, they will team up to make your life harder again. The same goes for the boss fights, pure adrenaline.

Speaking of weapons, those all are Alice's toys gone dangerous. There's her cards, her cricket bat, her jack-in-the-box, her dice, and so on. They all kill the enemies in two different modes, can be used short or long range, are toys of single or mass destruction. It's part of the fun to try out all these funny goodies and see what they can do to your opposition. And you should know your weaponry well, as there will be fights that are impossible to win with one weapon, but easy going with another one or a combination of them.

The Bad
Some things hinder this game from becoming a true classic, though.

If you put aside the covers of cool design and style, a linear action platformer is left for you to play. A good one, that is, but somehow the actual gameplay can't really keep up with the presentation. The level designs vary in quality, top notch levels make room for huge mazes with spawning enemies that are an exercise in anger management. Furthermore, the cool background of Alice freeing her own fantasy world of her problems and sense of guilt isn't developed well within the game. Here and in those enemy-ridden mazes you will most painfully notice that the developers of this game have a history of developing 3D shooters.

The controls sometimes annoyed me, especially the jumping didn't work as expected, more than once it wasn't clear to me whether Alice can grab hold of an edge in front of her or not. Falling down into nirvana too often is the result of all this.

Last thing, fighting enemies it's sometimes not obvious whether you're doing damage or not. Especially when battling the centipede boss monster, I spend half an hour throwing everything at him until I finally looked up in a FAQ that there's a special area where he can be hit.

The Bottom Line
I love this game, no doubt about that. But still, I sometimes dream about it done right from start to finish. With a good storyteller to develop Alice's problems, with a huge Wonderland for Alice to roam freely, maybe with an RPG-like experience and questing system. The sky was the limit...

But heck, a sequel is in the making, let's see what they'll do with this legacy.

Windows · by MZ per X (3017) · 2010

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Sequel on its way xroox (3895) Feb 20, 2009

Trivia

Alice statue

Rogue Entertainment still has one of these aforementioned Alice statues, along with the Cheshire cat, in its Dallas offices. Only three (of Alice and the Cheshire cat) were created.

Cancelled port

A PS2 version was also in development but was canceled causing Rouge Entertainment to shut down, a decision which infuriated American McGee.

Extras

  • The game came with a "Casebook" that described how Alice got admitted to the mental asylum and how her doctor tried to cure her.
  • EA supplied an Alice statue to selected retail outlets for promotion. It was an evil looking Alice bearing a butcher's knife in bloody hands, and her skirt was bloody, too. In Germany however, the knife and blood were gone, instead, she was holding some playing cards.

Cover art

Later releases of the game in the U.S. had an altered cover art. In the original, Alice was seen on the cover holding a bloody knife, with blood stains all over her apron. There were two revisions to this; in the first one she can be seen holding an ice wand, and in the second revision she's holding a deck of cards. In both of them her apron is stain-free. The Cheshire Cat next to her even looks less skeletal in the new cover art.

Cut content

An early version of the game gave you the chance to summon the Cheshire Cat to fight by your side, but this feature was removed from the final game. You can still find some early pre-release screenshots around the net that showed this however.

Merchandise

As of 2004 a line of action figures based on the game is currently in stores.

Ratings

According to an Wired interview with American McGee this game was Electronic Art's first 'M' rated release

References

On the "load/save" screen, you get three buttons to load, save or delete a game. Next to each button is a one-letter abbreviation of it's function. Did you notice that this spells out "LSD"?

Sales

According to an interview with American McGee, Alice sold over 1 million copies on the PC platform alone, contrary to reports saying it sold poorly.

Soundtrack

  • The original musical score for Alice was created by Chris Vrenna, former drummer for the band Nine Inch Nails.
  • There was a soundtrack for the game released when the game came out, which included music from the game, with dialogue from the various characters. As of 2004 you can still buy it from various retailers for $10, brand new.
  • The name of the soundtracks in the musical score are not completely correct. For instance, the musical score features a track named Battle with the Red Queen, but actually that track appears in the Skool level.
  • The musical score feature an "extra" track called Taking tea in Dreamland (the reason why it is called "extra" is that it doesn't appear in any levels throughout the game.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – Special Award for Graphics
    • 2000 – Special Award for Music
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 11/2005 - #6 Game Which Absolutely Needs A Sequel (it eventually got one in 2011)

Information was also contributed by Foxhack, Lev Epshteyn, Karthik KANE, phlux, S M, Roger Wilco, Zack Green and Zovni

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Related Sites +

  • A White Rabbit, A Crazy Alice, and Mac OS X
    An Apple Games article about the Macintosh version of Alice, with commentary being provided by Michael Rogers, president of Aspyr, the company responsible for porting the game to that platform. The article also provides a brief "Visitor's Guide to Wonderland" as well as general information about the game, including a brief background on Lewis Carroll.
  • Walkthrough
    A complete guide on Gameboomers from the beginning to the end of this game! (English)

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2703
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Cam Guest.

PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. Macintosh added by Corn Popper. Xbox 360 added by Kennyannydenny.

Additional contributors: Satoshi Kunsai, Unicorn Lynx, retinadesgastada, Zeppin, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, piltdown_man, Tien Thuy Le Nguyen.

Game added December 3, 2000. Last modified March 20, 2024.