Alice Madness Returns
First of all, I wanna thank my old self: yeah, thank you that i bought on may 2014, this game on Steam. The Game surprised me more than i thought, once that I’ve played it. The Level Design and the Art Design combined was a hell of an atmosphere in all good (fantastic) matters. The Sound effects with the Music were perfectly placed in each situation. There was such good content and there were just t two or three things that weren´t good….. For example let me tell you the name of the game: Alice Madness Returns! The Sequel to American McGee´s Alice, and hell it makes you even more confuse than the Quake 3 Engine based title.
Is it suited for kids due to the name- who would not think it is a children´s game play? But my answer to that is: No, no and no, my point of view- you must be 18 years or older, cause you play a psychological horror action adventure!
(My review is build in five colums; gameplay/story/atmosphere -graphic/audio-music&sound/content
Gameplay 9/10
This is a action adventure which brings you into fights where you have 2 melee and 2 distance weapons. You will not have a chance if you not torture your buttons (Button smashing), the enemies have their own tactics and you must have some routine to get the enemy down. There are in every chapter 3 to 5 different enemies. For my first play through - I played the normal difficulty level - it was here and there challenging but when you know how (clock-bomb!) to do deal with the enemies you have mastered it without problems. There is also a second action sequence in chapter two, but I don't wanna spoiler you, I will just say: people who love shooting games will be pleased.
Ok, now to action: the adventure part gets his chance to shine, and oh boy how it shines! You must jump, think, have the right timing, get small, get huge^^, double jump, triple jump, triple jump to fly with butterflies, have a flipper game, 2D jump like mario, chances to see unseen stuff and so on and on, I don't wanna tell you that much but I’m thankful for the variety in each chapter that makes the gameplay beautiful and remarkable.
Story 8,5/10
Forget, Alice forget, it is the only cure for you. Or? Damn right I don't wanna forget I’m damn fu***ng Alice and I will surpass my role of a mad girl with a surely outstanding and strong character.
No, this wasn't a passage of the game this was my short summary of the story and I must say: I sympathize with Alice in some parts of the game. Until chapter 4 it was a little bit confusing but than you get more and more through the madness in which the young woman is imprisoned, therefore you wanna help her desperately.
It has nothing to do with the classic story, it is a new way of seeing the figure Alice. My interpretation: I saw the whole time a strong personality that gets tortured but doesn't want to forget something, moreover, she has grown strong and with this new situation she doesn't fear the truth anymore. And she exceeds this with flying colours. Yeah, the story may be good but the pace wasn't. More memories, more dialogues, more wonderworld history(hints) would make this an outstanding story. I will explain it more in the category content .It is a great and satisfying but confusing story which you get when you purchase this treasure.
Atmosphere 9/10
My Specs; AMD Ryzen 5 3600; 32Gb DDR4 RAM, AMD Vega 56
Played on 24“ Screen with a FHD Resolution, Radeon SW tells me 31 FPS, but why so low? For instance I played CyberPunk 2077 in FHD with all settings max 45-50FPS (yeah of course without ray tracing^^). I was pissed but I played continuously and than i understood: the Physx settings from Nvidia was activated, which means I have played it with a feature that has to be emulated from my GraCa 8GB RAM! I didn't turn it off (ini file rewrite). The game is based on the unreal engine 3 and it looks in 2021 really gorgeous! It was just beautiful: each chapter has its own theme,
we have a steampunk setting, where we are getting some tea from there:-);
mermaid setting, where I don't wear a fin but breath under the sea,
ming-vases with samurai setting, where I can fight against killer-daimyou wasps,
card, castle setting, where I must hide from a monstrum that is unbeatable, until, yeah I don't wanna tell and
puppet house setting, where I have the most scared of the whole game - why? Yeah, just see for yourself!
Each chapter looks fantastic, and for an 10 year old game it is eye candy. I know what you think, why can Ydobon declare that a 10 year old game gets so much on the graphic? It is simple I don't look at the graphic so much, for me it is the atmosphere which shines and in the case of Alice it is beautiful. Example? Undertale gets also a good verdict in his atmosphere. It doesn't matter if it is just 8 or 16 bit but it must have a good all in one package.
Audio 7,5/10
It is true, you have in each theme other music background, you have a good voice acting (german voices are great), the sound effects are also good, but I miss something. One day after finishing I could not remember any of the music samples which I enjoyed throughout Alice. Don't get me wrong but I think this is the weakest part of the game - the audio aspect.
Content 9,5/10
All in all I´ve played 16,5 hours for the first play through and I’ve completed 95% of the game, this means I didn't speed up and researched every angle, every stone, every maybe hide spot, but I didn't get the perfect score (shame on me!)
For an Action Adventure this built, it has a superior length. In this built? Yeah I explain it: there are five chapters but between the chapters you have the real world (London 1878 I think) in wonderland you have in each chapter many exploration levels, and this means fights, jumps, fights, mini games, jumps, fights and so on and so on, and this is also the greatest minus pont for people that want more story content in such length, you get your story but you have to work for it.
For the Summary of the content again, this Action Adventure is more than Action & Adventure Elements, you have Puzzle, Chess, Flipper, Shooter, Reaction, 2d side scroll Jump scenes, Time Battle, Survive Battles (yeah the Snails Houses!), Quiz and last but not least a wonderlandish good story.
Again this game is adult stuff only!
Summary 8,5/10
Alice? Who the f…..No, no no it means Alice! What a good game did you have Alice! I wanna thank you again my old self! And of course also American McGee for his Concept and his Lifework, Alice 2 (Madness Returns) is for me a Hidden Gem, a treasure, a eye candy that I hopefully have on my Steam Account, cause the Problem is that EA took it out of the steam store so you can (when you wanna play it on PC(PS3/Xbox360 (Game Pass!))purchase it on the Origin Platform, yeah I know leaves a bad taste...But! This Franchise must live! Please EA give it a Chance, Alice is a good IP and you must give American McGee a chance to get the third game already in work!!
And you listeners and gaming comrades, buy it, play it, if you want a good old fashioned action adventure, with a very good length. Than get it, but you must work for the story more than in the newer Games!