- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Developer: Spicy Horse
- ESRB Rating: “M” for Mature
- Genre: Action / Platforming
- Pros: Twisted take on classic tale; fun platforming / combat; occasionally great visuals and sound
- Cons: Inconsistent presentation; overly long levels magnify the shallowness of the gameplay
In typical sequel fashion, you didn't get the job of curing Alice's madness back in 2000's American McGee's Alice done properly, so now she's crazy and jumping around her imaginary Wonderland again. This is a darker and more twisted take on Wonderland and the Alice story that links Alice's madness in the real world with the destruction of Wonderland. To save Wonderland, Alice has to save herself. Classic characters such as the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Red Queen (now with awesome zombie Card Guards), and more return, but in rather different forms than you remember.
While the story does connect to the original Alice game, experience with that game isn't really required to enjoy Madness Returns. If you do wish to play the original Alice, it is included as a free DLC token with new copies of the game. It should be noted, however, that it is not a stand-alone XBLA game and instead has to be played from within Madness Returns once you download it.
Gameplay
EA
The platforming is the main component of the game and has Alice jumping from platform to platform to cross huge bottomless pits. Oldschool gaming at its finest, in other words. The controls feel floaty and loose at first, but never really get in the way. Alice can double and triple jump and float in between jumps, so you can cover a lot of distance. Air vents boost you higher up and springy mushrooms on the ground help you jump to higher areas. Alice also has the ability to shrink herself at will, which not only lets you enter small keyholes and doorways, but she can also see invisible platforms and writing on the walls that point you in the right direction. The invisible platforms and some tricky timing sequences do cause some frustration, and you will fall and die a lot, but you are usually reset on or near the platform you jumped from so you never have to backtrack too far. A bigger problem is that all of the platforming tricks the game has to throw at you are revealed pretty early on, so the jumping sections feel repetitive pretty quickly.
Puzzles are simple things where you have to pull a lever, weigh down a switch, shoot a target, etc. to open a door or raise a platform to continue. There are also a couple of sliding block picture puzzles, as well as chess puzzles (that you can skip if you want ...), but nothing too taxing.
Issues
That is really the main problem with Alice: Madness Returns - there isn't enough variety. The same platforming tricks are repeated over and over. Invisible platforms again? Yawn. The same puzzles pop up. Hold the switch down with a bomb so you can reach the platform in time. Boring. The enemy encounters with the same bland handful of enemies are recycled over and over. By the third chapter, everything is entirely predictable, yet you still have three more chapters to go. The game overall just feels far too long and artificially stretched with extra platforming sections. It takes a solid 12+ hours to beat, but it probably would have been better at half that. The pacing is just awful, and for every neat set piece (a 2D sidescrolling section, some Mario 64-style slides, occasional real world London sections) that lasts a minute, you have 45 minutes of boring platforming.
Adding insult to injury are a ton of hidden collectibles that aren't really worth finding. Memory fragments consisting of a sentence each that don't really explain the story. Dozens of bottles that literally don't do anything. And teeth you "spend" to upgrade your weapons with little tangible effect.
EA
The presentation is similarly inconsistent. Each chapter has a distinct theme, ranging from underwater, to high above the clouds, to a crazy creepy giant dollhouse. There are sections where you can tell the developers really worked hard to get you to say "Wow, this is gorgeous" but those sections are all connected by simple, muddy textures and overall blandness. It is occasionally great looking, but mostly pretty bland. I will say, though, that I do quite like Alice's character model and the different dresses she wears in each chapter.
Sound
The sound is the same way. The voice acting is rather flat for most characters, and Alice often doesn't react to situations the way you would expect. The music is okay, but each chapter theme loops for long enough (since the chapters are way too long, see) that it starts to grate on you.
Bottom Line
In the end, the best way to describe Alice: Madness Returns is that it is a good game that was just stretched out too much. It doesn't do anything especially poorly, and can be quite fun at times, but the fun platforming and combat tends to overstay it welcome far too long without any variation. The platforming is always the same, even if the chapter backgrounds are different. The enemies are all easy to fight, and boring after the first couple of encounters. With better pacing, this could have been a winner. Instead, Alice: Madness Returns is only worthy of a rental. It is a game that gets considerably less fun the longer you play it, which is never a good thing.
