Alice: Madness Returns

If you enjoyed the first Alice game, you will love this. This is no kids game, it is very twisted and even more violent than the first one.

The story around Alice's descent into madness is well thought out and interesting. The gameplay is fun, although the third person view can be confusing at first.

The issues I've had are a) The umbrella will not work if you change the keybind – google the issue to find a solution. b) Some of the monsters and other game mechanics bug out. I've been stuck in the wall, stuck in the air… I've had monsters that are invincible and others that don't spawn. There are many people moaning about this on the EA forums, hopefully the first patch will resolve most of it. If a monster doesn't seem to die, don't worry, you're not going mad like Alice. It's a bug.

The game is a dark psychological narrative with visual asethetics that juxtapose feminine & childhood themes with ominous settings. It is visually interesting uses grotesque cartoon characters and the soundtrack is atmospheric.

The gameplay is more developed than the first Alice game, items can be improved, Alices costume changes as the game progresses and the character has other ability such as shrinking and growing. Still the game is pretty much the same “Alice” game as the first one, with a different narrative. Alice McGee in an interview described this as “maintaining the core gameplay”, I will go through the linear gameplay to explore the environments and see how the story progresses. As they say, curiousity killed the cat.

I love the original Alice game and have been wanting to get Madness Returns for quite some time. Sadly I do not actually like it all that much. I found it to be fun for a while but I wound up losing interest due to repetitive gameplay and pointless minigames. On the plus side it does have quite a few, very interesting gameplay mechanics.

If you are looking for a game that's a little different, light on story line and easy to pick up and play then this is it. Nothing complex here, just a good old fun game!

Combat is very well designed, strafing and targeting system make fights challenging but fun. However, if you play the game for several hours combat may become repetitive and annoying. Weapons are all very fun to use, although it is very obvious that specific weapons are designed for specific foes.

Environments or “worlds” are very nice, but often levels last for so long that you may rush through just for a change of scenery. The atmosphere in the game is about as creepy as it could be. Overall, the game is worth the $80, i recommend playing it in short bursts though so you don't become bored or annoyed by some repetitiveness.