User Reviews (51 - 61 of 190)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Lewis Carroll Would Have Hated This

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: January 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Lewis Carroll, perhaps the greatest children's author of all time and definitely my favorite, is probably rolling over in his grave right now.

American McGee's Alice is imaginative and visually amazing, but it certainly isn't something that Carroll would have wished upon his cherished book. Don't get me wrong...as a game, I enjoyed it. But as soon as I came across the "modified" dormouse and march hare, I began to question whether or not it was done in good taste. Let me split American McGee's Alice up into pro's and cons:

Pros: Incredible graphics...true eye-candy; creative and diverse worlds; intense involvement--really draws the player in; jaw-dropping, almost disturbing morbidity

Cons: FAR too many lava pits and ledges to fall from; very annoying player movements (especially jumping); really, really, really big bosses. Why is everyone so big? I mean, Alice DID bite into the mushroom; lackluster, unexplained progression of levels and events; I used to like the mad hatter

There's no doubt that there's a ton of talent and imagination behind Alice. The visuals alone were enough to make this game a classic, but Lewis Carroll fans may not appreciate it as much as someone who's never read the novel. I began the game thinking it would be a fine variation of the Alice books, but as my character journeyed deeper into this new world, I began to lose enthusiasm. American McGee gets the award for making a visually breathtaking and psychadellic game, but Wonderland still belongs to Carroll.

Not what I expected, but still a very fun game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: December 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are great - except when you get too "close up." Movement is easy, although walking, running, jumping, climbing,etc. are done with the keyboard (or joystick). The mouse is only used for using weapons. The storyline itself is pretty cool, and the character actors realistic. I had a bit of a problem with the install - it had to do with OpenGL - but the game includes a (beta version) install to fix any problems with your video card. Although the game is different from what I expected, I'd still recommend it. It's rated "M" for mature, and rightly so.

Superfun in every shape form and texture!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Definitely, aside from Mcgee being extraordinarily prodigious in creating games tailor made for bloodthirsty people like moi, this game gets better as it progresses. Everything about this game enthralls me, the sound, the illustrations, the storyline and even the dialogue. It never fails to horrify me, yes I admit I played this game for almost a year, over and over, but I finished it only once. Why spoil the fun, right!? This one for you tokey!;) (fargo-boy)

American McGees Alice:

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game was a thrill, when I first started out playing it, it seemed alrite, after playing it for a while I actually felt apart of the horror that was in it. Very exciting game, I seriously suggest buying it, and for a price like this, you WILL be pleased. Don't think that I'm making it sound easy, beacuse it sure isn't, you have to deal with villans lurking around every corner, and the best part of it all is that it's so graphic with the killings. I'm not about to give all the good stuff away, so just take my advice AND BUY IT!!! Hehehe, ok well that's all I have to say, oh and if this game excites you, I also suggest 'the undying'.

Visually stunning, deliciously twisted, but overly tedious.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: September 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The premise of "Alice"'s plotline will certainly offend the sensibilities of die-hard Lewis Carroll fans; the Alice of American McGee is a delusional mental patient haunted by the fiery death of her family for which she blames herself. If you can accept that this is not meant to be an accurate representation of Carroll's vision and is instead a derivative work, it's a deliciously twisted and original take on the whole Wonderland universe.

While the graphics are truly eye candy, the music appropriately creepy and complex, and the Quake III engine impressive, a game with this much plot potential is rendered flat and uninvolving by the strictly linear progression of the story line. Even if taken as a straight first-person shooter, the game still does not vary much or require significant strategy to progress. I also found Alice's dependence on the jump-but-don't-fall-off hurdle to be overused and annoying; it certainly was not so heavily depended on in any Quake incarnation and did not need to be Alice's only substantial challenge.

It seems as if "Alice" tried to merge the fast-paced action of a first-person shooter and the compelling plot of an RPG with stunning visual and auditory embellishments, but fell far short of the engrossing experience that a game such as Half-Life accomplished.

Fun Creepy Remarkable

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There comes a time for every gamer that when playing the same genre of games becomes boring. As we become less sensitive to more of the same FPS, RTS, RPG's, we begin to look for games that offer an utterly new and novel experience.

Alice is such a game, and it will make the most jaded gamer feeling stimulated and engaged. Its graphics are old (made in 2000), yet it is good enough that many parts of it seem to rival more recent games like Microsoft's Fable; its graphic relies more in ingenious design rather than technological breakthroughs. The story draws you in from the beginning right away, it's a highly nightmarish journey through a distorted Wonderland to the final confrontation with the Red Queen. Like other thematic games such as Half Life 2, the final boss presents itself subtly at the very beginning by having its evil web of tentacles laid throughout Wonderland (much like the cloud-penetrating Citadel in HL2). The cut-scenes, dialogs are very poetic, and reflect the tone and the theme of the story very well.

Wonderland is merely a fabrication of Alice's childhood imagination, but an familial accident left her numb and comatose that her mind is deeply disturbed. The Wonderland the gamer will play through will accentuate all of Alice's negative and disturbing feelings and emotions such as anger, guilt, and most of all fear. Such themes alone make the game worthwhile, and further emphasizes to the average Joe like me how catastrophic and crippling these negative emotions can be. But like i said, the graphic, sound, and playability are all outstanding.

Short but absolutely engaging

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 26, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First, the bad news. Short game (<20 hours for me) and no replay value.

Now the good news. The story, the humor, the *total eye candy* in this game was so deeply engaging, it had me riveted to my seat. This was one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. The game play was varied, but definately scripted. In all, hats off to McGee, for ruining my productivity that week.

WONDERLAND FOR TODAY'S GROWN UP

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When a computer game works, the experience can be more involved, more vivid, and more sophisticated than a piece of writing. Normally, I play D&D type games on computer, but when I saw a magazine ad for this one, featuring Alice sitting opposite the Mad Hatter, it reminded me of Salvador Dali on acid, and I had to play through it, though it's not a role-playing game and I am not rating it as such. The story concerns a little older and a more cynical Alice, now confined to an insane asylum. Something goes terribly wrong in Wonderland and Alice is called on to save it. In helping the denizens of Wonderland perhaps she can get herself out of the catatonic state that she is in. Prophesized to by the White Rabbit and guided by the Cheshire Cat almost in a shamanistic fashion, she is propelled into action following the White Rabbit to the Heart Of Darkness. The game itself is straightforward action adventure based on the Quake engine. The graphics visuals are stunning, the game cosists of having Alice run a rat maze/obstacle course while attacking her enemies with a fearsome array of surrealist weapons. From a deck of cards that fires like a machine pistol to a magical staff that behaves like a laser beam. One of the measures of the game's sophistication is whether or not you can develop unique tactics based of the features of the game world, and in that sense Alice works very well, offering both a variety of tactical problems and an array of possible solutions. If that was it, the game would be merely competent, but there is more. The enemies are many and varied. All of the major characters from the original books are present either as allies or opponents. What is more, they confront her and argue with her, every encounter revealing something of Alice's situation and the characters are further developed through dialogue/action. What is more, McGee did more than just take the original characters and plug them into the game, the wonderland has been transformed into a twisted image of our own modern adolescence, with major and minor characters/enemies in the game symbolic of positive and negative forces in the modern world. The significance and role of each characters in Alice's and our own reality is open to interpretation, which speaks to acute powers of observation and excellent story development on part of game designers. The dialogue is hip and cool though couched in the victorian accent of Alice's own time, and every encounter reveals more about the situation and about the characters. The game is absolutely linear and not role-playing, so there is no freedom for the player to interact with other characters of the game world, all the player can do is keep running forward, constantly firing and upgrading the existing weapons, you might as well sit back and enjoy, but what a ride!!! Alice goes inside clocks and industrial machinery, fights with the ants and rides the rapids on a fallen leaf. There are magical gardens terrifyingly entrenched with determined defenders firing an array of awesome weaponry and mechanical ladybugs dropping bombs on running alice. You watch the story develop and grow in sophistication as you play the game. The writing on the back of the box offered puzzles, but there weren't any, unless you consider it a puzzle to jump Donkey Kong fashion through a series of obstacles. There is altogether too much jumping and hopping over precipices and floating and swimming over the tedious incarnations of the same labyrinth sections repeated over and over again. The last encounter with the main Bad Guy is a decided letdown, and the end movie is strictly stock conclusion fare. Nothing new is revealed and everything is predictable. No tantalizing bits of dialogue or insights, and no surprise, merely an extremely mundane "Happily Ever After", inconsistent with the rest of the game. You can't help feeling that the ending was rushed and that was a major let down.
Not being much of an arcade player, I played at the easiest level possible, with all the beasties shooting at you (MEDIUM LEVEL), it took me roughly 76 hours to complete and PRIMA's guide was indispensible in revealing how weapons worked, how to get through the most confusing spots on the obstacle course, and in offering strategies for dealing with major baddies. There were no bugs in the game and I didn't need to download any patches. Overall, the game is one of the greatest for its storyline sophistication and development, and I would rank it among the best along with Planescape: TORMENT and FALLOUT!

One in a million

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Alice brings us to a whole new level in gaming. It is not like most other games, it contains an amazingly clever storyboard, non-stop action,packed with intensity, creepy warped charters loaded with personality, and the graphics are like nothing that has ever done before. The whole game is a peice of art, and anyone who would think differently is just probebly scared of it or is to dull not to see the complete genius in it.It is hard and is for sure to keep you thinking about it and the intensity of it may be a little much for some people, still if there were one game that would give you more than just a game, this would be it.

Alice is a challenging game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've played lots of games, being disabled and in much pain I've found that PC games are like a good pain killer they take your mind away from the pain and into the game. Alice is one of those terrific pain killers. Right from the start you are totally immersed in the world of Alice. When I started my system was a little weak with a P-3, 800Mhz and a motherboard that was breaking down and an ancient graphics card (a TNT2). Then as I played we upgraded to a GeForce 2 Pro a new motherboard and a P-3, 1Ghz. I've rarely noticed the differences in gameplay when changing hardware but adding the new processor and AGP card gave this game a new dimention and I decided to start over.
Again, I was quickly drawn into the highly advanced interface of the game, the graphics are exceptional, the story is deep and includes a booklet that comes with the game that are the notes of the psychiatrist that is treating Alice. Read the booklet, it's fascinating!
Moving from area to area became seamless and tackling even the toughest (Boss level) creatures was not too difficult on the beginner setting. The story and sound effects kept me deeply involved in the game and I would sometimes reload a challenge just to see how it would come out if I tried it differently. The things that happen as you play Alice really draw you into the game, even having her stand still while you look something up can be entertaining, she will use the devices in her hand to amuse herself while you are busy. If you are feeling puzzled hitting the C will bring out the Cheshire Cat who may give you a good hint or perhaps just something Cryptic or confusing. I even learned a few new words that I had to look up in the dictionary because of what the C Cat said.
It says there is gore but using the settings can reduce that to a playful minimum and I would not think it too troubling for the average modern 12 year old. At the same time, at the age of 46, there was not one part of the game that I was not both entertained and challenged.
I have played flying and space games such as Descent 1, 2 & 3, FreeSpace 1 & 2, RPG's such as Might and Magic 6 though 9, Heroes of Might and Magic 1 through 4 and have dabbled in the first person shooter such as Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Hexen and Quake and while they can be challenging they can not compare to Alice in the envolment, storyline, vivid graphics, music and effects sounds, even the ability to use objects such as hanging vines and turning pieces of clockwork to your advantage.
Alice has taken on a huge bit of the gaming Sphere and successfully covered it. The now incredibly low price will be greatly returned in the enjoyment you'll find in this game.

Review Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next 

Actions