Comments on: Alice 2: Man Celebrates Own Name Again

By: Ninja Dodo

Ninja Dodo — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:56:08 +0000

Alice was a great game. Amazing atmosphere, inventive level design and, as has been pointed out, more true in spirit to the book(s) than Disney ever was.

By: Tei

Tei — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:39:52 +0000

@Andreas: And are right, I would buy “Sid Meier, Ninjas!” anytime.

By: Phillipa Kettle

Phillipa Kettle — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:25:48 +0000

“handled by McGee’s Shanghai-based Spicy Horse studio”

‘American McGee’s Alice’ = made in Shanghai. :) Also, trying very hard not to fall prey to certain Asian eating stereotypes…what’s with the name of that studio?

By: Alaric

Alaric — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:04:26 +0000

Alice was a spectacular game.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:58:45 +0000

By the way, when Sid Meier’s name appeared on the box of Pirates! for the first time, it also solely happened for marketing reasons. As far as I know they didn’t believe they could sell a game about pirates without telling the world that it’s from the guy who made F-15 and all those other flightsims.

By: steve

steve — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:20:59 +0000

As for the “why” when it comes to name-above-the-title treatment, it’s also a trademark thing. You can’t trademark Alice; it would fall under common usage. You can, however, trademark “American McGee’s Alice.” It’s why Microsoft calls Word “Microsoft Word.”

I’m always amused at people who parrot EA’s “it’s a dark reimagining” bullshit. Anyone who thinks his version was darker than the source is only familiar with the Disney versions. The actual books are seriously crazy and demented and, yes, pretty freakin’ dark.

By: Fumarole

Fumarole — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:22:05 +0000

Alice was a great game, although I too quit when stuck at a particularly tough level.

Methinks you Brits are stilljust upset about that whole war and tea thing and are taking it out on poor Mr. McGee.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:19:32 +0000

Why did ID create so many egomaniacs who have never been able to back up their own sense of self worth with a game actually worth playing?

By: Vandelay

Vandelay — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:38:13 +0000

Mr Fake Says “I found out that there’s supposedly a 2010 date set for an “Alice,” actually based on American McGee’s original. Bizarre! I wonder if this will go through at all. (There’s even a 2009 Alice, an obvious allegorical attempt, but with very weak ties to … anything really)

Yep, that Alice is the one mentioned above that SMG owns the rights to. I think Sp4rkr4t was a bit harsh there. I doubt very much much that Joss Whedon told her to “fuck off” as he has only ever had good things to say about her. I would agree with him that when it mattered she was exceptional in Buffy, see the episode ‘The Body’ as a perfect example of this. I hope it works out for her and she gets the recognition she deserves.

I missed out on the original of this (played a demo ages ago I seem to recall) but like others have said negative comments have always detracted me a bit. The art style looks fantastic and has always made me want to give it a go. Might have a look out for it going cheap.

By: Eamo

Eamo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:33:24 +0000

I played the original Alice through to the end which is something I rarely do with games. It varied from being very original and creative (the dream levels) to being pretty so so, the queen of hearts levels.

The main criticism I recall was the camera. Some of the later levels involve some pretty tricky platform jumping and I remember banging my head in frustration at a camera that very often refused to let me see my characters feet. Fighting some of the bosses for example the camera angle became more of an over the shoulder affair so most of your legs were hidden, combine that with some very tricky platform jumping and it ends up pretty annoying.

Nothing worse than seeing a great game that a lot of time and effort went into let down by something that could have been fixed pretty easily.

By: El_MUERkO

El_MUERkO — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:50:34 +0000

bad day la hurt my brain, i hate him, HATE!

By: MrFake

MrFake — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:46:02 +0000

I had a thought, so I checked IMDB for the release date of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010 it says). I was wondering if EA might be trying to do a movie tie-in. I know it’s not exactly their style, but I was worried.

I found out that there’s supposedly a 2010 date set for an “Alice,” actually based on American McGee’s original. Bizarre! I wonder if this will go through at all. (There’s even a 2009 Alice, an obvious allegorical attempt, but with very weak ties to … anything really)