By Alec Meer on May 11th, 2011 at 9:35 am.
I believe we’ve only been wandering the dark realms of pre-rendered and weakman footage for USA McWow’s belated sequel to olden wierdo-actioner Alice until now, so ’tis a fine thing to finally present proper in-game videos of Madness Returns. It is it wonderland or ponderousland? Oof, that didn’t work at all.
Wait, was that Alice with a machinegun?
Looks visually highly inventive this, though I worry a little that it’ll be Dante’s Inferno all over again. Boring old fart that I am, I crave ways to interact with so imaginative a setting beyond stabbin’ and shootin’ and jumpin’. I do look forward to spraying it across 1920×1200 pixels, however – and there’s a mere month and four days until that happens. Goodness, release dates seem to arrive so quickly sometimes.
11/05/2011 at 09:48 QuantaCat says:
Stephen fry should do the cheshire cat.
11/05/2011 at 12:46 Urael says:
Nahh. Fry’s too ‘manicured’. For McGee’s interpretation of the cat you’d need something with a bit of either ‘growl’ and/or ‘sleaze’ to it, I reckon.
11/05/2011 at 13:39 ZamFear says:
No, Roger Jackson needs to voice the Cat.
11/05/2011 at 21:02 Eolirin says:
I’d say Keith David, especially in light of his wonderful performance as the Cat in Coraline.
11/05/2011 at 09:53 cytokindness says:
If it’s anything like the Cards in the first Alice, the machinegun will cost a hell of a lot of mana. Everything in that game tended to be close-range, and long-range stuff was very expensive.
11/05/2011 at 09:57 duncanthrax says:
Finally, a woman with style!
11/05/2011 at 10:07 negativedge says:
looked pretty good until it looked terrible
12/05/2011 at 00:04 Acorino says:
True. I started to get excited while watching, then they showed the shooting and stabbing. Oh well…
11/05/2011 at 10:16 Longrat says:
Wow, looks great! I really wonder why there’s so little female leads, and why the only female leads are “big boobs no clothes sex machine”.
11/05/2011 at 10:41 Nallen says:
Wow why don’t you look out the window from time to time and educate yourself, all women are big boobs no clothes sex machines.
11/05/2011 at 14:47 Fumarole says:
I see Nallen is a fellow Californian. Howdy neighbor!
11/05/2011 at 10:25 Stense says:
Unicorns!
11/05/2011 at 10:31 Olero says:
Looked nice, but somehow I find the moving images less impressive then the earlier released non-moving images. Too much combat action, but then again it’s a trailer so that’s fair I guess. And I think Alice should eat more pixels, she looks more anorexic then most catwalk models.
11/05/2011 at 13:48 Ghost of Grey Cap says:
Well, a personality disorder would fit with the plot, yes?
11/05/2011 at 10:32 Muzman says:
Quite a lot of Wuxia-fu looking stuff in there ain’t there.
11/05/2011 at 10:35 noodlecake says:
I’ve been craving one of these sorts of games. It’d be nice to play one with a gorgeous art style rather than the fugly Darksiders.
11/05/2011 at 10:40 mbp says:
I loved the imagination and weirdness Alice but the gameplay was a big turn off.
11/05/2011 at 10:58 Lorc says:
The “machine gun” appears to be a pepper grinder. Visible clearly in the screenshot:
http://www.ea.com/uk/alice/images/3801fd28144df210VgnVCM2000001165140aRCRD
11/05/2011 at 10:59 Mirqy says:
She is the mob?
11/05/2011 at 11:20 Baggypants says:
No Butterfly Dodge footage? I am disappoint. But the Dresses!
mmmm the dresses.
11/05/2011 at 12:21 Olero says:
Suddenly your username makes sense…
11/05/2011 at 11:58 Hoaxfish says:
It’s clearly a pepper-grinder
…now I feel stupid someone already posted it
11/05/2011 at 12:33 Vexing Vision says:
Loving the looks – but I’d like to hear more about the actual length of the game.
Portal 2 was the shortest game I willingly paid a full price for, anything below 2€/hour isn’t worth it. I used a spreadsheet.
11/05/2011 at 14:57 ts061282 says:
What’s that expression again? Oh yeah: “All flash, no substance.”
11/05/2011 at 15:13 Blaq says:
I can’t understand people saying that the combat seems boring/unsatisfying/bad. Usually playing the game is quite a lot different from watching it. Also, from my perspective, I’ve yet to see enemies this whacky and diverse.
This could, in my opinion, be one of the best games in 2011. And I think that satisfying combat in a unique and insipired world, such as the one we see in the trailers, coupled with a few puzzles isn’t a bad way to achieve that.
That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.
11/05/2011 at 15:13 Rii says:
Looks better than the recent film.
11/05/2011 at 15:31 Deimorz says:
Here I was, all interested in seeing a new trailer, and then it turns out to be the same as the one they showed at GDC over two months ago.
11/05/2011 at 16:59 lurk says:
“It’s just a dream.”
“It’s not a dream it’s… A TERRIBLE ACCENT”
11/05/2011 at 17:40 fuggles says:
There’s been quite a bit of footage at Giantbomb, some time ago come to think:
http://www.giantbomb.com/ask-me-anything-alice-madness-returns/17-3984/
11/05/2011 at 20:50 Defiant Badger says:
I’m disapointed at how combat orientated it is, why couldn’t it be a puzzle/platformer(?) like Catherine?
11/05/2011 at 20:53 Rii says:
What are you basing this on? If it’s just the above trailer well, that could just be the trailer. Everyone likes a bit of biff.
11/05/2011 at 20:53 Yog-Sothoth says:
Here’s a riddle: When is a croquet mallet like a billy club? I’ll tell you: whenever you want it to be.
12/05/2011 at 04:19 Tacroy says:
I always thought the answer was “Because there is a b in both and an n in neither”, I guess I was wrong :(
15/05/2011 at 20:22 Richard Barrell says:
That billy club line was, in my estimation, the single best piece of speech in the entirety of the first Alice game. The way that the cat’s voice actor read it was exquisite.
12/05/2011 at 00:40 vonhonkington says:
the correct title for this article would have been something like:
alice 2: rabbit holing boogaloo
12/05/2011 at 04:58 Gvaz says:
ahhh for stupid little derivatve games
12/05/2011 at 05:32 Zenicetus says:
I dunno… this combines a setting and art direction style that I really like, with the type of platform-jumping puzzles and Diablo-style combat that I have zero interest in. It would have been nice to see those game assets used in a different way. I guess action games are the big market these days.
12/05/2011 at 07:48 lurkalisk says:
USA McWow eh?
12/05/2011 at 10:51 sjjs says:
Catatonia, right?
(Oh sod off, login screen, that was for Mirqy.)
12/05/2011 at 16:08 BreadBitten says:
Dat hair…