NekoJonez: First Impression: Alice: Madness Returns (PC ~ Steam) – What Happened?

Wikipedia entry

(Warning, this article is written in a special way. I’m done quite fine, it’s written the theme of the game more.)

Dear readers. My fantasy might be real. 75 articles published by myself on the ButtonSmashers Blog. I don’t need a doctor about that. But the negative imagery is taking it’s toll on me. It’s hard as a writer to  see people you love and care about turn in these horrid monsters. Now that I’m back fighting in this land, it’s time to set things right. Or do I want to go back? I don’t know. I thought this wouldn’t be a pretty sight. That the game would suck. But as soon as I started playing it, it blew my mind. It’s actually good that I’m doing this. Maybe I have to let go. I have no clue. Maybe this game might provide the answers for me. Maybe, if I take a look into this madness I might find answers. Yeah, it will return… the madness. And feel free to comment on this, your opinion on it or on the game. Return… madness…

Bad cover hides a good game

Did the intro creep you out? Don’t worry, I won’t continue to write like that for the rest of the article. It would be too hard to talk about a game like that. But I thought it would make for a nice introduction.

The tale of Alice in Wonderland is most likely not a strange or a new one to you. Although, it might be that it has been quite some time since you have seen or heard of it. This game takes a rather interesting spin on it.

From what I can gather, after several years, Wonderland got corrupted. Alice gets visions from it and goes back to Wonderland. I haven’t gotten more into the story yet since I was more focused on the game then on the story. More on that later.

From what gather from the story, it’s quite unique. If I’m right and this game shows the scenario: “What would happen to wonderland if Alice went crazy?”… Well, then the story is doing quite well.

So, the title of the part is bad cover hides a good game. What I mean with that is that EA found it needed to have a “right in your face” protection for this game. With serial keys and verifying servers and all that lame stuff. Also, at first glance, the main menu gave me a bit of “meh” impression. But it gets better once you play the actual game.

Madness… MADNESS. THIS IS SP- nope. 

I have to admit something. I can’t judge on the keyboard controls. I saw that this game supports a controller. And when I see that, I don’t think twice about using it. Honestly, I sometimes prefer playing with a controller. It might have to do with the fact that I had keys popping off my keyboards…

Anyways, from what I can tell, the controls are smooth. I did had to adjust the default settings a bit to have better sensitivity but hey, that’s why there are options.

In this game, Alice had various power-ups. You get them through the course of your adventure. Up until now, I got a shrink power-up and a special sort of gun. And then the madness begins. Oh yes. It does.

This game offers you multiple paths with one being the correct one. But if you explore the hidden paths, you find collectables. While I have no clue in what these will be used for, it’s adds to the replay value and it’s a good thing that they implemented this.

Talking back about the controls, they are good. Nearly each button has a different feature. But thankfully it’s so straight forward, you learn which button to press after some time of play.

The gameplay consists out of various platforming puzzles. You need to kill all the enemies or find something to activate platforms. You know, the usual stuff. What’s unusual though is the fact you can’t really die. Well, I’m not 100% sure about that. When you fall off cliffs, Alice bursts into butterflies and you get right back at the platform you died at to try again. This is rather neat.

So, why is the title of this part “Madness”? Well, because of the various collectables and the very variation in the gameplay… There might be too much things going on at once. And it works for this game.

Must finish?

The game has an automatic save-feature. Thank the lords. Lately, I’m getting used to the auto-saving feature. This avoids that you are broken out of your immersion with the game.

Since I recently finished some games I was playing, I can now focus on this game. I want to finish this game because it caught my attention. The last time a PC game did that was Alan Wake.

The game has an amazing design. While it’s not going for the most detailed graphics and over the top visuals, this game shows off an amazing art style that really fits the story they want to tell.

You truly feel that you’re in a corrupted fantasy world based on the story of Alice. The animation, no complaints. I think it’s really well done. Maybe some of the PC elite may say that I’m wrong but I find this game to be quite the eye candy.

To finish this article, let’s talk about the music. It has been playing in another tab while I was writing this article. And while I haven’t heard a lot of the soundtrack yet, the music I heard truly made my fantasy go wild. What’s going to happen to Alice? How are they going to continue this game? It’s a mystery to me but once I’m willing to solve.

The sounds are fitting too. But I have to pay closer attention to give a more detailed opinion about it.

So, that was my 75th article here on ButtonSmashers. While I could have written something more special, I think that 100 articles is more fitted for that. Anyways, thanks for reading my article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. This game looks like an awful lot of fun and I can’t wait to see more.