August 8th, 2023

Beaten 1st time on difficulty – Normal
Favorite OST:
02 – Village of the Doomed
05 – Wonderland Woods
06 – Time to Die

Before starting “Alice: Madness Returns” I wanted to play the OG game and luckily there’s an easy way to play it through “Madness Returns”. I won’t link the steam guide for it as I’m pretty sure it’s not legal, but it’s easy to find via game’s community hub. The version I played is a remastered version that was bundled with special edition of A:MR, comes with widescreen support and other improvements for modern systems, but AFAIK gameplay and story is unchanged.

I never read the book but it’s pretty obvious from start that wonderland is a reflection of Alice’s psyche. From bits I saw, the original wonderland is nothing like this new Wonderland. When Alice lands in wonderland it’s dark, twisted. And first native we meet is a cat with very skinny body, tail with pointy end and big paws and head, with an evil smile. Although he doesn’t look very trustworthy, he’s our only guide sticking with us through the entire game and one of few allies in this new dangerous Wonderland. Going a bit further we find ourselves in a village that’s under rule of Queen of Hearts. In fact the whole Wonderland is ruled by the Queen with Jacks of Spades/Hearts/Diamonds/Clubs being the common enemy and enforcers of her rule.

This game drips with atmosphere!

Atmosphere and the world carry this game a lot IMO because the combat is pretty basic and platforming is easy. Sometimes they throw a unique puzzle in, like that one in Chess Kingdom where you are turned into a chess piece and you can only move like that chess piece on board. There are some platforming sections, sometimes with enemies throwed in that spawn only when you reach a tight spot 😵 You have 8 weapons, with knife being your starting weapon. Besides health you also have Mana or Will or whatever it’s called in this game. Most weapons have alternate fire mode which is nice. Besides slicing with the knife you can also throw it and it will reappear in Alice hand after 3-4 seconds. This and left-click attack of Croque Mallet are only weapons that don’t use mana. Everything else use one shared pool of mana.

Design of every creature and location is incredible in this game and it running on Quake III engine adds extra atmosphere as you can make some really dark and gothic looking levels. Music is composed by Chris Vrenna, drummer from Nine Inch Nails and using various kind of child instruments mixed with standard instruments, it sounds incredible.

Story in a nutshell is Alice trying to overcome her depression and grief after her entire family dies in a fire and she’s the only survivor. As mentioned before, the wonderland is a reflection of her psyche, which now is a twisted and dark place. It seems hopeless the further you go but maybe there is hope for Alice?

It sucks that with time you won’t be able to get this game anymore. There is only one legit way to get it nowadays - buy an old boxed version. EA used to sell “Alice: Madness Returns” Special Edition but stopped selling it for some reason and you can only buy standard version (that doesn’t have this game) so your only hope is finding a working key somewhere. Humble Bundle used to sell Origin keys for $30 but no more :/ It’s a game worth saving in my opinion, even if gameplay is a bit lackluster. EA sells some of their old games on GOG, so maybe one day we’ll get a proper re-release? For now, you can use that steam guide I mentioned. I can at least confirm it works and my game didn’t turned into bitcoin farming machine, I launched it via “Alice: Madness Returns” but it should work stand-alone, in theory.

But overall I recommend it, I enjoy games with atmosphere like this and as I found out it’s not the darkest Alice game out of two that we got so far!

Beaten 1st time on difficulty – Normal
Favorite OST:
11 – Card Castles in the Sky

Alice is now 19 years old. She’s stuck in orphanage in London, two places that are not very good for your mental health. She’s under the care of Dr. Bumby, a psychiatrist who specializes in using hypnosis to help his patients, the children in the orphanage and of course our Alice. His advices are questionable as he insists that the best solution is to just forget which is not how you deal with mental health problems. While doing some errand for the Doctor and going through streets of London in some poor district full of shady men, whores and grim looking policemen, we get our first hallucination. Alice finds herself in Wonderland. It’s different, it’s still really strange but this time it’s beautiful, idyllic almost. And our old friend the Cheshire Cat is back!

We get few peaceful moments in this beautiful Wonderland learning how to move etc. before we run into enemies made out of black sludge. This black sludge, as we later find out, infested all of the Wonderland and along with Infernal Train that is riding through the Wonderland is causing it to slowly fall apart, threating the only safe haven Alice has from the outside world.

The biggest improvement is probably the combat system and weapons. We only have 4 weapons and each for specific purpose. Knife returns and is the main melee weapon. It’s fast, deals decent damage and the combat in general is way more spectacular but knife especially where Alice cuts and cuts with knife producing flashes of blue and red lights and time slows down just for a split second with each cut. You can now lock onto a specific enemy, useful especially for ranged kills because there’s some weird mouse acceleration when you try to target manually with ranged weapons. Pepper grinder is our main ranged weapon, it can overheat and is unusable for few seconds if that happens. Hobby Horse is the heavy melee weapon for enemies with armor or other protection that needs breaking. And lastly teapot cannon, which is a ranged weapon that is good for groups of enemies and can be charged for more powerful shot. It’s a good change because although previous game had 8 weapons with alternative fire, I only used like three or four 95% of time. And combat feels much more focused and more thoughtful.

The biggest downgrade is the Soundtrack. It’s simply forgettable, a background music so the game is never completely silent. The only exception is “Card Castles in the Sky” and you hear it on your way to the castle of the Queen of Hearts, the main enemy of the last game. It fits the location so well and is sad and beautiful at the same time. But that’s it out of over 30 tracks!

And another downside… The game is just too damn long. Every chapter is unnecessarily long with mostly the same combat situations and repeatable puzzles and platforming. The game just drags on and on. This is a common criticism towards this game, which I found out after I beated it and was curious what others say. This game could easily be 4-5 hours shorter and it would make much better experience. It’s such a shame because I feel like I would enjoy it much, much more and overall the game would be better.

Unique puzzles/minigames return, some I enjoyed like when Alice is turned into a giant and she has to smash the defenses of Red Castle, some I hated like in the Fine China chapter where game turns into 2D platformer.

Your outfit and even some weapons change depending on the chapter, which is a cool detail! I especially love the outfit Alice has in the Red Queen's castle.

The story and themes are even darker than the first game. The Infernal train and black sludge are outside forces that are there to destroy a secret Alice knows and is buried somewhere deep within her mind. First game dealt with feelings of guilt and depression, but this game goes further and touches subject like abuse (in many different forms). The game looks less grim on the outside but the looks are deceptive. The ending brings some resolution but the fate of Alice is… uncertain. And if you read the news, it will stay like this as “Alice: Asylum” will never come out. Shame!

It's worth playing despite its issues and like previous game, I recommend this. It tackles topics that are never touched in AAA games and sometimes in indie games. Great combat, just unnecessary long. And this one you can still buy, but beware it sometimes is removed from store only to return after a year, idk what EA is smoking. Grab it on nearest sale before EA decides to remove it permanently.