Alice: Madness Returns

Alice: Madness Returns is a game that came out ages ago that I only really just got round to playing because steam made it available in the last sale for basically no money.

So, back in the year 2000 a game was released called American McGee's Alice.  Acting as a sort of sequel to the books according to wikipedia, the player had to control Alice and her adventures through Wonderland while she went nuts in the real world.  I never beat the first one but I had a buddy with a copy that I sunk a couple hours into.

Anyway in 2011 the sequel to that game was released and it's basically about the same thing.  Alice's family was killed in a house fire and thanks to this tragic event she's going a bit crazy.  As you go through her adventure through Wonderland she starts to piece together what really happened and slowly beings to realise that basically 100% of the people around her are pieces of shit.

Game play wise we have a standard action platforming game.  You jump through lots of different areas, stopping in certain places on each level to shove your knife inside somethings face and you rinse and repeat this process until the end of the game.  This does sometimes get a little bit boring but the game does try to mix up it's game play with something different on every stage.  For example, in the underwater level there is a 2D side scrolling shooter section where you control a boat shooting a wooden sharks.  In another stage you drink a potion and control a giant Alice as she stomps all over various enemies while being shot at by cannons.  These sections are a bit few and far between though, so sometimes the platforming can get a little bit boring.

The level design is both pretty good and pretty bad at the same time.  Everything looks really cool and each world is unique with lots of cool stuff to look at but from a gameplay standpoint it's all a bit samey.  Jump on the floating platforms and if something is too far look for a switch to summon a air vent that'll give you some extra distance.  There are collectibles peppered around each level but it's kind of hard to miss most of them unless you're just blinding running towards the goal of each stage.

The one thing I absolutely cannot forgive about this game is the inclusion of sliding puzzles.

Sliding puzzles are dogshit and I don't know a single person that enjoys doing them.  What makes this even worse is that all of them in Madness Returns are really fucking easy so it just feels like a massive waste of time because not only do you have to do the puzzle but you have to find the pieces for it beforehand too.

Still, even with it's shortcomings, Alice: Madness returns is a good bit of fun with some solid voice acting and visuals so if you can pick it up on the cheap it's worth a play through.  Although you won't be wanting to go back and 100% it any time soon I don't think.