So, American McGee is retiring. And that means no more "Alice" games.

Except, it doesn't mean that; not really. While American McGee was the
'face' of those games, he doesn't own the IP and EA - who down own
that property - could perfectly well make another "Alice" game without
McGee's involvement. (And McGee could always come out of retirement).
So it's not like the book is truly closed on the opportunity for that
franchise. But it's far, far more likely now, since American McGee was
really the only one involved who was pushing for a sequel; EA's shown
no interest in reviving the series.

And you know what? I'm fine with that. I quite enjoyed the original
"American McGee's Alice"; it came at just the right time to make an
impression. It's clever use of the (then top-of-the-line) Quake3
engine allowed it some very impressive visuals, and it's surreal
setting and guns helped it stand apart from the space-marines and
grizzled World War II G.I.s that were the usual for the genre. The
sequel - "Alice Returns" - felt much less novel; it didn't push the
technology, and games in general had started to move away from the
realistic. Now, with such a variety of setting (thanks to the Indie
scene), it's hard to imagine how any new "Alice" game would
differentiate itself from its competitors.

And as for American McGee retiring? Well, I can't say I've any sadness
about that either. While he was certainly a talented developer, even
he would admit that the success of the Alice games (and Doom and Quake
beforehand) had more to do with the synergy of the teams he was in
than any singular genius of his own. (That he was the headlined name
was entirely due to marketing, and not any arrogance of his own.) And,
indeed, he's had a number of bad or games ("Scrapland", "Bad Day LA")
or games that never even made it out the gate ("American McGee's Oz")
which disprove any wunderkind theory. So while I don't want to dismiss
his efforts, neither am I too upset that he's moving on.

Well, except maybe as a reminder that yet another member of the 'old
guard' of PC gaming has retired. It makes me feel ancient.

Well, I enjoyed both games. (here is The Carmack praising him, and wishing
him well):
https://nitter.net/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1612484342567010306?lang=en

[And here is my (very old) review of Madness Returns, just to put my finger
in the pie:]
Alice Madness Returns

I'd bought the 'Complete' pc version of this, which includes the original
and the sequel, and completed the original quickly, being very impressed
with the level design and Alice's mental battle with herself, but only just
got around to the sequel.

Madness Returns improves on the original formula in all respects. The 19th
century styled artwork and richly imagined twisted Wonderland-themed mental
landscapes are dropdead gorgeous. Combat and movement are fluid and
enjoyable (I used an xbox360 controller).

The writing, voice-work and sound effects are all top notch, and the plot I
thought was magnificent, appropriately dark, with edgy and cruel black
humour provided by the worldly Cheshire cat. It's best not to know anything
about the plot going in, as that would blunt the effect. Some of the levels
brought chills to my spine (I'm thinking of the asylum level, with Alice in
a straight-jacket, reliving the horrors of 19th-century psychiatric
'treatments', and her return to the Red Queen's palace).

I think this is the one game I've played where Physx effects actually made a
significant difference in the vitality of combat, and I'm still a bit bummed
I couldn't get ahold of a cheap nvidia card to offload physx instructions to
in a 'hybrid' installation (Medium settings worked ok for me, but could drop
to ~10fps in busy moments, pretty eye-rolling for a 6core & R290X system). I
guess Physx v3 runs acceptably well on multi-core cpus, but that's no help
for older games, thanks nvidia.

Alice Madness Returns: a fantastic game and highly recommended!

rms

On Sun, 9 Apr 2023 18:15:27 -0600, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

>Well, I enjoyed both games. (here is The Carmack praising him, and wishing
>him well):
>https://nitter.net/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1612484342567010306?lang=en
>
>[And here is my (very old) review of Madness Returns, just to put my finger
>in the pie:]

Well, since we're comparing reviews... ;-)

I was far less happy with "Alice: Madness Returns" when I first played
it (in July 2011!). I greatly praised its colorful and detailed
levels, and wsa generally pleased with the minute-to-minute gameplay.
But I thought the controls "stiff", the combat unpolished that -
thanks to a stun-lock mechanic - resulted in a lot of 'cheap deaths'.
And the game quickly became tedious, with a many levels overstaying
their welcome and too many identical challenges being repeated one
after another. Its narrative wasn't particularly enthralling either.
It wasn't a horrible game, but not one I rushed back to replay.

I was a bit more forgiving when I finally did go back to replay the
game (December 2017). Most of its faults, I determined, were in the
latter half of the game; "'Madness Returns'", I wrote, "definitely
front-loads all its best parts in the starting levels; the second half
of the game, on the other hand, was every bit the tiresome drudgery I
remembered." Colorful and fun at the start, it began to wear more and
more the longer I played it. And the DRM for the CD-version no longer
authenticated the disk (it was only through some cleverness on my part
that I could play the game at all). So, again, while not entirely
without merit, neither was the game enticing me to come back any time
soon.

Oddly, I don't have a written review for the original "Alice" game; I
guess it pre-dated the c.s.i.p.g.a monthly round-ups. Have I really
not played that game since 2006? Surely that cannot be true.
Definitely a game that deserves another chance to shine. Say, maybe
I'll play it on the Win98 PC...

Am 09.04.23 um 19:01 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
> Except, it doesn't mean that; not really. While American McGee was the
> 'face' of those games, he doesn't own the IP and EA - who down own
> that property - could perfectly well make another "Alice" game without
> McGee's involvement.
EA has a long history of burying companies and franchises for good!
Cough *Ultima* cough, or the entire Origin backcatalog just to name an
example, but you can basically say that about almost every company they
have bought!
So no there never will be another Alice and if there is one, the chance
is high that it will be a mobile game with a ton of pay2win schemes
included, like it happened with the last Ultima!

>So, American McGee is retiring. And that means no more "Alice" games.

lol! I just snapped on this post's title reference, a week later! Well
done Spalls

rms

On Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:48:25 -0600, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

> lol! I just snapped on this post's title reference, a week later! Well
>done Spalls

In fairness, it is a very dated (50+ years!) reference.

<sing-songs>

You can play any game you want, unless it's an Alice game
You can play any game you want, unless it's an Alice game.
'Cause it's no longer being sold
'Cause EA thinks it's just too old
You can play any game you want, unless it's an Alice game.

This song is called Alice's Games; it's about Alice and her games, but
"Alice's Games" isn't the name of the game. That's just the name of
the song. That's why I call the song "Alice's Games"

Now, it all started 23 Thanksgivings ago, twenty three years ago, on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went to Gamestop to buy a game by
American McGee.

Now, American McGee isn't in the game; he just wrote the game, in a
Texas office with Rogue Software, and EA, the publisher. And livin' in
Texas like that, they get a lot of wild ideas in their heads, and
having all those wild ideas (seeing how they live in Texas), they
decided to make a game about Alice in Wonderland.

So we got to Gamestop and found a game about Alice in Wonderland, and
we figured it would be a great idea for us to buy that game and play
it at home.

(etc. No, I'm not gonna continue; the song is a half-hour long!)

(and with sincerest apologies to Arlo Guthrie)