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Alice: The Madness Returns

Alice: The Madness Returns

Jabberwonky?

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Review I have been waiting 11 years to be reunited with American McGee’s Alice and strangely enough, Alice: Madness Returns parallels this as we join our unbalanced heroine 11 years after her defeat of the Queen of Hearts and discharge from Rutledge Asylum.

Alice: The Madness Returns

Who are you calling a pussy?

Alice Liddell has spent the past decade in London’s East End reconstructing her fragile psyche. Haunted by the conflagrant death of her family - “roasted like chestnuts” - Alice’s madness returns and the imaginary construct that is Wonderland starts to re-manifest itself around the question of who - or even what - started the fire?

After a beautiful wood-cut stop-motion animation intro, all swathes of blackberry jam blood and goat-headed men, we wake up in Doctor Bumby’s house full of boorish big-headed children and take to the streets following a ghost cat past big-nosed Eastenders, it’s not long till we are falling past sinister dolls heads and talking to a rather skinny emo-looking Cheshire Cat.

Alice: The Madness Returns

Ring of fire

The game is set partly in Victorian London - all grey smog and dirty petty coats - and half in Opium dream Wonderland, and I was absolutely stunned by the obvious quality and depth of the artwork. Think trapped in a Brothers Quay animation while sniffing glue on tabs of acid dressed in your finest Steampunk garb.

Next page: Animation like 'woah'

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Hehehe

Come now - if I was a young'un I wouldn't be bothered 'cos I'd just be getting it off bittorrent.

I've been gaming since the early 80's on nearly every platform that's been in existence, and to me - 15 Hours just isn't that long. Hell - you could make Chuckie Egg last more than 15 hours!!

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Sniffing glue on tabs of acid.

Now that would be a wicked trip..... Judging by some of the screenshots I think that the Acid Tabs must have been handed out freely within the design department.

Imagine trying to play this game on Acid.......

Turn on, tune in, drop out.

[How unfortunate my Dr Leary coat has just gone and melted into a porcupine revelation]

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Not for me, but...

...at least you won't get comment after comment, after comment moaning about how you didn't test it on a PC and that you tested it on <insert console name here> and it's inferior to PC graphics.

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I'll doff my cap to you,

as I could barely get through 15 minutes of Chuckie Egg!

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Chances are that there'll be a BBFC rating on the box,

so you won't be able to buy it.

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