The return of Alice

This is already a month old, but when I first heard it, I thought it was just rumor and speculation. Then I checked out McGee's blog and it is official.

There will be a sequal to Amercian McGee's Alice.

This is huge to an older gamer like myself since I don't drop money for new games much anymore, except when trying to track down an old classic or a new release to a cherished franchise comes out (Fallout 3).

The first Alice game demonstrated the whole reason I play games in the first place. It was such a perfect blend of story, characters, atmosphere, music, and gameplay set to my favorite books. EA still has their mits on the rights, but at least they had the presence of mind to employ American McGee and his Spicy Horse crew to write and flesh it out. The actors they got to do the voices in the original fit the characters so well, I hope they can at least get Susie Brann back to voice Alice. I would also love to see Cris Vrenna return to do another soundtrack as the original is one of the greatest and moodiest ever created. The hardest part will be waiting. It most likely won't be anywhere near completion for a couple years.

 

I would love another Alice game. I need to see if I can find mine anywhere...

 

Ooh... now this most definitely draws my attention.... Thank you greatly GH.

 

Alice was the little girl that fell down a rabbit hole and found herself in Wonderland. The book was written by Charles Dodgeson under the pen name Lewis Caroll. He also wrote a follow up book based on the same character called Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.

American McGee's Alice is sort of an unofficial continuation of the story with a gothic, sociopathic theme to it. In it, Alice suffers survivor's guilt when she's the only one in her family to escape a deadly house fire. She ends up in a mental institution and falls into a catatonic state during which she ends up back in Wonderland, only now it's a twisted, demented mockery of its past self. It's a very well written game imo. I'm curious to see what the plot will be for the sequel. The steampunk snail in the picture might suggest the Mad Hatter is back with more of his crazy experiments. That would be astounding.

 

Sweeeet.

 

Alice was one of my first experiences with the Steampunk genre. Then I saw Arcanum and have hooked ever since.

 

I just started playing Thief II: The Metal Age again, on the subject of things that are awesome.

Anyone else here ever play Thunderscape? Great game, very steampunk.

 

I haven't played Thunderscape, but I am in the middle of a Thief: Deadly Shadows playthrough. That's an incredibly good game. I have yet to play any of the earlier Thief games.

 

Thief II was the best, IMO. The first went a little too heavy on the wierd, and Deadly Shadows sometimes seemed more tedious than fun. Not to say that II didn't take a few turns for the bizarre or tedious, but the missions were better. You should definitely give both I and II a playthrough, but II in particular.

I have to add that I'm a huge fan of Garret's dry cynisism.

 

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Releases Spring 2011 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, in case you aren't following it.

 

So that's how you got your creepy signature, Grimm.

 

His signature is a link.

 

I could never actually play Alice for some reason, it was interesting but I could never really get into it.

Thief, however, was fun. Finished both 1 & 2 but never really got into Deadly Shadows - like Japes said, it was very bloody tedious and didn't feel anything like the older games.

Still, this new Alice could be interesting. McGee really is a crackpot though.

 

Both American McGee's Alice and the Thief series are games I meant get into but never did. Do you suppose with the planned continuation of these franchises that a boxed set might be released?

 

Second official teaser released about 2 or 3 weeks ago:

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Is it just me or does that voice at the end sound like the Elder of Arroyo / Ravel Puzzlewell?

 

This has been out almost 2 weeks now, has anyone played it yet? I haven't had the spare cash to pick it up yet.

 

It's pretty good. The combat is very smooth and well polished, and the atmosphere from the original survived, though it's somewhat less dark. This is kind of a personal point, but I don't like the Cheshire Cat as much in the second one. Unlike in the first one, where he just tasted every syllable, he kind of sounds like he's trying too hard. Other than a few minor issues, my nostalgia goggles give it a 9/10.

 

I have just read the review yesterday and I will go back with Alice in Wonderland. The first one was twisted, I liked it.