Alice: Madness Returns

Alice: Madness Returns doesn't quite operate under modern game logic, and while it's certainly fine for a game to play by its own rules, it helps if those rules don't feel slapdash and outmoded.

While Alice: Madness Returns has a number of problems, its artistic side and its genuine concept calls off the bad. This is a game that truly could have outshined American McGee's Alice with its interesting production values, but instead it leaves us slightly disappointed.

Had Madness Returns cut its length by half and tossed in a few more gameplay mechanics, it could have easily been one of the best titles released this year.

Wonderland itself, the way it changes visually and the way it changes Alice, is the game's most important feature.

Alice: Madness Returns isn't a bad game; it's a game that isn't quite good enough. Tighter controls, a little more testing, and either much less or much better combat would've turned Madness Returns into one of the all-time greats. Right now, it's picturesque but annoying. It's fun to look at, some of the stages are OK, and there's a lot of variety both in the level design and in the basic gameplay, but as a game, it's frequently half-baked.

My Recommendation, then, is clear/ But so I don't deprive/ You any longer, here it is: / You'll love it if you strive/ To overcome the boring bits.

American McGee, I really wanted to love Alice: Madness Returns, truly I did. And while I can say that in it there were instances of fun and moments of wonder, these were eclipsed by an excess of repetition, a surfeit of crummy-looking textures and a general lack of polish. And so I admit to you with a heart full of regret, that Madness Returns has failed to live up to either my dreams or its own potential.

Alice: Madness Returns is a surreal bit of macabre platforming and action, that just doesn't have a real sense of pacing.

For all its inventive turns and standout moments, however, much of Alice's return feels a little too templated for it to truly embrace the nonsensical.

Fans of the original Alice will find plenty of here to love, and will certainly want to return to Wonderland to work towards a satisfying narrative conclusion. For others, putting up with the game's monotonous design may prove to be a personal spiral into madness they may want to avoid.

All the trudging, mundane puzzles, and hours spent on air vents are worth it at the end when secrets are revealed and the scattered memories all start to make sense.

Alice: Madness Returns is, overall, a good game. It has many good things, but it's a bit unpolished and rushed, kind of repetitive and lacking originality in some areas. It delivers much fun, but not as much as it should.

Far from a bad game. Stellar art and a darkly unique stage help set it apart from the brown and bloom of this console generation, and Spicy Horse should no doubt be commended for their approach to an underfed genre in the HD-gen platformer.

It's just a pity that a title inspired by some of the most outlandish and inspired works of literature has to live with some of the driest tropes that the game design textbook has to offer.

I'd have liked the adventure to have been trimmed of fat, the combat is at times extremely irritating, and the art design far exceeds the technical prowess on show, but at its core Alice: Madness Returns is an imaginative romp through a world that's clearly been designed by some incredibly creative minds.

Playing Alice: Madness Returns isn't as exciting as looking at it, but you'll still enjoy getting lost in this twisted fantasy adventure.

Nightmarish fantasy worlds, bizarre level designs and weird cutscenes - you're in for an unique experience. Unfortunately, the longer you play, the more boring it gets.

Alice Madness Returns is a beatiful game. The beginning is great but after the first few hours Alice Madness Returns becomes too repetitive. In some situations the gameplay is only a mess.

What starts out as a promising romp through a demented Wonderland devolves into a few good ideas stretched across redundant gameplay.

Provides a visually interesting world, with competent gameplay mechanics, but it ultimately fails to completely draw the player into the depths of its promised insanity to satisfaction.

Alice: Madness Returns is still a mad ride worth taking, but from start to finish, I never stopped thinking how much better it could have been with help from a strong editor's hand.

Alice: Madness Returns isn't as good as we expected. It has a lot of style and very good visual deisgn, but its long main adventure becomes very repetitive too soon.

Presents a fantastically imagined vision of Wonderland full of secrets, collectables, and wondrous areas of classic platforming to explore. But through questionable level design, graphical inconsistency, and repetitive gameplay, I was pulled out of the experience more than I would have liked.

Fails to make any great strides after a decade away, but for a 360 platformer, it's a wonder. [Sept 2011, p.90]

Breathlessly imaginative in everything but gameplay. Only die-hards need to journey down this particular rabbit hole.

I did not regret playing Madness Returns, nor could I earnestly recommend it. There's incentive to brave a secondary play through to obtain more unlockables – by way of memories and opening up new nooks by shooting pig snouts, naturally – but the problem is thus: we've been blessed – daresay spoilt – by better action/adventure titles over the past few years for Madness Returns to ever compete. Hopefully we see Alice again. I sensed a great game in Madness Returns and occasionally played one but this spicy gift horse would be best looked in the mouth.

Based on the classic book, just like the previous part, Madness Returns tries to follow up its predecessor's success and thinks that more brutality, sickness and weirdo-like patterns are enough to achieve it. Apart from an unrepeatable graphic style and some good passages it barely keeps our attention. Maybe next time.

At points beautiful, depressing, enthralling and utterly dull. [Issue#73, p.78]

Ten years. That's what it took for a follow-up to the original American McGee's Alice to be born. A great day for the fans, who will immediately recognize the trashy-gore touch of the developer. They won't be disappointed by the singular atmosphere, which captures imagination right from the start of the game. But its terrible lack of polish and technical shortcomings may also frighten a lot of people. The fans will probably forgive those, but others may not.

At the end of the day, Alice: MR has a lot of good ideas from a lot of other good games, but never really executes them as well as the originals did. Unless you're a hardcore fan of the original, or a dedicated platforming junkie, you'll want to skip this return to wonderland.

Madness Returns shows substantial flashes of being equal to its predecessor, but its strongest detractions - middling gameplay mechanics, the rushed ending, and that last tier of weapon upgrades being available only as paid DLC - hold it back.

It's a furry platformer with combat that suffers through repetition. Just like the first game, Alice doesn't quite match up to its own grand ambitions - let alone the classic stature of the source material. After 11 years, they should have got it right by now.

Alice: Madness Returns a visually stunning game with great art direction. However, the game is far too long and repetitive, and due to the uninspiring and outdated level design, it never reaches its full potential.

Sure, the visuals are hauntingly striking from beginning to end but art style can only carry a game so far. Without enough interesting mechanics and a meaningful narrative, playing Madness Returns became tiresome very quickly.

The game's visual and combative energy spark the urge to see where it goes next. If only there was something to do when you get there.