As a child, we remember being rather disturbed by Alice in Wonderland. Not the ambiguous Lewis Carroll novel, either - but rather, the Disney film. Don't ask us why, as we wouldn't be able to explain it now, but there was something just that little bit disturbing about shrinking potions, cards come to life, and a dodo that could dance.
Alice: Madness Returns, however, is a completely different type of disturbing. Here, Alice is no princess - she's a disturbed adolescent, with a list of problems longer than her years. Having lost her whole family in a house fire when she was just a few years old - a fire she can't remember if she started or not - Alice has spent the majority of her childhood locked up in an asylum, withdrawn, alone, fighting a losing battle with the darkest corners of her mind. Having finally started to talk, after many years of silence, Alice is released from the asylum, to the relative safety of an orphanage - and that's where our story begins.
As you may imagine, Alice is still a tormented soul, and the slightest thing seems to be enough to tip her over the edge, and into a world of illusion. One moment, you'll be wondering the imposing streets of a Victorian London, populated with residents who wouldn't look out of place in a nightmarish version of Punch and Judy, and the next, you'll be whisked, quite literally, through the rabbit hole to a land that's anything but. Filled with rainbow snails, dominos, and giant bottles marked "drink me", pouring endlessly into a never filling lake, yes, this is Wonderland, but as you've never seen it before. Around every corner there's a nightmare waiting. Amorphous blobs with blank white masks, leeches hiding in jars, sprawling factories and buildings in a Steampunk style. Tim Burton can only dream of being as dark as this.
Welcome to Wonderland. It's as inventive as it looks.
That being said, Alice isn't a game that tries so hard to be "dark" it ends up just putting you off. This is no "Saw". Instead, Alice makes things interesting by weaving its mature, and frankly, strangely believable story of a tormented young girl, and her therapist, through a Wonderland that's begging to be explored. It's rarely ever truly disturbing, but there are enough twists here that you're never entirely comfortable with what's about to happen next. Like Alice, you can never be sure if what you're seeing's real. It's dark all right - but it doesn't cram it down your throat in an effort to be different.
In fact, when you look under the surface, what's here is anything but. Alice: Madness Returns is an enticing mix of a platform game, and a third person action game - like Tomb Raider, but with a mentally disturbed teenager in the lead role instead of a spoilt aristocrat. This being wonderland, everything has a strange twist - your gun isn't a gun, but a pepper grinder; you can leave clockwork rabbit toys behind as bombs, and detonate them remotely to gain access to other areas; you've got a grenade launcher shaped like a teapot; and, of course, you can shrink yourself, after you've drunk the potion marked "drink me".
In fact, shrinking yourself is also how Alice gets hints as to what lies ahead.
Press the LB, and with a hiccup, you'll shrink to pocket sized, where things look... different, somehow. From the smaller perspective, scrawled writing becomes visible on the walls, with giant arrows often pointing you in the right direction - and sometimes even whole platforms appearing, giving you access to a ledge that you didn't realise you could reach. But that's not the only benefit of shrinking. Letting you walk through small key holes that have been scattered around the level, there are numerous secret areas to be found - and collectibles, too. From fragment's of Alice's memory, which fill you in on her back story (sort of), to the strange snouts, that hover in the levels, waiting to be plugged with pepper (which often reveals the way to another secret area), there's loads of items waiting to be found. It's not called Wonderland for nothing.
This being Alice, things soon get darker.
Of course, it's not all just exploration and solving semi-puzzles, as Wonderland is a place that can change from an idyllic, well, wonderland to a place of nightmares in a few seconds. It's also populated with a wide variety of baddies, that'll do their best to wreak havoc on your world. From the aforementioned amorphous blobs with blank, dolls faces, to strange boltflies that stick to you, and little green goblins, the combat in Alice: Madness Returns is actually one of the high points. By pressing the Left Trigger, you'll be able to lock onto enemies. X attacks with your most basic weapon, the Vorpal blade, the right trigger fires at enemies further away using your pepper grinder (and because you've likely locked onto them, you won't have to worry about tricky aiming), and other weapons are available on X and Y. There's an interesting counter attack system in here too, where you'll have to wait for an enemy to attack, before dodging out of the way, by pressing the RB to turn into a series of "beautiful butterflies" [/Heimlich], and going in for the kill while they're stunned. The ability to turn into a collection of butterflies at the press of a button, though, is incredibly useful, and has saved our hide on more than one occasion.
Speaking of which, there's an extra helping hand here for when you get low on health, too (which, incidentally, are represented by roses at the top of the screen). With a click of the left analogue stick, you'll be able to enter Alice's Hysteria mode, which, with a guttural scream, turns the screen a shade of grey, and lets you dish out double the damage, at the same time as making you invulnerable. It doesn't always help if you're in a room full of enemies, but it's nice to have that last little fail safe to give you an extra chance when you find yourself knocking on death's door.
In an interesting twist, if you were to buy Alice: Madness Returns first hand, the game actually comes bundled with a code that lets you download a remake of the original game (American McGee's Alice) for free - so you're effectively getting two games for the price of one! Sadly, you'll need to keep your disk in in order to play it (despite having to download it off the store), but it's a nice thought, nonetheless.
That said, there are a few problems awaiting intrepid adventurers who dare to venture into wonderland. For starters, and possibly the most frustrating for a game like this, is that there are so many invisible walls and barriers. See a ledge that has a series of rocks leading up to it, and you likely won't be able to jump up the rocks - an invisible barrier will stop you. There'll be a way up there, but for a game about exploring, it'd be nice if it felt like you could do things how you wanted to, rather than how the game wanted to. The only other complaint, really, is that the collectible pig snouts should really oink louder - apparently, they oink to give you a hint as to where to look, but it's so quiet, you'll be hard pushed to hear it.
In all, though, we feel kind of unfair for even mentioning the pig, as it's such a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things - and there's so little wrong with Alice: Madness Returns. Again, it's one of those rare sort of games that strikes out by being different (even though it's a sequel itself), and no doubt represents a risk for EA, as, after all, there are no space marines, and the story is one of love and loss, with a deranged teenage girl as the protagonist, rather than a conflict over oil in Afghanistan.
It may be a hard sell, but if you've got even the slightest interest in platform games, or are looking for a Tomb Raider-a-like, then you won't go far wrong with Alice: Madness Returns. A dark, but enthralling journey into Wonderland, this is one you won't want to pass up.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
