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Alice: Madness Returns |OT|

Hypatia

Member
Zeliard said:
To the side? The yellow icon should be appearing right above their heads. I agree with the camera issues, though. It often gets caught in geometry or whatnot and doesn't always center itself behind Alice when you're locked on, which can be a bit annoying.

Oh I guess that's just an annoying Eyefinity glitch then >_< Bah.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
This game is UE3, right?

If so, they need to get this hair tech out to every other developer pronto.

For the next-gen, que up another spreadsheet of 30 something Antonio Banderas/Fabio style male protagonists....

Got the trophy today for floating 7 minutes onto a vent. I loaded up chapter 4, got Alice on a vent and enjoyed the scenery for 7 minutes, so relaxing....
 

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
Amir0x said:
ok this game seriously keeps getting better. My opinion of it is more and more positive.

It's extremely content packed for a single player game. It has mostly wonderful art direction. It has extremely solid platforming mechanics. I have no problem with the camera. The combat becomes somewhat more varied when you get all your tools, thus eventually becoming one of the rare 'decent' combat systems in a platforming/action hybrid game I've ever played. There's lots of wonderful little secrets. The cutscenes also got this rad style to them.

The only real problem I have at this point is checkpoints are extremely oddly placed, sometimes cutting back super far. And I suspect this is only an issue for me because I'm playing on Nightmare and so I actually died twice, which is basically usually impossible for me in games like this. Usually I never die.

I am moving my score up to 8.5 now. I am starting feel that the critics have played a completely different game. Maybe they accidentally played the first Alice in a drunken stupor.

JRW said:
Finished it today, Such an amazing game IMO.. Think Ill play through it again since it offers a New Game+ except this time in Nightmare mode.

Definitely started having more fun once I connected my PS3 controller especially when surrounded by 4 or 5 enemies, It felt a little to cumbersome with mouse + key.

TehOh said:
Played through all of chapter 4 last night.

Holy crap. Chapter 4 is godly throughout. Not a bad moment in there (except that I hated the camera angle for the
executioner chase
scenes).

The art direction for the first section (in the air with the cards) was absolutely stunning, and the
giant Alice
parts were really fun.

Wow. Can't wait to make my way through chapter 5.

Aeana said:
This game. I just started chapter 4. I looove Alice's dress in chapter 4!
Chapter 3 dragged on for a while, but while I recognized that it had been going on for-ev-er, I still didn't seem to mind so much. I just can't stop playing the game. It has so many issues, and I guess (I hate to use this word) jank, but it doesn't seem to matter at all. It's just so enthralling.


<3 comments like these warms my heart.

Alice: Madness Returns deserve the love.



TehOh said:
Chapter 5 is insane! Also, super creepy.

Yeah, it was like American McGee's Silent Hill.
 
Emonga said:
Inject_Me_by_MarcSimonetti.jpg

for a moment I thought the syringe said "Kinect me" -_-

drugs are bad mmmkay.
 

Zeliard

Member
Totobeni said:
Yeah, it was like American McGee's Silent Hill.

I'd buy that game. McGee and his artists nail an unnerving atmosphere without almost even trying just in their depiction of Victorian London. I spent a bit of time going into that first-person mode and just staring at all the faces of the various "humans." They're no less creepy and off-putting than anything found in Wonderland itself, if not even more, which is clearly purposeful and very effective.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Nemesis556 said:
Just how fucking amazing is the physics on Alice herself in this game? I've just loaded up my game while I do a bit of surfing, and having Alice just stand there and see both HER HAIR and her DRESS blowing in the wind so realistically is mind boggling.

I love it when little things like this are done oh-so-right

The hair is probably the best I've ever seen in a game. The dress, not so much. Looks weird the way it bunches up.

Those fucking oysters crack me up in this game

Emonga said:
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/216/0/4/Inject_Me_by_MarcSimonetti.jpg

I am against injecting shit on principle but I would so inject shit if it let me go to Wonderland.
 

JohngPR

Member
Has anyone else ordered the art book directly from the Alice store, and if so has it shipped?

They had said that they would ship on the 24th and my order still says "Pending Fulfillment".

:(
 

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
JohngPR said:
Has anyone else ordered the art book directly from the Alice store, and if so has it shipped?

They had said that they would ship on the 24th and my order still says "Pending Fulfillment".

:(

Well..it's available on stock at Amazon.com now, can't you cancel it from Alice Store and get one from Amazon.com?
 

JaxJag

Banned
I finished Alice: Madness Returns earlier last week. The game is this year's Darksiders for me, just a very well made game that does a lot right, and sort of came out of nowhere.

I only have a few complaints with Alice. One of which, is the voice acting. While the performances weren't bad by any means, all the characters' performances just came across as sort of forgettable.

And one or two of the levels overstayed their welcome by a little. Also, the two sections in chapter 5 where you play as the rolling head probably should have been left out.

Other than that, I couldn't recommend the game more to people who are looking for something that's not just another shooter.
 

jcm

Member
Nemesis556 said:
I forced myself to. It was a terrible mistake. It feels really dated, the worlds don't feel alive at all and the complete lack of story makes it hard to be interested and trudge through.

I would recommend reading the recaps in the actual game menus, but maybe steer clear of the original Alice unless you enjoy it past the first hour or so.

It really hasn't aged well at all.

Thanks. I'll just stick it in the backlog.
 
Thanks for anyone who found that Amazon's deal. I purchased Alice for the PC. I kind of fixed my PC. I'm using the other graphic card (I have a dual-card build). I'm hoping this card will be able to play Alice well and with the pretty flairs.
 

JohngPR

Member
Totobeni said:
Well..it's available on stock at Amazon.com now, can't you cancel it from Alice Store and get one from Amazon.com?

My wife ordered it for me for Father's Day. I suppose I could have her cancel it and order it on Amazon...but I did kind of like that the Alice Store version she ordered comes signed by American Mcgee and Ken Wong.

I noticed that they have since stopped taking orders for the signed version of the art book so it'd be kind of cool to have a signed copy.

:)
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
Going to buy it at some point, just waiting for the Steam summer sale to see if it gets a decent drop.
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
JohngPR said:
Has anyone else ordered the art book directly from the Alice store, and if so has it shipped?

They had said that they would ship on the 24th and my order still says "Pending Fulfillment".

:(

The 24th date changed to the 28th the day after I ordered a signed copy of the art book. Hope it ships next week then, I want a signed copy of that art book.

Amir0x said:
Those fucking oysters crack me up in this game

Those goddamn oysters (nude-looking oysters with garterbelts!) disturbed me more than anything else in the game so far :lol
 
Saw a new issue of Game Informer at a friends house, I checked it out to see if they had reviewed "Madness Returns", they had, and it was embarrassing to read.

It takes the reviewer forever to get to anything relevant, he only starts talking about jumping controls in the 6th (of 8) paragraphs. He calls the combat simple, because it doesn't have air combos like Devil May Cry or God of War.

Then, after he finally gets around to assessing jumping controls, you know, in a review for a platformer. He says the game gets too hard at the end because you have to "milk every bit of distance out of the glide" and the "triple jump".

There's actually a quadruple jump, at this point I can't tell if he's failing to properly describe the move-set or if he actually failed to ever use his last jump, throughout the entirety of the game. Either way it doesn't end up looking very good for him, either he can't count to four or he wrote that review with a great fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanics at play.

I wonder if he would've been less frustrated, and would've wrote a more positive review had he known. I also wonder how many other reviewers made the same mistake.

Everyone buy Alice and tell your friends, if they like having fun, they should buy it too!
 

painey

Member
game is $35 on kmarts website.. just wondering if their online offers are offered in store seeing as I might be heading to a kmart tomorrow..?
 

Zeliard

Member
Duke Nuke Forever is actually a pretty bad game. Any critic who says something to the effect of "if you enjoy this game you are a piece of shit," as some have, is a total asshole, but that is just not a good game.

Alice, on the other hand, is a legitimately strong title getting shafted for strange reasons inconsistent with the way other games are appraised, but hey.
 

jersoc

Member
amazon use to refund the difference, but their policy isn't to anymore.

you can at least try, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Zeliard said:
Duke Nuke Forever is actually a pretty bad game. Any critic who says something to the effect of "if you enjoy this game you are a piece of shit," as some have, is a total asshole, but that is just not a good game.

It's not a great game by any means, but it's nowhere near 3/10 levels of bad. It's closer to something like 6/10 IMO.
 
Combichristoffersen said:
It's not a great game by any means, but it's nowhere near 3/10 levels of bad. It's closer to something like 6/10 IMO.

Game reviewer 6/10 or actual 6/10? Because game reviewer 6/10 is actual 3/10 ;)
 

Zeliard

Member
Combichristoffersen said:
It's not a great game by any means, but it's nowhere near 3/10 levels of bad. It's closer to something like 6/10 IMO.

If we're using the full scale I honestly think it is closer to 3/10. The game does not do a single thing well, and I was a big Duke3D fan. I even jumped into Duke Nukem Forever after it had been trashed to hell and back, thinking, "well I'm sure I'll find something of worth here." Nope. The humor is awful, level design is several steps back, they picked up the dogshit FPS trends like regen health and 2-weapon limits, and it generally just feels half-baked in every respect.

Judging it given its crazy development, I wouldn't be nearly as harsh given what it went through, but as a $50/$60 product it is just poor.

The problem with the Duke Forever reviews isn't the low scores, it's the content, specifically the ones who feel the need to disparage anyone who does enjoy the game. That's far more obnoxious than anything found in the game itself.
 
All the price drops really make me feel like this game must not be selling well :( . Wasn't the first one a hit? I really hope that this can be a slow burn success, through word of mouth.
 

Zeliard

Member
EchosMyron1 said:
All the price drops really make me feel like this game must not be selling well :( . Wasn't the first one a hit? I really hope that this can be a slow burn success, through word of mouth.

It probably isn't selling well. It's inherently niche and it's gotten raked over the coals by game reviewers. The metacritic for the 360 version, which has the most reviews, didn't even hit 70.

This is a game that will have to live by whatever positive word-of-mouth it can garner on places like GAF and elsewhere, as well as various sales. It's unfortunate but it's just the reality of it.
 

slit

Member
Well I was on the fence about getting this, but I think I will. It seems like one of those games that is either completely hated or loved and when that happens I'm usually in the "love" category and since I loved the original I think this a definite pickup for me.
 
slit said:
Well I was on the fence about getting this, but I think I will. It seems like one of those games that is either completely hated or loved and when that happens I'm usually in the "love" category and since I loved the original I think this a definite pickup for me.

i'm not even sure how someone can hate this game. well, i suppose if you absolutely hate platforming games you might. if you can tolerate them at all then i can't see any hate for this game
 
All the praise around here is making me consider this, that and the whole 3D platforming thing which I don't see enough of nowadays. But my accursed cheapskate side is telling me to wait for a price drop.
 

MrMephistoX

Gold Member
EchosMyron1 said:
All the price drops really make me feel like this game must not be selling well :( . Wasn't the first one a hit? I really hope that this can be a slow burn success, through word of mouth.
Bought because of the sale but I hope the price drop boosts sales overall. It might be a nice signal to devs that certain games shouldn't have a $60 tag out of the gate. $50 was fine for triple and double A alike last gen. Now if Child of Eden would just take the hint...
 
Yeah I don't think you can assume anything from price drops considering that most games drop by $10 - 20 within a fortnight of release. Hell most games I buy on Steam are on sale from the day of release, it doesn't mean much.
 
MNC said:
Wow, bomba? :/

How important is 1 for the story?

OldManMurray said:
Here's the story, straight from the manual:

[American McGee's Alice's] brains have been pasteurized!

Now [Alice's] super Superego is all that stands between [Alice] the Megahero and [Alice] the fruitloop.

[Alice's] Superhero Superego must seek out the golden udders of lucidity that lie deep within [her] cow struck cranium. Will [she] find the magical teats in time? Or will [she] teeter off the edge of sanity?

To make things worse, [Alice's] churning imagination has released the cream of evil villainy, and they are hellbent on preventing [her] regaining [her] mental balance.

For those of you currently nodding your "American McGee #1 Genius" foam Pope hats, I'd like to point out that that almost perfect summary of Alice's edgy plot comes courtesy of the Earthworm Jim 3D manual. Other than replacing the words "Earthworm Jim" with the word "Alice", I haven't touched it. You can thank McGee's actually probably quite brilliant publicists that we won't all be not watching Wes Craven's Earthworm Jim 3D next Christmas. And you can thank me for the crazy wording on that sentence.

http://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/57.html
 

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
MNC said:
Wow, bomba? :/

How important is 1 for the story?

Well it's kinda important , but you can skip the first game, there is a full recap text, and the game tell you most the thing you need to know.
 
So while I think the reviews were definitely off, I think there are a few legitimate complaints about the game.

Like, I feel the lock-on system is crazy. It should center the camera on enemy and then make them the focal point, so I'm circle-strafing around them. This would make general crowd control so much easier. I find sometimes that I died because I bothered to target an enemy and couldn't get the camera to show me everything else.

I also think the game kind of needs to take it easy on the off-screen AI. Enemies will occasionally just leap from ten feet away with an attack. Yeah, it's part of the difficulty, but it's contradictory with the way the battle system works a lot of the times. It's even possible to get stun-locked when there are enough enemies.
 

Aeana

Member
I've seen a lot of praise for chapter 5... but I really, really disliked it.
The 'above ground' parts with the dull colors were really unappealing visually, and the 'under ground' parts with the wood and dark areas were I guess a little more interesting but still fairly boring after a while.
All around unappealing to me, at any rate, and I'm glad to be done with it. The first unfun time I've had with the game so far. :\
 

B-Dex

Member
Aeana said:
I've seen a lot of praise for chapter 5... but I really, really disliked it.
The 'above ground' parts with the dull colors were really unappealing visually, and the 'under ground' parts with the wood and dark areas were I guess a little more interesting but still fairly boring after a while.
All around unappealing to me, at any rate, and I'm glad to be done with it. The first unfun time I've had with the game so far. :\

I still had fun in chapter 5 but compared to chapter 4, it wasn't nearly as good.
 
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