GamePro: Visionary game designer American McGee guides us through the trajectory of his career and how it has all led up to his new macabre take on Lewis Carroll's fairytale, Alice: Madness Returns.
A defining theme in Lewis Carroll’s timeless fairytale, the premise of introducing the ordinary to the extraordinary stayed something of an ever-present idea during my overseas trek to developer Spicy Horse’s Shanghai-based doorstep. And while my thirteen-hour plane ride initially proved somewhat less whimsical than Alice’s tumble down the rabbit hole, pre-packaged airline food standing in for shrinking potions and a repeat viewing of Did You Hear About the Morgans? subbing for nonsensical Jabberwocky prose, that description of "extraordinary" became substantially more justified upon arrival at the lively Chinese metropolis.
Reviewing Alice: Madness Returns almost feels like a rite of passage for me. You see, I'm from the same town as the childhood home of Charles Dodgson, better known to you and I by his pen-name, Lewis Carroll. As such, he's a bit of a local culture icon.
I played Alice: Madness Returns for the first time last year. What an amazing game and adventure. It's a huge shame we aren't getting a sequel to it. It absolutely deserves another game.
oh yeah, I remember this game! I remember liking it, but found the platforming to be utterly obnoxious. Loved the world design.
Good review!
Of course Sunset Overdrive gets a nod. It's Insomniac!
I personally think there's better on gamepass then what was listed. State of decay imo is better then anything listed. Recore seemed alright for what I played on there also.
Odd that he specified 'Game Pass Ultimate' instead of just 'Game Pass' just so he could include a relatively weak choice comparably in 'Alice: Madness Returns' which is available with EA Play. SoD was a far better overlooked game to have listed.
From Games Radar: "Alice: Madness Returns has been removed from Steam just months after fans fought to get the creepy horror back onto Valve's PC platform.
The sequel was removed from sale back in 2016 following a DRM problem, an issue that kept the game off Steam for a full five years. It was finally reinstated in February 2022, only for fans to notice that, once again, it had been mysteriously pulled again earlier this month.
The game's Steam page says "at the request of the publisher, Alice: Madness Returns is no longer available for sale on Steam", but that's a standard disclaimer that doesn't really tell us very much. "