5 reviews
Alice: Madness Returns
Return to Wonderland and experience an all new nightmare as Alice fights to regain her sanity as she fights for the truth behind her past. Can Alice save Wonderland - and herself - from the madness that consumes them both?
Details
- Released
- June 13, 2011
- Developer
- Spicy Horse Games
- Genres
- Platform · Puzzle · Hack and slash/Beat 'em up · Quiz/Trivia · Adventure
- Publisher
- Electronic Arts
How it plays
Time to beat · 6 player times (IGDB)
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Alice: Madness Returns Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
Alice is traumatised by memories of her parent's death, an act which she believes herself responsible for. As Alice battles with her memories, she's sucked into a changed Wonderland, affected by a Gothic train which is a metaphor for the character's broken grip on reality.
If you miss the classic 3D platformer and like games with a heavy dose of surrealism, you could do a lot worse than give Alice: Madness Returns a shot.
On one hand, Alice: Madness Returns 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. Alice: Madness Returns is a memorable peek through a flawed looking glass.
It’s just such a shame that everything really starts to get repetitive once you hit the third chapter in the game. You’ll fight with the camera with floaty platforming sections, fight the same damn mini-bosses, pull levers to lower a target to shoot that will allow you to reach more levers to pull, and more enemies to fight. You’ll fight with the camera with floaty platforming sections, fight the same damn mini-bosses, pull levers to lower a target to shoot that will allow you to reach more levers to pull, and more enemies to fight.
Alice: Madness Returns may not win awards for genre innovation, but it’s the most darkly fun and gloriously batty game I’ve played since Psychonauts. I can’t think of any higher praise. I’ve now come to the end, so I’ll stop.
The story behind Alice in Wonderland is quite widely known – or is it? This macabre twist on the classic tale sees an altogether more sinister version of events unfold. Anyone familiar with the original title will probably know what to expect, though this version actually pulls even fewer punches. This is a journey not only into Wonderland but also into the fractured mind of Alice herself, though perhaps those two things are indeed one and the same.