Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
EA Games

American McGee's Alice does for Lewis Carroll what Nirvana did for music hall. Alice has been summoned back to Wonderland but things have changed for the worse with bizarre and macabre overtones, although it still features some of the familiar characters such as the white rabbit and a certain grinning Cheshire cat. After seeing the game played on TV on various programmes this was one I was most looking forward to. Alas, disappointment was on the schedule. While you're presented with stylish graphics demonstrating a wickedly dark behaviour and based upon a tweaked version of the Quake III engine, it's let down by Alice's movement, particularly when jumping, which is jerky and as you leap from platform to platform it's all too easy to fall between the cracks and hit the ground below, unless you're unlucky enough to tumble into a bottomless pit.

A smart and atmospheric score has been created by Nine Inch Nails' founder member Chris Vrenna. At times it can be a tad overbearing though. If it wasn't enough to control Alice as she stilts her way about the screen, it's compounded by the difficulty level which is too high even early on, one such screen involving you to hop across a semi-collapsed floor, climb a staircase and walk back across a tilting platform. Might not be so bad if it wasn't blowing a force 10 gale while two spooks shoot at you. Overall, if you get a chance to try before you buy then do so. However, it's the playability and the basic linear style of the game just sees you travelling from point A to point B ad infinitum which lets everything down and puts me off.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

This game was played on a PC with the following spec:
Intel PIII 600Mhz, 128Mb RAM (133 Mhz), Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, Soundblaster Live! 1024.