Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to the 2000 Windows and Mac video game American McGee’s Alice. McGee, who designed the original game, returns to design the sequel after EA partnered with McGee’s studio Spicy Horse.
Alice: Madness Returns takes place 11 years after the events of the first installment, the same amount of time between the two games’ releases. Alice was released from Rutledge’s Insane Asylum at the end of the original game – now she lives in Victorian London under the care of a psychiatrist.
However, Alice’s traumatic memories of her parents’ deaths in a fire continue to haunt her. She begins to experience previously repressed memories that indicate that the fire which claimed her parents’ lives – which in the original game was seen to have been caused by a cat knocking over an oil lamp near the fireplace – may not have been accidental.
However, the stress caused by regaining these lost memories has caused her hallucinations and internal struggle to increase in severity, and she returns to Wonderland, hoping to find security and comfort.
Unfortunately, Wonderland has once again become warped by her growing insanity and she must save its residents – and herself – from the evil that is taking over Wonderland. She also embarks on finding the true cause of her family’s mysterious deaths.
New and old characters appear in the game. Alice is the main protagonist, armed with several unique weapons including her trademark Vorpal Blade, the Gatling gun-like Pepper Grinder, the Hobby Horse, a heavy-hitting melee weapon, the explosive Clockwork Bomb, and the grenade-launching Teapot Cannon.
New characters try and influence Alice’s psyche, including Doctor Bumby, Alice’s London psychiatrist who uses hypnotism in his work, elderly Nurse Witless, and Radcliffe, a kind, obese lawyer.
Doctor Wilson, Alice’s psychiatrist during her time in Rutledge Asylum, also returns.
It’s still too early for game ratings but so far, online communities and other sites are already looking forward for this game.
Alice: Madness Returns was released weeks ago and is available in Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
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