Alice gets pulled back into the amazing looking Wonderland, only to find it`s been plagued by extreme repetitiveness.
After the events of the first game, Alice wakes up from her coma, is finally released from the asylum, and now she`s living in an orphanage. However she`s not really healed yet, she wants to remember what happened during the night of the fire that killed all of her family, but those memories are repressed deep within her mind. After certain events take place she find herself back in wonderland, but it`s not as she left it though. Wonderland is being consumed by some kind of corruption, and since Wonderland is inside her mind, that corruption or "ruin" is threatening to drive her crazy. So in order to get to those memories and save herself, she has to save Wonderland.
The art style is where Madness Returns really shines. The art team has done a great job in avoiding the plastic look of the Unreal engine, and everything looks hand-drawn and unique. In many areas of the game you`ll just stop and look around appreciating how awesome everything looks. It`s simply a beautiful game.
On the technical side, the PC version features one of the best PhysX implementations ever done in a game. It`s not just some extra fancy particle effects that no one will notice, it completely changes the game. I don`t even know how to describe it, but if your video card can handle it, you`re in for a treat.
The game world is divided into several domains or areas, each one is controlled by an important character from Wonderland. Like the Mad Hatter domain, or the queen`s land. Each new domain introduces a couple or more of new enemies, while still having the older enemies that you encountered in previous levels.
The combat is initially very fun, as each type of enemies needs to be killed in a specific way. Like a giant fish that dives underground, and you have to hit the ground with the melee weapon to bring it out, and then attack it normally. Usually you are surrounded with many types of enemies at the same time, so you`ll find yourself constantly switching between your weapons.
But while things get refreshing whenever a new enemy is introduced, as time goes on you`ll be fighting the same enemies again and again.
The first weapon you`ll find is the vorpal blade, which is the only returning weapon from the previous game. It`s a fast melee weapon that lets you hack your way quickly through enemies. As you play though the game, you`ll acquire three new weapons.
The pepper grinder, which basically works like a machine gun with an overheating meter. A teapot cannon, which is a grenade launcher that shoots what looks like giant hot balls of tea that blows up upon impact and splashes it`s damage to the surrounding area as well. And finally, the hobby horse, which is a big melee weapon. It`s slow, but it lets you deliver really powerful blows to your enemies. There`s no way to block enemies attacks, but you can use the 'E' key to deflect projectiles with an umbrella!
Each weapons has four levels of upgrades that improves its efficiency and damage, you buy those upgrades by spending teeth. There are 2 types of teeth, the white ones, and the rare golden teeth; which is worth multiple normal ones. Teeth are mostly scattered around the game world in plain sight. But they`re also found inside breakable objects, hidden areas, and dropped by dead enemies.
When your health drops really low, and you`re one hit away from death, you can press Enter to go into hysteria mode. With a shock wave sweeping across the world, everything turns black and white, with only blood being colored in vivid red. It only lasts for a few seconds, but during it you can`t die, your damage is increased, and your weapons don`t overheat. While it`s fun, it feels like cheating. Because instead of trying to run away or trying to find some roses to fill your health, you just fix everything with a button press.
The level design is amazing in an artistic way, as there`s no two rooms or areas that look the same. But looking deep enough you`ll realize that it`s just a facade to the copy/pasted gameplay, and the horrible way you flow through the level. Your usually very simple route through the level is often hindered by too many identical puzzles. The puzzles themselves aren`t bad, but when you`re doing the exact same puzzle for the 8th time, it`s just not fun anymore. Even when the game takes an unexpected turn into some really fun levels, like when the game turns into a side scrolling adventure, or making you control a ball through a maze, it still falls in the same repetitiveness trap by repeating those levels endless times through the game.
As soon as you enter a new domain, you`re instantly amazed by the great art style and how different it looks from the other domains. But every level really drags on, and soon enough you`re hating it and wishing it would just stop!
When you`re not killing enemies, you`ll be jumping around the level on platforms, using levers, or flying up on jets of steam or water. You can do a double or triple jump by pressing the space key while in mid-air, or glide by holding it down. Both are ways to extend your jump distance and make the platforming more fun.
Unfortunately, as with everything else in the game, it never evolves. Weather you`re in a dark factory with lava flowing beneath you, in the queen`s land where everything is made of playing cards, or underwater with fish swimming around, you`re still doing the exact same things, killing the same enemies, and doing the same puzzles.
One of the new features in Madness Returns is the ability to shrink at anytime you want. You do this by holding down the Ctrl key. While shrunk, you can see things that you can`t otherwise in your normal size. Like invisible platforms floating in the air, or some hints on the walls drawn by the insane children. it also allows you to go through keyhole tunnels that leads to secret rooms with hidden stuff in them.
There are lots of hidden collectibles that urges you to explore every corner of the game`s amazing looking environment. The memories are the important ones since they add many small details to the story, and the hidden bottles just contributes to your completion percentage. Besides memories and bottles, there`s also a couple of secret rooms hidden through each level. When you complete the challenge inside them you`re awarded a quarter of a red rose. four of those and you get a health upgrade. Though here the game`s biggest flaw - repetitiveness - is most obvious. Since these "challenges" are only either kill all enemies, or survive their attack for a few seconds, which gets boring really fast.
The game comes with a copy of the first game, American McGee`s Alice. If you skip it due to the outdated graphics, then you`ll be missing on a game that is superior to Madness Returns in every way. It`s much longer, yet you`l never find yourself bored or doing the same thing twice. There`s a great variety in weapons and enemies. And it`s filled with puzzles that requires you to think, not slide some boxes around. Also it has a much better story that actually makes sense.
In short. Alice Madness returns features great graphics, decent story, amazing art style, and really fun combat. But it`s twice longer than what it should`ve been. Which really drags on and starts to make everything look boring and bland.