American McGee's Alice Hands-On

Electronic Arts is usually quite forthcoming when it comes to revealing information about its upcoming games. However, the company has kept its collective lips sealed about American McGee's Alice, the dark adaption of Lewis Carroll's children's book.

While the game wasn't being shown on the show floor, we were given a behind-closed-doors look at Alice, and we walked away impressed. Alice's environment is certainly a perverted version of the Disney movie. According to the designers at Rogue Entertainment (the game's developer), the artists took pictures of Victorian architecture and twisted it into the various models and levels that populate the game. The introduction shows Alice rocking back and forth in an insane asylum when she's suddenly visited by the White Rabbit. He tells her of the Dark Queen's return to Wonderland and how the inhabitants of the land have tried with no success to defeat her and her minions. Wonderland's only hope is the return of Alice.

Visually, the game impresses. The programmers at Rogue have really torn into the Quake III engine that powers Alice and added a lot of their own technology. One particularly interesting technology is the ability to script certain events using the in-game engine. We were shown one scene where a room was pulled apart in real time, forcing Alice to find an alternate route to the exit. The camera angle can also be switched while the game is running, for added cinematic effects. One such example is illustrated when Alice is running away from a boulder down a spiraling cavern. The camera pans away from the over-the-shoulder perspective, revealing Alice from the side. While all this is happening, you still have full control over Alice, adding another level of gameplay (or challenge) to the game.

The entire game is played from a standard third-person perspective, and the gameplay is composed of solving a series of puzzles throughout Alice's levels. You will be able to find nine ranged and melee weapons, all of which have multiple forms of attack. American McGee's Alice is expected to ship this fall.