the return of american mcgee's alice

kite212 · Feb 2009

this is my favorite game of all time, i try to make a point to play through it at least once a yer, and now its back!!!!!!
http://kotaku.com/5156821/the-return-of-american-mcgees-alice-set-for-pc-consoles

JasonLavoie · Feb 2009

Thank god!

Farfarer · Feb 2009

Oh, hell yes!

One of my favourite games, great to see it's coming back

rooster · Feb 2009

very promising..

shotgun · Feb 2009

poh boy oph boy! i hope they brought back derelict and stalecracker on the team, that art was dope!!!

Mark Dygert · Feb 2009

please don't suck... please don't suck...

please do Oz... please do Oz...

ElysiumGX · Feb 2009

Yes! After years of wishful thinking YES!

I beat Alice...which wasn't easy for me. Was a great experience. Awesome levels. I loved the Chess level. It was only limited by the 3D tech of the time, and some bad weapon balancing. I'd love to see what is possible now. If this goes well, maybe he'll finally get the green light to do Oz.

HonkyPunch · Feb 2009

Oh my fucking god oh my fucking god, FUCK.
I am so fucking happy.
I loved mcgee's alice, first computer game I actually fucking finished, left a huge impression on me!

PolyHertz · Feb 2009

Well seeing as the first one is my favorite 3d platformer on PC, think I'll have to keep an eye out for this

Nilium · Feb 2009

I just blew my load. Shit. This is awesome.

Steve Schulze · Feb 2009

Do I have to be that guy? This is McGee working with his Chinese sweatshop studio. We've seen what what that sort of setup results in with Bad Day LA, arguably the worst game released in the last... well ever. Grimm was a step up in that it wasn't a game that immediatly drove players into fits of inconsolable rage, but it still wasn't exactly an amazing title.
Now, maybe EA will force McGee to get his shit together and put out a title that isn't completely awful, but I wouldn't hold me breath. I hope I can be proven wrong, I really do.

Farfarer · Feb 2009

I gotta agree, his games have gone downhill since Alice was first released.

But like you say, hopefully this'll give him the kick he needs to get back on top of it.

RazorBladder · Feb 2009

Let's hope the art style remains true and is just a major quality bump with more Vrenna goodness.

Pray this isn't Bad Day Alice :P

Michael Knubben · Feb 2009

You don't have to be that guy, since you're wrong.

This is his Spicy Horse studio, who made the episodic Grimm game. I haven't had a chance to play it, but I hear positive things about it. Ken Wong is their Art Director, and he's a fantastic artist with a strong style. I'd say it's in good hands, but feel free to disagree.

Also, you're putting your faith in EA? If we're lowering the bar that much, surely McGee's alright as well, no?

Steve Schulze · Feb 2009

I was perhaps a bit harsh on Grimm. It does indeed have a strong art style behind it, but the execution is fairly lacking. Which more or less describes the whole game. It's apparent there are a lot of ideas that have gone into it, they just haven't coalesced into a particularly exciting title. It feels a bit like a student title in that respect.

Still, with a higher budget and a chance for learning what didn't work in previous titles and maybe grabbing a few more artists who can better bring to life the art director's vision, Alice 2 still could be a decent title. Maybe.

Farfarer · Feb 2009

MightyPea wrote: »

Also, you're putting your faith in EA? If we're lowering the bar that much, surely McGee's alright as well, no?

Well, EA Partners are publishing Brutal Legends after Activision dropped it like a hot stone. I've got to respect them for that, at least.

And yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what Ken Wong can bring to the new Alice, as (If I have my history correct) he joined up after the original Alice shipped. Awesome fellow.

Richard Kain · Feb 2009

Wow, I wasn't expecting such a positive response to this announcement. I had never gotten the impression that Alice was all that special. The art style seemed unique, but I never went out of my way to acquire a copy. There's a used book store I regularly look in on that would probably have a copy for a reasonable price. I may have to acquire this title in anticipation of the sequel.

spacemonkey · Feb 2009

I'm excited about this because it can potentially be full of fantastic imagery. Way too many games are still based around our reality for my taste at least, so a fantastical Alice game is somewhat like air to a drowning man.
Bring on the weird!

SinisterUrge · Feb 2009

Looking forward to this, the last game was a classic

gauss · Feb 2009

Grimm was instantly forgettable, despite an attractive style. Worse, it was a strange call back to the days of shitty engines brought up to substandard polish--Grimm felt very thin and cheap, like Shogo/Blood 2 era Lithtech. You know what I'm talking about.

MightyPea wrote: »

Also, you're putting your faith in EA? If we're lowering the bar that much, surely McGee's alright as well, no?

Hate to call you out on this one Pea (and be that, er, the other that guy), but exactly which EA are you trying to hate on, exactly? Last I checked EA was the company that openly said "ok look, we need to do more original IPs and fewer sequels" and then did just that in a startlingly quick turn around, netting us games like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge? Not trying to push their own hopelessly doomed digital distribution and getting their games on Steam?

If you want to hate on the biggest fat cat, that's Activision these days. They command the market. Pumping out expansion after expansion of that most foul WoW, while equally whoring out their Guitar Hero franchise that has long been left behind its original developer. Now that sounds like our old object of affection!

Anti-EA sentiment was so profoundly widespread (for good reason) that despite considerable turn around in quality of product and IP development a lot of people seem to reflexively hate on them now without any real justification. Time to update biases and pet loathings

To the topic: I enjoyed Alice though it was a little too straightjacketed into a conventional action/platformer.
Yet I do not think Mr. Mcgee particularly interesting or relevant. Given that the last several projects he has lent his name to seem intent on not much other than squandering his own credibility.

Michael Knubben · Feb 2009

Gauss: They'll need to do more to have me associate positive feelings with their name, but you have a point. Still, them having published a few good games doesn't convince me they're capable of making someone 'get their shit together'. I think they've shown that they know what makes an average to good game/IP, and by that logic I like to think Alice 2 might turn out alright. Where it lands on the awful-good scale is yet to be seen, though, and part of me is as sceptical as the next guy. The other half is like a naive, hopeful child though, so it sort of evens out.

I was merely saying that pointing out the spotty track-record of American McGee is mildly ironic when you praise EA immediately after. That, and I just got annoyed at someone calling his studio a 'sweatshop' without even knowing which studio was doing the project.

Steve Schulze · Feb 2009

Spicy Horse still uses the same broken philosophy of getting 100% of their art from cheap outsourcing that Mauratania Import Export (or whatever the hell it was called) did. Given that their last title was an (apparently) Unreal 3 Engined game which looked like this (and that's one of the nicer screenshots):
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/906/906639/american-mcgees-grimmthe-girl-without-hands-20080829002314068.jpg
I don't think they've improved markedly.

FAT_CAP · Feb 2009

Never having played any of the previous games apart from Grimm (I wasn't too hot on the gameplay and agree with the other sentiments in the thread) all I can say is: Mmmmmm... Ken wong *drools*

leilei · Feb 2009

Jackablade wrote: »

I don't think they've improved markedly.

Just because they intentionally made a game in that style doesn't mean they are not capable of doing normal maps and more traditional game art styles.
pretty ignorant thinking there. At least it compressed well and kept the filesize down since it was meant to be an episodic series with many, many downloadable episodes. Bloating it up with normal mapped ut3 looks wouldn't be feasible for that market.

Steve Schulze · Feb 2009

The last thing the world needs is another normal mapped game full of space marines. I applaud a game that has a crack at a unique art style. The problem here though is that the execution isn't there. I think it's a reasonable asumption that this can be linked at least partially back to the fact that the art is entirely outsourced.
There are other factors - the small size needed for a downloadable game, as you suggest, is one (though at 200 megabytes it isn't tiny). The necessarily quick turn around time is another. Time will tell which of these factors had the biggest impact on the game's aesthetic and gameplay.

Justin Meisse · Feb 2009

I can't see why Spicy Horse went with the Unreal 3 engine for Grimm, they could of pulled of the same game with less complex and far cheaper engines with the added bonus of running on practically any PC out there. Look at Gravity Bone, that's using the Q2 engine.

Mark Dygert · Feb 2009

Grim could have been a test bed for Alice2?

TWilson · Feb 2009

Cool I loved the art style of the first Alice.

The concept image has me a bit worried. It seems a lot less intimate chess n cards and a lot more god of war with snails. It's still way early tho.

the return of american mcgee's alice

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