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American McGee's Alice

The Specs

Taking Lewis Carroll's famous children's story as his starting point, former id level and sound designer American McGee is creating an action game played from a third person perspective. His basic concept is to make it as dark as Carroll's original vision with no connection whatsoever to Disney's bright and cheerful interpretation. Since there's no multiplayer support, the developers are obviously aiming for a rich single player game in a weird setting (cf. FAKK2). Alice weilds weapons based on toys to fight beside and against vaguely familiar creatures in surreal settings.

The Speculation

Mark's Comments: It's the Americanization of Alice, swapping tea for TNT and taking something so coy, clever, logical, and unmistakably British and redoing it with knives and blowtorches. What's next for American McGee? Jesus with a BFG instead of the loaves and fishes? Maybe I'll just curl up with a good book and let my imagination roam amid some well-turned sentences instead of polygons in McGee's "sadistic Wonderland."

Tom's Comments: If a game can't be good, it should at least be weird, which is what the developers seem to have in mind here. I also have to give it points for one of the ballsiest titles in the business. Of course, if I had a cool name like American McGee, I'd put it on a game, too. It's worth noting that Mr. McGee, who's credited with the basic concept, is essentially the producer while the yeoman's work of creating the game is being done by Rogue Entertainment in Texas. Considering Rogue's excellent work with the Quake 2 engine in that game's expansion packs, Dissolution of Eternity and Ground Zero, this bodes well for Alice.

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