Alice Demo

I see this as being "Game of the Year". No one, atleast that I can recall, has been "extradited" from such a high-profile position/company, and created something as risky and ALMOST impossible to pull off.

After you play this demo, do the following:
1) Make a list of all the various design elements (weapons, characters, etc.) that are in the game.
2) Describe the story.
2) Describe the atmosphere.

Now, go through those steps again, but do them out loud. Pretend that you are standing in front of people at EA and are trying to pitch this idea. Hell, image you're Sid Meir and that people will accept just about anything you say and assume you're Christ.

If you actually described this game out loud, didn't you think that it sounded very cool, but extremely risky and far beyond possible to properly pull off?

It seems to me that American McGee MAY have done this. I stress MAY in the point that this is only the demo. Some demos have been great while the game shitty, and also the opposite.

PC Gamer put American in it's new generation of "Game Gods" article recently. At this point, whether or not everyone agrees on the quality of the game, everyone should agree that he's pulled off something that almost no one else could even hope to dream of.

Granted, this game is not perfect. As far as we've seen, there are some flaws, although they are the kind of flaws that are dependent upon what type of gamer you are. If you are a hard-core console-hating PC Gamer, then you may hate this game for all of the jumping skills that are involved (notice I didn't say puzzles, simply because you don't have to actually figure them out). If you are a hard-core PC-hating (WTF are you doing here?) console gamer, then you may hate it for it's ALMOST 1st person control.

But people who appreciate games for what they are, and are willing to accept a few flaws along the ways of genious (yes, I said genious), then you will abso-fucking-lutely love this game, or atleast the demo.

Holy shit I am impressed.

And I LOVE the music (the 3 mp3s in the .pk3).
I've been looking for something like this for months.

It took me almost 6 hours to download this demo (anyone wondering why I buy my games?), but now I am in love.
Although the inability to click away the cat intermissions bug me a little... and the fact that jumping on some stones smaller than Alice while being shot at by giant ants is not exactly "cool"... this is still the most atmospheric game since Aliens versus Predator Multiplayer, imho.

Summary of Alice: FREAKING AWESOME

The graphics are visually AWESOME and you have time to enjoy them. WHile some may not like jumping puzzles the save and restore system if very quick and the puzzles fit the game. I totally loved the chess levels like every body else but i also have to say that ALL the other levels were tremndous and just made you say " WEIRD".

My favorite part is running down the spiral from the ball!

I'll defintely get this game. American McGee has defintely proved himself.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

*Yawn* Third person sucks ass!

someone had to take 500

hey grunt:

http://www.comicboards.com/archie/view.php3?msg=001202141648

oh man! (those who dont want to look, dont look)

spooge.........

This is by far the coolest looking game I've ever played.

As far as people saying the gameplay sucks, grow up. It's not that hard to control. Just because you're used to playing in 1st person view with a perspective of running 50 mph doesn't mean a game with a little more realistic physics can hurt.

Great job on the animations, textures, the physics really aren't that bad (try playing other 3rd person games), and the entire mood of the game has that creepy feel.

And that Alice chick... damn is she a hot lil goth girl. =)

Voice acting is really good :D

Is anyone else having trouble with ominous's ftp?

sigh.....

can't get the thing to run with my monster3d2,although q3 and fakk2 ran well.guess I gotta wait until wickedgl supports it,I guess.

The Q3 engine may be able to do impressive visuals, but I'm yet to see gameplay anywhere near as complex as the stuff in Deus Ex or SS2.....

I'm impressed with the demo. This game has loads and loads of atmosphere. Everything in the game serves to further the universally disturbed aura, from the grotesque Cheshire Cat to the way the ribbons things on Alice's dress bounce. For maximum effect, play this game with the lights off, doors and windows closed, and (surround) sound up. I have never seen maps like Alice's, period. Amazing stuff. The dialogue, while somewhat cheesy, is palatable and doesn't really detract from the game.

As a Quake player, I usually loathe the 3rd-person perspective in any game. In real life, I see out of my eyes, dammit, not from a floating camera following me around. But the 3rd-person in Alice is usable. The camera has some inertia and smoothing to it, which is a little bit disconcerting at first but soon proves itself by compensating for the quick mouse flicks FPS players like me tend to use. I would still much appreciate playing in first-person instead, but this is acceptable.

I am disappointed though, by the the existence of freaking jumping puzzles in the game. Granted, Alice's versions of the jumping puzzle are imaginative, but they are still jumping puzzles. I have never seen anybody praise jumping puzzles in any review of any game recently. I have never talked to anyone else who enjoys them. I personally hate them. Does anybody actually like jumping puzzles? I didn't think so. So why do they appear in Alice? Thank goodness for the really fast quickload times.

I also found myself wishing for a sniper weapon early in the game, instead of first a knife, then a stick that shoots random bouncing goo (kinda like Daikatana...sad). Those card guards are tough to defeat with only a knife. But we like a challenge, don't we? Alice certainly gave me one. Apparently Alice can't hold her breath for more than a few seconds, or climb up vines either (would someone like to enlighten me?). Also she has an incredible propensity, when hanging off a ledge, to not want to climb up, no matter what keys I hit.

There will certainly be an audience who enjoys this game. Those of you who can adjust to the quirks of the game and enjoy gameplay that mainly involves jumping around properly will find Alice a lot of fun. The atmosphere is what makes this game. If you want an immersive game, Alice is the way to go. If you're a hard-core Quakehead, you might find this game a bit difficult to adjust to. All the same, this is an impressive effort by McGee and company. I'm looking forward to more of his and Rogue's work.

* N O M U L T I P L A Y E R ' D *

This game is neeto. The alternate fire for the bomb thingy is especially spiff.

Finally got it.

First impression (played about 30 minutes):

Really good sound and music. Totally sets the mood. I even turned on the rear speakers to use my A3D card (which almost never gets used anymore).

Graphics and artwork are excellent. It's nice seeing what the Q3 engine can really do when frames per second isn't a primary concern. The water effect is pretty slick as is the weird vortex/sky shit on that level where the floor is broken up and you have to hop around to get across. Good stuff.

Gameplay is about what I expected from a third person game. The controls are pretty good as far as the genre goes but the jumps can still be annoying. Not extremely hard or anything. Just mildly irritating at times. I think you drown WAY to fast too. I haven't actually drown to death yet but it would be nice to be able to look around a few seconds longer when you're underwater.

I like it so far. I'm on the part where you have to run from the boulder indiana jones style. I assume I'm probably close to the end just judging by how retardly short game demos are these days. Haven't decided if I'll buy it or not yet. Depends on if the demo ends as soon as I think it will. I haven't seen enough yet to convince me to buy it but maybe there's more to go than I think there will be. If it does end soon without any kind of "omg i gotta have this" hook at the end I might still get it when it hits the discount shelf. I'm hoping there's at least another level after the one I'm on...

Anyway, congrats to American and Rogue. Looks like they pulled off what they were aiming for. Not really my style of game but I'll play it a while longer and see if I get hooked.

hrmm... WOW. I am partially eating my words, when I first heard of this game I thought it would suck ass. The visuals kick ass, a3d sound kicks ass, this game has ATMOSPHERE, sucks you in a bit(not like doom, but nothing ever will again). Now if I could only play this first person I would keep playing the demo and buy the game, this third person sucks ass, ruins an otherwise great game (for me anyway)

OK.. I am gunna snap!

I installed the demo, and it loads up until after the "American McGee's Alice" logo, then it dumps me back to windows with some open GL error.. I tried updating my video drivers, but it didnt help!

I am using a TNT1 card, if it matters..

sooooooo.. can anyone help me out?

-Mung

Awesome dark feeling. It needs a Danny Elfman soundtrack to be perfect though.

K guys i finally found the fps cmd...just type "fps 1" in the console

man my framerate sux in this game

K guys i finally found the fps cmd...just type "fps 1" in the console

man my framerate sux in this game

This game fucking bites. The graphics and sound and idea are fantastic but the gameplay is "oh my god fucking horrible". The 'hard' difficulty isn't really hard, just uniminaginably fucking annoying. The placement of some of the enemies results in near invulnerability--I could only pass a couple of spots due to a lucky glitch in the physics. There was no way in hell I could kill those fucking frogs because you drown almost instantly, you run out of magic faster than you drown, and you die even quicker than that.

Sorry but if you're going to play this game, definately don't pay for it. That five minutes of pure disgust would not be worth more than 25 or 30 cents at most.

Attempting to play on any difficulty above "easy" is like shoving nails in your balls. This demo is 85mb and represents about 5% of a decent game. If you have a modem I feel really sorry for you.

Kyle

Geezus. Gotta love the quake3 engine. NOLF is a great game, but when Jason Hall says the Lith engine is as good as anything else out there, and then I see the Quake3 engine do this... I just gotta laugh.

Someone, anyone, give Carmack some competition...

Of course mad props to the Rogue guys for busting out some awesome artwork/content/mood....

dont know if I'll buy it tho - these types of games arent my cup o tea really

/me Dls demo at 179k/s.

Fine piece of work - just a bit hard. But for all of you who complained about TA, there's lots of levels here...

and again no one speaks
they are all playing alice...the demo or the extended demo

theres 750+ of you on... now post!