American McGee's Alice

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American McGee's Alice
Box of American McGee's Alice

Original North American box-art
Developer(s) Rogue Entertainment
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Designer(s) American McGee
Composer(s) Chris Vrenna
Engine id Tech 3
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Mac OS X, PlayStation 2 (canceled)
Release date(s) October 6, 2000
Genre(s) Horror, Action-adventure, Platform
Mode(s) Single-player
Rating(s) ESRB: M (Mature)
OFLC: MA 15+
Media CD
System requirements Mac OS 8.6 or later, 400 MHz PowerPC G3, 128 MB RAM, ATI Rage 128 or NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 8 MB VRAM or better, 150 MB hard drive space.

American McGee's Alice is a third-person action PC video game released on October 6, 2000, which takes place in the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland universe. It was developed by Rogue Entertainment and published, distributed and marketed by Electronic Arts, and under the Sold-Out Software label as well. Alice was designed by American McGee, and features music composed by Chris Vrenna.

The game is based on the Quake III Arena engine. A PlayStation 2 port was also in development but was later canceled causing Rogue Entertainment to shut down, a decision which infuriated McGee[citation needed] The box art of the game was altered after its release, allegedly due to complaints received by Electronic Arts from various consumer groups, although McGee has stated that the alteration was because of internal apprehension within Electronic Arts, and not from outside.[1] The original box art showed Alice holding a bloody vorpal sword. The altered version instead showed Alice holding the Icewand, as well as toning down the Cheshire Cat's skeletal anatomy. A third version showed Alice holding the Cards in her hands.

Set years after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the game features an older, more cynical and macabre incarnation of Alice.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Shortly after her second adventure, Alice's house is burned down by a fire, killing her parents, and leaving her as the only survivor. Because of the guilt, she tries to commit suicide (bandages can be seen on her wrists), and becomes catatonic. She is institutionalised in Rutledge Asylum. Years later, the White Rabbit summons Alice to aid a radically altered Wonderland, now under the despotic rule of the Queen of Hearts. The Cheshire Cat serves as Alice's companion throughout the game, frequently appearing to guide her with cryptic comments.

[edit] Setting

The game's setting presents a considerably more macabre rendition of Wonderland than that of Lewis Carroll's original portrayal. Wonderland, being a creation of Alice's mind, has been corrupted by her insanity.

The new Wonderland is composed of nine provinces. When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she finds herself in the Village of the Doomed, the home of the Torch Gnomes. The Village of the Doomed is composed of a network of tunnels and caves, patrolled by the Queen of Hearts' card guards. Beyond the subterranean village is the Fortress of Doors, where the main attraction is a school of insane but harmless children. Within the school lies an ancient book of recipes for magic potions, as well as the ingredients for one concoction in particular which will be useful to Alice.

World map of Wonderland

Across a rough, uncharted landscape from the fortress lies the Vale of Tears. This is where a few of Alice's friends, the Mock Turtle and Bill McGill, as well as the apparently-cannibalistic Duchess reside. Apart from the giant river that runs throughout the lush scenic route (one of Wonderland's few), there is also an underwater location accessible through a well inside Bill McGill's house, though this well is sealed until the Duchess is slain.

Beyond the Vale of Tears lies Wonderland Woods, one of the largest regions in the game. The woods are initially filled by ponds, cliffs and jump mushrooms, but much deeper into the woods is a region of rock and magma. This section leads to several new regions including the Cave of the Oracle, the Pale Realm, the Jabberwock's Lair and the Majestic Maze. The Cave of the Oracle is home to a wise entity that is revealed later to be the Caterpillar.

The Pale Realm's settings make a transition to the surface of a chessboard, as delving further into this area leads to the White Castle of Looking Glass Land, which is home to life-size chess pieces; the White ones join Alice in the fight against the Red pieces, a deviation from her normally unhelpful "allies" from earlier portions of the game.

Following this is a distorted version of Rutledge Asylum (where Alice has been incarcerated since her parents' tragic deaths). It is run by Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee and also houses the Mad Hatter's laboratory.

The path to the Jabberwock's Lair delves into the Land of Fire and Brimstone, a volcanic region of Wonderland. It is here that the terrible Jabberwock, a semi-mechanized servant of the Queen of Hearts, resides.

The Majestic Maze leads to the road to Queen of Hearts Land, a region heavily guarded by card guards, boojums, and other members of her army on the way to the Queen.

Queensland is the final province of Wonderland. In it lies the Heart Palace from which the Queen of Hearts commands. Tentacles and other repulsive appendages are seen protruding from every organic wall in this area.

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of characters in American McGee's Alice

The game's characters are generally based on the inhabitants of Lewis Carroll's original novels, but they do not demonstrate the same identities. Many of them are warped incarnations of their conventional selves. The casebook[2] of Q. Wilson suggests that many of the characters Alice encounters in Wonderland are symbolic of real life people who get through to the catatonic Alice in some way. Other characters within the game are metaphors for Alice's own feelings, and because she is unhappy, they have become twisted. Some people (Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit) help her; others (Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts) try to cause pain, first by taking away those she loves then taking her down with them.

[edit] Development

Electronic Arts licensed Ritual Entertainment's Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² engine, which is in turn a modified Quake III Arena engine. The most notable changes in the engine include the use of the Tiki model system, which enables the engine to use skeletal animation among other things, the Babble dialog system which enables lip synching of audio with character animations, dynamic music system, scriptable camera, particle system and extended shader support.[3] The changes implemented to the engine for Alice remained minimal however. The game's .bsp files even retain F.A.K.K.²'s headers, albeit sporting a different version number.

An early version of the game offered the ability to summon the Cheshire Cat to aid the player in battle. Though this feature was removed from the final product, beta screenshots of this version do exist online. An Alice port for the then-unreleased PlayStation 2 was also in development but was later cancelled causing Rogue Entertainment to shut down, another decision which aroused the fury of American McGee. Notably, the gore factor was toned down from the demo which was released prior to the full game.

The game was ultimately released on October 6, 2000, receiving praise for its visuals; the graphics were very elaborate for its time. Many levels depict a world of chaos and wonder, some looking reminiscent of the inside of an asylum or a madhouse, visually linking Wonderland to Alice's reality. The exterior views of Wonderland show the Queen of Hearts' tentacles dipping out of buildings and mountain sides, especially in Queensland.

[edit] Audio

American McGee's Alice Original Music Score

All of the music created for the fittingly twisted official American McGee's Alice soundtrack was written and performed by Chris Vrenna. Most of the sounds he used were created using toy instruments and percussion, music boxes (in a short documentary about the making of the game that appeared on TechTV, the music box used appears to be an antique Fisher-Price music box pocket radio), clocks, doors, and sampled female voices (including that of Scarling. vocalist Jessicka) were manipulated into nightmarish soundscapes, including instances of them laughing maniacly, screaming, crying, and singing in an eerie, child-like way.

The music creates an eerie and horrifying feel to the world Alice is in. One such example is in the Skool Daze level. The background music in Skool Daze is an innocent, yet creepy, lullaby. The Pale Realm theme, as well as the track "I'm Not Edible", features the melody of the chorus of a popular children's song, "My Grandfather's Clock". As well as this, there are a great many instances of the ticking and chiming of clocks being used as a musical accompaniment.

Marilyn Manson was originally involved early on in the game's production for scoring the music.[4] His composition has been described by American McGee as "very cool" and having "a very beautiful Beatles-in-their-harpsichord-and-Hookah-pipe-days-sound to it." Manson's contributions persevered on into the final product, however, notably the influence of alchemy and the character of the Mad Hatter whose adaptation was somewhat influenced by him; for a time it was considered that Manson be the voice actor of the Hatter.[5] The music written may resurface in the future for Manson's own darkened perspective of the story of Alice, or rather its author, in his forthcoming film Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll.

American McGee's Alice Original Music Score was released on October 16, 2001 by Six Degrees Records. It features all twenty original compositions by former Nine Inch Nails live drummer and studio collaborator Chris Vrenna, spanning over a 2-disc set, including a previously unreleased theme as well as a remix of "Flying on the Wings of Steam".

[edit] Legacy

[edit] Film adaptation

In December 2000, director Wes Craven signed on to develop a film adaptation of the game, with screenwriter John August hired to adapt the game for the big screen. American McGee had begun negotiations with Dimension Films 10 months before, with the studio committing to the project before Craven's signing.[6] In September 2001, August explained that he had turned in a script treatment for Alice and was not attached to develop fuller drafts for the film adaptation.[7] In February 2002, Dimension Films signed brother screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber to write the screenplay for Alice.[8] In July 2003, the brothers announced that they had completed the script for the film adaptation.[9]

In 2004 the project moved from Dimension Films to 20th Century Fox, but in 2005 Universal Pictures acquired the rights. As of June 2008, producer Scott Faye indicated the film was in "turnaround" from Universal. He admitted that the script needed development, but would be used to attract the attention of a new studio.[10]

Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar and director Marcus Nispel had both been attached to the project, but Faye confirmed that they no longer are. Rumours of Jean Marsh as the Queen of Hearts are also incorrect.[10]

[edit] Sequel

With a movie adaptation of American McGee's Alice in the make, Electronic Arts had also expressed interest in releasing a remake of the game, although initially details were unclear whether it would be a remake, an update, or a sequel.[11]

On 19 February 2009, EA CEO John Riccitiello announced at D.I.C.E. 2009 that a new installment to the series is in the works for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It is being developed by Spicy Horse, who recently worked on American McGee's Grimm.[12][13][14] A single piece of concept art was also released, depicting Alice fighting an oversized, semi-mechanized snail and its children on top of a lighthouse.[15]

[edit] Staff

[edit] Voice actors

[edit] References

  1. ^ Alice and moral panics?
  2. ^ GameFAQs: American McGee's Alice (PC) FAQ/Walkthrough by Lsnake
  3. ^ MumboJumbo | Premium Casual Games
  4. ^ The Heirophant - Dramatic New Scenes for Celebritarian Needs
  5. ^ Manson on American McGee's Alice
  6. ^ Brian Linder. "Wes Craven to Dark Wonderland". 2000-12-07. http://movies.ign.com/articles/036/036660p1.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-13. 
  7. ^ Brian Linder (2001-09-25). "August Talks Alice". IGN. http://movies.ign.com/articles/306/306276p1.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-13. 
  8. ^ Brian Linder (2002-02-11). "Scribes Pegged for Alice Game-to-Film Adaptation". IGN. http://movies.ign.com/articles/324/324400p1.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-13. 
  9. ^ Brian Linder (2003-07-29). "Games-to-Film Update: Alice, Oz". IGN. http://movies.ign.com/articles/431/431089p1.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-13. 
  10. ^ a b "Status of American McGee's Alice". darkhorizons.com. http://www.darkhorizons.com/news08/080625i.php. 
  11. ^ Martijn Müller. "Remake American McGee's Alice in de maak" (in Dutch). NG-Gamer. http://www.ng-gamer.nl/game-nieuws/3994_remake-american-mcgees-alice-in-de-maak/. Retrieved on 2007-11-01. 
  12. ^ "DICE 2009: EA announces American McGee's Alice 2". joystiq.com. 2009-02-19. http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/19/dice-2009-ea-announces-american-mcgees-alice-2/. Retrieved on 2009-02-20. 
  13. ^ "EA and Spicy Horse Return to Wonderland for All-New Alice Title". ea.com. 2009-02-19. http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=366638. Retrieved on 2009-02-20. 
  14. ^ "Sequel to American McGee's Alice coming to PC, consoles in 2009" (in English). Destructoid. http://www.destructoid.com/sequel-to-american-mcgee-s-alice-coming-to-pc-consoles-in-2009-122182.phtml&?no_cache=1&comment_saved=1#comment-1141287. Retrieved on 2009-02-19. 
  15. ^ "The Return of Alice". americanmcgee.com. 2009-02-20. http://www.americanmcgee.com/wordpress/2009/02/20/alice-sequel/. Retrieved on 2009-02-20. 

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: American McGee's Alice
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Lewis Carroll's Alice
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