American McGee's Alice
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| American McGee's Alice | |
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| Developer(s) | Rogue Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Designer(s) | American McGee |
| Engine | Quake III Arena |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac OS, Mac OS X, PlayStation 2 (canceled) |
| Release date | October 6, 2000 |
| Genre(s) | Survival horror, Third-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: M (Mature) OFLC: MA 15+ |
| Media | 2 CD-ROMs (WIN) |
| 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 featured music composed by former Nine Inch Nails drummer 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 American McGee. 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 Blade. 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.
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[edit] Plot
Shortly after her second adventure, Alice's parents are killed in a fire - of which she is the only survivor. After trying to commit suicide (note the bandages on the wrists), she becomes catatonic. She is institutionalized 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 in particular now looks very different from Sir John Tenniel's original illustration: he is shown here as skeletally thin and his grin looks more devious than mischievous. When he first appears in the game, Alice comments, "You've gone quite mangy, cat, but your grin's a comfort." The cat serves as Alice's constant companion throughout the game, frequently appearing to guide her or offer advice.
[edit] Setting
The game's setting presents a considerably more macabre rendition of Wonderland than that of Lewis Carroll's original portrayal, now under the despotic rule of the Queen of Hearts. 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 - yet 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.
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-cannibal 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 properly 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 (though not the first time in the franchise's history that he is portrayed as such).
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, which makes a nice change given that most of her "allies" simply content themselves with looking on.
There is then 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
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 syncing 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 canceled causing Rogue Entertainment to shut down, another decision which aroused the fury of American McGee.
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.
Notably, the gore factor was toned down from the demo which was release prior to the full game.
[edit] Music
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 work that he composed 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.
The American McGee's Alice Original Music Score, featuring all original compositions by former Nine Inch Nails live drummer Chris Vrenna, was released just over a year after its playable counterpart, on October 16, 2001. It contains 20 tracks, 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 March 2004, the Alice project was moved from Dimension Films to 20th Century Fox.[10] In June 2005, Universal Pictures acquired the rights to Alice. The studio attached director Marcus Nispel to helm Alice with actress Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role.[11] Jean Marsh will play the Queen of Hearts. There is currently no definitive timetable for the film's release as it has not yet begun shooting, but Gellar remains committed to the project.[12]. As of November 18th 2007, Universal Pictures and Collision Entertainment were prepping for the film, set for a July 2008 release.[13]
As of April 21 2008, according to the International Movie Database, the movie should be released in 2009, directed by Marcus Nispel, staring Sarah Michelle Gellar & Jean Marsh.
[edit] Game remake
Electronic Arts has expressed interest in releasing a remake of the game alongside the movie. There are no details yet about the content and changes of the remake. If the remake does occur it is unknown if the game will follow the movie or be an updated version of the original release. However the game will at least be receiving a technical update and an updated control scheme.[14]
[edit] Staff
- Designing, development and production: American McGee, R.J. Berg, Billy Delli-Gatti and Jordan David Maynard
- Music director: Chris Vrenna
[edit] Voice actors
- Susie Brann – Alice
- Andrew Chaikin – The White Rabbit/The Mad Hatter/The March Hare
- Roger Jackson – The Cheshire Cat/The Dormouse/The Jabberwock
- Anni Long – Duchess
- Jarion Monroe – Caterpillar
- Jean Marsh - Queen of Hearts
[edit] References
- ^ Alice and moral panics?
- ^ GameFAQs: American McGee's Alice (PC) FAQ/Walkthrough by Lsnake
- ^ MumboJumbo | Premium Casual Games
- ^ The Heirophant - Dramatic New Scenes for Celebritarian Needs
- ^ Manson on American McGee's Alice
- ^ Brian Linder. "Wes Craven to Dark Wonderland", 2000-12-07. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
- ^ Brian Linder. "August Talks Alice", IGN, 2001-09-25. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
- ^ Brian Linder. "Scribes Pegged for Alice Game-to-Film Adaptation", IGN, 2002-02-11. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
- ^ Brian Linder. "Games-to-Film Update: Alice, Oz", IGN, 2003-07-29. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
- ^ Brian Linder. "McGee Movie Update", IGN, 2004-03-04. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
- ^ Borys Kit; John Gaudiosi. "Universal to put Gellar in Wonderland", The Hollywood Reporter, 2005-06-21. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
- ^ Lee, Michael J. "Sarah Michelle Gellar Reaffirms Commitment to 'Alice'", RadioFree.com, 2008-01-15. Retrieved on 2008-01-16.
- ^ Gellar Preps For American McGee's Alice. HollywoodNorthReport.com (2007-11-18). Retrieved on 2008-01-21.
- ^ Remake American McGee's Alice in de maak (Dutch). NG-Gamer. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
[edit] External links
- American McGee's Alice at the Internet Movie Database
- American McGee's Alice at MobyGames
- Down the Rabbit Hole
- Comparison to Alice in Wonderland
- Concept art (near the bottom of page)
- Alice (2009 movie) at the Internet Movie Database
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