American McGee Needs Your Help To Kickstart Alice 3

[Karloff]

American McGee Needs Your Help To Kickstart Alice 3

If McGee is to get his Alice 3, he'll need EA's blessing.

Do you want an Alice 3? If so, make some noise, as American McGee is willing to take his crazy kid to Kickstarter. However if he's to do that, he needs EA's blessing, as it's the one that holds the rights. That means he needs as much support as possible, to show EA that the project is viable.

This comes to you courtesy of McGee's Facebook [http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151371710227075&set=a.10150264827797075.336011.540107074&type=1] page. "I'm trying to gauge interest in case I happen to discuss this with EA during GDC in 2 weeks," says McGee. "The more interest there is, the more seriously they'll take the conversation."

Alice: Madness Returns won plaudits for its visual beauty [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8969-Alice-Madness-Returns-Review], even when its gameplay didn't hit all the right notes, and the series has its share of devoted fans. The only question is, how many devoted fans does it take to persuade EA that a Kickstarted Alice 3 is a good idea?

Source: American McGee [http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151371710227075&set=a.10150264827797075.336011.540107074&type=1]


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[Fasckira]

-snip to get around "don't quote me." -

Depends heavily on how they plan to release the game. If its essentially to self-publish and cut EA out the loop, I really cant see it working!

 

[Andy Shandy]

I must wonder, if this generates enough support and attention, surely EA will just say "Oh we'll help you publish it."

Means they get to keep the IP and will get money from the sales too.

Not that I'd complain or anything, I really enjoyed both the Alice games, and Madness Returns was rather beautiful at times.

 

[Doclector]

Gotta be honest, as much as I respect Mcgee himself, love the orignal "Alice" and thouroughly enjoyed "Madness Returns" I'm really not sure whether another Alice game is a good idea. Sure, they can build on what they learned from Madness returns, but narrative wise, the story's pretty much over.

Spoiler

At the end of madness returns, her "treatment" is revealed as a plot to make children subservient, and thus, easier to sell. Keep in mind, this is set in victorian london. Alice then kills her doctor by pushing him in front of a train. A little renagade, but thouroughly understandable. It is then suggested that Alice's wonderland is now back to it's peaceful former self again, and Alice has given way to her own favourable brand of madness, rejecting the real world and it's troubles (again, understandable considering what Alice has been through, going from her parents death to one unsuitable carer to the next) to "live" in her mind.

If alice's wonderland once again turns into a Charles Manson fever dream, it'll be ridiculous, for one thing. It'd become like the absurd bad luck of Issaac clark, "Oh isaac, the monorail's down! Now we're losing altitude! Now you've fixed the engines, we're losing oxygen!", things getting fixed just so something else can break. Also, why would it? Alice has retreated into wonderland, she should be pretty unfazed by anything the outside world tries right up to the point that someone actually tries to kill her.

There's only two places this can go, from my point of view. She gets caught for the murder of her doctor, and must prove his crimes, the odd trip into wonderland helping her along the way, but why would be anywhere near as violent as last time? Her commiting real world murders on countless goons like it's nothing would seem like too big a jump, sure, she's killed her delusions before, delusions that to her were pretty damn real, but they were monsters, not people, for the most part. This is all assuming her power in wonderland is not also a delusion. I'm pretty sure she can wield a blade, but fighting real people? I'm not convinced.

The other way would be depicting her making an escape from wonderland once and for all, Alice confronting her issues and attempting to finally stand on her own two feet. The world could be depicted as rebelling, trying to get her to stay thus averting it's own destruction, the side of Alice that wants to stay creating reasons why she should not leave. It could be interesting, but if this is done, it must be final, and it must be done well.

Huh. Didn't know I had so much to say on the issue.

 

[knight steel]

BTW believe or not, EA isn't a hardass about their IPs.

Also, don't quote me.

Never underestimate the absolute evil Goliath that is EA, they might hear that we like Alice and purposly ban the new game just to hurt us........that is how evil EA is

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Um no, the first one was great, do that , only with better level design. If not...fck off!

 

[Starke]

Wait... so this is what Obsidian talked about when they were Kickstarting Project Eternety, isn't it? A publisher approaching a well regarded developer to get them to use Kickstarter for the publisher.

I mean, I know that's not how McGee's couching it, but, that he's running a Kickstarter to prove something to EA makes me very suspicious about who's really behind this one.

 

[Milanezi]

I was utterly disappointed in Madness Returns, the first game was pretty good though, he should rebuild the original, full HD, current graphics, HUGE gameplay improvements, tweaks to some scenarios...

 

[SmilesX-23]

Even at its worst this game would still be more worth a purchase than alot of other games so i say go for it.
i liked the first two can only imagine i will enjoy the third.

 

[antidonkey]

Madness Returns felt like it was missing something. Not sure what it might have been though. I enjoyed it quite a bit and would like to see a third in the franchise. Not sure if I'd back it as I haven't backed any yet.......even those that I really want i.e. Wasteland 2.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I really enjoyed Madness Returns, I picked it up on a complete impulse and enjoyed it a lot.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

A) Creating a Kickstarter entry for a game to be made by EA, the largest game publisher in the world? I'm pretty sure they still don't understand how Kickstarter works...

B) Alice: Madness Returns was pretty unimpressive IMO; Gameplay was mediocre & the admittedly great visuals were kneecapped by terrible perspective angles & unnecessary text pop-ups. Not even slightly interested in donating money to back a prospective sequel

 

[kael013]

I'll back this ONLY if they a) use [i/]Madness'[/i] aesthetic, b) revert back to the original [i/]Alice's[/i] dialogue (I needed a f*cking dictionary for the cutscenes in [i/]Madness[/i] and it felt so pretentious), c) get rid of the triple jump from [i/]Madness[/i], and d) make the puzzles, you know, [b/]hard[/b]. Promise that, and I'll back you (Don't get the wrong idea from all this, I love the series; I'm just tough on the things I love).

EDIT: Also as much as I would like an [i/]Alice 3[/i] I can't see where they'll go with it narrative-wise. The ending in [i/]Madness[/i] was pretty dismal when you thought about it and didn't leave many hooks for sequels - except for the whole Wonderland/London fusion (so Alice 3: Sanity Returns?).

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Sorry American, you are about a few levels above Derek Smart in my book. So......no dice. Alice was good for it's time but It's a bit played out at this stage I think.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Oh, I'll take another Alice game please! Not sure where you can go with the storyline after Madness Returns, but then there wasn't really any place to go with the storyline after the first game and he did it anyway. So I'm in.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

I might consider it if he promises to actually finish this one. The original was great but the controls were often poorly suited to what the game wanted you to do with them and some of the weapons did not play well with the environments you were expected to use them in. Madness Returns had great visuals and much better controls for an action platformer, but everything else was seriously lacking. The levels were spread out and empty, with both enemies and terrain copy-pasted ad nauseum, the last level was a joke culminating in a terrible excuse for a boss, most levels ended in what were clearly lead-ins to boss fights that never happened, and while the story started out well it got far too trite by its conclusion (I definitely don't think it was an improvement to add a real world villain behind all of Alice's problems). If the Madness Returns that got released is actually a finished product (in the sense of having all the content it was intended too), I will gnaw off one of my own legs and then never support McGee again.

 

[Trishbot]

I adored the original two. They had some flaws, but ultimately I found them to still be some of the most wonderful gaming experiences I've ever had. I'd gladly buy a new one and support it.