With the exception of Big Fish, Tim Burton has been ruining my childhood for years, and

after he cast Johnny Depp and his own creepy wife in their 57th movie together, Alice in

Wonderland was pretty much dead to me. I thought that making a super dark Alice in Wonderland

couldn’t work, but the original story wasn’t exactly a bright and cheery tale. Actually,

the game I have today proves to me that dark doesn’t have to equal “I need an adult”

creepy. This is Alice: Madness Returns for the PS3.

As a newcomer to this game series, and I call it a series because one other game was released

at the turn of the century, I didn’t really know what to expect from the story. Alice

is trying to forget about terrible events in her past, but is still suffering, and the

player is immediately stuck trying to figure what is real and what is in her mind, as the

game’s earliest section shifts between her terrible imagination and what is really in

front of her. Although the game itself is very different from it in most regards, this

aspect reminded me of the movie Donnie Darko. The developers want you to be just as confused

as her, and it works really well. As you get into the gameplay of Madness Returns,

it’s actually a very solid action platformer. Jumping mechanics are great, with Alice having

the ability to float and twirl in air to reach a platform, in addition to finding some spots

that fling her up into the air. Combat is not quite as refined, but it is still very

well done. Different enemies must be taken down in different ways, depending on how they

attack. So you might have to dodge and then attack. Using the pepper shaker is especially

fun for taking out some weird spawny things. Alice also has the ability to shrink down

to not only reach areas she could not as a normal sized person, but also to reveal hidden

platforms that she can jump across. The game will leave these visible for around 3 seconds

after you go back to normal size, allowing you just enough time to jump to them before

they can no longer be seen. As this is supposed to be a horror game or sorts, I also appreciated

the way the developers made it scary. I HATE it when games just make things dark and startle

you with quick movement. That’s not utilizing atmosphere or the plot, it’s just utilizing

involuntary reflex. Alice doesn’t do this, it uses creepy characters and a dark tone

to achieve its scariness, a rarity in today’s games.

Alice obviously doesn’t try to go for realism, this isn’t the type of game it is, but the

visual style used actually does look very solid. Environments are varied and look great,

and although enemies don’t look like anything special, the cat looks terrifying, in a good

way. Voice acting is also very good, and the 2D, storybook presentation between sections

looks wonderful. I should mention, however, the game does hang up for a good second when

it auto-saves, and this can be a bit annoying. Knowing nothing about this game and not really

having any expectations going in, I am pleased to say that I enjoyed my time in Madness Returns.

I kind of wish they made the movie more like this.