The original American McGee's Alice was, in my opinion, an underrated cult classic, a dark revisionist take on Lewis Carroll's Wonderland novels with phenomenal character design and a grim and clever sense of humour. Although it received a fair amount of criticism for its poor controls, the outdated (though striking) graphics, and the fairly straightforward game structure, it had a kind of indie dark-horse charm to it, featured an absolutely haunting soundtrack by Chris Vrenna (of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson), a well-thought-out world map, and one of the best weapons rosters of all time, including a Blunderbuss, a Croquet Mallet, and Jacks. I played the hell out of it, and loved every second of it.
It looks like American McGee is at it again with the forthcoming sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, slated for a June 14th, 2011 release, and based on the below gameplay trailer, it looks like a return to form. I couldn't be more excited about this game if I tried. Previously, I'd been a bit wary, as everything McGee's done in the interim has been - to put it kindly - underdeveloped at best, but the video highlights what looks to be a definite improvement in both visuals and controls, and I'm now counting down the days until June 14th.
Of course, I got this unreasonably excited about Epic Mickey too, and look how that turned out. Oh well. Fingers crossed!
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