Slightly Mad

I have recently acquired Alice, Madness Returns for the PS3 but decided to first play the American McGee's Alice which comes with it free as an unlockable download.

Alice is guided through the game by the Cheshire Cat and it is not clear that his intentions are all benign, but I have not got too far yet so it's hard to say.  The most common enemies are Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee like guards and flying banshee type creatures which perhaps are supposed to look like the Queen of Hearts and injure Alice by screaming at her.

The Guards come in two varieties.  The red ones are more dangerous and can throw playing cards as well as swinging a pole-arm.  The black ones don't seem to have a projectile weapon.

When you kill an enemy they leave behind a red shape floating just off the ground which heals Alice when she runs though it and restores some of the blue essence which helps her fight.  There are plenty of places in the game world where there is no floor, only a falling away to nothingness, and when a banshee dies while above such an area the life giving blob it leaves behind might not be accessible.  The potency of the deposit depends on how powerful the enemy is and banshees are pretty useful so it is worthwhile to try to kill them while they are over some floor.

Alice has got four types of weapon up to the point I've played to.  She starts with a basic knife then gets some throwable playing cards of her own, a hockey stick that deals out electric shocks and then some dice which open a portal to the nether world from which a demon emerges and takes on Alice's enemies.  If the dice is thrown while there are no enemies around the demon turns on Alice.  Both the cards and the dice use up the blue stuff.

Fighting the Banshees using melee weapons is tough and requires a lot of co-ordination.  As they can fly Alice often has to jump to hit them and sometimes cannot reach them at all.  Factor in their habit of flying suddenly off the screen and the fact that Alice has to be in the right place and properly orientated and then time her swing accurately and it is getting very difficult.  The best way to take on more than one is to concentrate on killing one with the cards then Alice can fetch the deposit it leaves behind, thus powering up her health and blue stuff for the next kill.  The Demons are quite useful against the banshees and the fact they can fly is a big help.

The original Alice stories are pretty sinister in there own right and I don't think it is an intrinsically brilliant leap to make this game, but there are some things here which are good and original and worth seeing and the insane children do freak me out a bit.
This game has frustrated me often but only because I've been a bit useless.  At one point I emerged (Alice emerged) into an area with only a tiny bit of health left and was quickly attacked and killed by guards.  This was repeated several times.  There is quite a lot of having to jump accurately from one place to another and I don't find this thrilling, but there are challenging fights and interesting areas to explore and I would definitely suggest anyone buying Alice: Madness Returns at least trys this game.