We Deserve a Franchise for American Mcgee's Alice
American Mcgee's Alice is one of the few games that deserves a trilogy or a franchise. The first game had a dark and disturbing story, while the second game expanded upon the story, giving horror fans an unforgettable gaming experience. Alice Madness Returns is one of my favorite games ever made. The story captured me the first time I played the game. We follow Alice still trying to recover from the trauma of losing her entire family to a fire, while she is battling literal demons within her mind. She had murdered her imaginary friends from the Alice in Wonderland tale, and was now seeking their help in her mind to help her find the person who murdered her family.
It's both awesome and sad to see Alice seek the aid her friends inside of her mind. It was obviously an escape from reality, since her life wasn't exactly the best. Even though she appeared to be stable from what she had gone through as a child, she still clung to her imaginary friends, because she disliked the world she lived in. To be fair, her life did suck. She lived in a city where corruption ruled, and that kind of environment is not healthy for someone who had lost their family.
It was so cool to see her character go from reality to Wonderland, where she interacts with her friends to give her clues to the deaths of her family. This was the only time where we see her smile, or show moments of being happy. She also comes across as more confident when interacting with her Wonderland companions, compared to the people she would speak to in the real world.
The gameplay was so freaking fun, watching Alice battle monsters, as Wonderland helps to guide her to the truth of who murdered her family. Once she finds out, the game takes a far darker turn than I had expected. Alice learns that her own psychiatrist was behind the deaths of her family, to cover up a disturbing crime that he had committed against Alice's own sister. He also was secretly using the orphanage for one of the most disturbing crimes imaginable, and Alice confronts the doctor both in the real world, and in her mind.
The ending has left me with so many questions in the best way, when Alice transforms into her Wonderland self. It appears that the doctor had seen this change, but whether or not he had actually seen her transform, or had seen a strong and scary version of her, we will never know.
She pushes him in front of a train, killing him.
Then she gets her closure, and goes back to Wonderland, hinting that she has decided to stay in this world forever, to escape from the real world. It's a bittersweet ending, because even though she got her closure for what she lost, she remained stuck in Wonderland for good.
I wish we had gotten another game. At least one more would have been perfect. American Mcgee had been working on a prequel, but it had been rejected by a game studio, and the project came to an unfortunate end. This outraged fans, because this was supposed to be a prequel of Alice recovering in the asylum. I really wanted to know what kind of relationship she had with Wonderland prior to the sequel, because I highly doubt her friends got over Alice killing each of them in the first game.
We deserve at least one more game to complete the trilogy. Hell, I would have loved a franchise. Alice's character in this dark universe is so interesting and original. I love how Wonderland isn't even real; it was a genius idea to turn Wonderland into a coping mechanism instead of another world that Alice accidentally finds.
The old horror games back then were so ballsy, I'm glad I got to play awesome games like this.
Do you think that we deserve another Alice game? How about a remake?
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