Review by: Brian Rowe

More than a century later, Lewis Carroll's adventures of Alice are among the most honored children's stories ever created. Adapations and references in pop-culture are common, but few have been as maniacally twisted as the game, American McGee's Alice. In the sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, our mentally troubled heroine is trying desperately to unravel the twisted and tormented world of her own psyche and unlock her memories, no matter how painful the results may be.

Alice's Wonderland is being destroyed from the inside out and transformed into a bizarre monstrosity of its former self, not that the realm had a firm grasp on sanity to begin with. This is not a family-friendly land of make-believe, and Tim Burton's recent take on Aliceseems utterly tame by comparison. You may want to shuffle the children off to bed before you play though, lest you scar them with images of fluffy rabbits having their eyes popped out, or Alice's face being ripped from her skull.

Each setting of Alice harbors an outpouring of creativity unleashed that, in many ways, recalls the days when heroes had to tackle the prerequisite stages of fire, ice, and other themes. Whether traipsing through the clockwork domain of Hatter, Caterpillar's Asian-inspired retreat, or an especially unsettling world of dolls, Alice has a keen ability to inspire awe. But, gasps of excitement easily turn into sighs of exhaustion.

A good platformer thrives on the ability to consistently deliver new challenges, and it quickly becomes apparent that Wonderland has very few tricks up its sleeves. The game does an excellent job of teaching the basics – double-jumping and floating, pulling switches to activate and ride steam vents, and shrinking down to search for secrets – but early gameplay mechanics are recycled again and again throughout each of the five chapters. There comes a point when you want something, anything different to relieve the monotony.