*Doom by Bobby Prince* [CIVVIE]
A long, long time ago, I took a look at a game by id Software veteran
and pirate man American McGee, that game was Bad Day L.A., and I tell you what,
that was an experience, I mean, the story about
a horrible virus, racial tensions, mud-butt. So American McGee
saw that video, I think, since he left a comment
and was super cool about it. So, for the longest time, I'm like, "I should do a good American McGee game,
instead of the…. one bad one…" I dunno, I'd never played Alice,
it went under my radar, which is weird because
it's a Quake 3 Engine game, and it was developed by Rogue Entertainment
whom I've never heard of and I certainly have never heard of a game
they developed in 1996 using the Doom Engine that incorporated
an open world and RPG elements, which I've never ever played and also some Quake 1
and 2 mission packs so you know, id tech pros. McGee, fresh off
being fired from id for… Well, Sandy Petersen,
😏 hope he's doing well, 😏 alleges… ALLEGES… that someone on id's staff at the time,
who is strongly believed to be Tim Willits, gave him bad level design advice and so McGee showed his stuff off to id Software
co-founder and monolith constructor John Carmack and angered him so much
that it cost him his job, and in retrospect, after playing Alice, id Software probably could have used
American McGee's talents in those dark times. So McGee got hired by Electronic Arts,
and then four years later left Electronic Arts after EA did an EA. To "EA" something, it means
you have a game studio that makes a good, critically
and commercially successful game and then you kill them in a kind
of ritual sacrifice to absorb their essence and use that to put out
a shitty sports game every year. This is gonna be so much more galling
when I actually show off this game. McGee was, as stated
around the time of Quake 2, kinda tired of space, marines,
space marines, and all that stuff because you know… you can't do that forever, and wanted to make something different,
you know, with characters. EA actually insisted on putting
American McGee's name in the title of it for marketing and trademark reasons, and he actually fought against it, reportedly because other people
also worked on this game, namely Rogue Entertainment, and a whole band of people hired from
other studios, like they got designers from, and the joke didn't hit me at first
but it is now that I'm writing the script for this, they got people from Looking Glass. Yeah, they put together
an A-Team for this one. After Electronic Arts killed Rogue and smeared its blood onto an arcane symbol
in the basement of EA headquarters to appease Baphomet so that the next
500 FIFA games would sell, with another enchantment that ensured
children access to their parent's credit cards, a lot of Rogue employees went on to… Oh, look, Nerve! You know, that gives me a little hope,
you just can't keep good devs down. Y'know, I'm sitting here, saying to myself,
"Thank god, I didn't have to cover an Activision game!" Getting a copy of Alice though… that's a different story. You could go on Ebay, or do what people told me to do
which is just pirate it and nah… I try to buy the games I do
videos on whenever possible, and I wasn't gonna settle
for a pirated copy of Alice, because of the lines. You see this? This is what happens when you try
to run an old game in wide-screen sometimes, you get shit like this. This game was designed to run at like a max
of maybe 1600x1200 and not in wide-screen. So EA owns this,
which means I had to install… ugh… Origin. Origin!… *spits out of contempt* I have never debased myself for this channel
more than when I installed Origin. And you know what?
Alice isn't even on Origin. Its sequel,
Alice: Madness Returns, is. Now, there was a special edition of Madness Returns
that was sold that included the original game in a form that played nice
with wide-screen and high resolutions. EA does not sell this anymore. For some reason?! Huh… currently unavailable on Amazon, no financing space dicks today. Found some shady key re-sellers,
hard pass. I landed on Humble, where, for 10$ more,
you can get the complete collection, and download it,
on Origin, who will give you a copy
of the first Alice game but only if you trick it. You know what, I feel really stupid giving EA money
for a game they don't even wanna acknowledge exists, fuck EA. You leaving money
on the table out of spite? Listen, I'm not telling you
to pirate American McGee's Alice. I am telling you that it was made
by a man who calls himself a pirate and from what I can tell, lives on a boat in the seas of China
raiding and jamming with other pirates
and pillaging British naval vessels. I might have misinterpreted
something on his website- Alice, a while after
her original visits to Wonderland is asleep in her home
when her awful, rotten cat knocks over an oil lamp
and this starts a fire that kills her parents. *TV buzzing* 🥴 All right, so when White Rabbit peaks,
I want you to throw the stereo in the tub… 🥴 *TV buzzing* Yeah, that's pretty dark… Still less emotionally
scarring than Hell Beneath. Alice, wracked with survivor's guilt, with a touch of the idea that maybe
she could have saved them, is now in an asylum. And Wonderland, a reflection of her own mind,
is also a complete mess. *ah!* [WHITE RABBIT] *Cheshire Cat fading in* [ALICE] [CHESHIRE CAT] [ALICE] [CHESHIRE CAT] [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
You guys remember how I introduced one of those
running gag things in the Bad Day L.A. video where it's Beetlejuice and he says "nice fuckin' model"
all sarcastically and honks his crotch? That's not gonna show up
in this video because the models, animation, texture work, and overall
visual presentation of this game is fantastic. The Cheshire Cat
is like a roving tutorial and is voiced by Roger Jackson, who has played all of these characters
you recognize, and was the killer voice in Scream. This is easily the best vocal performance in a game
where 99% of the voice acting is good. It's not just the models and 2D artwork
and the particle effects that stand out, the brushwork in these maps
is also amazing. Back in the old days,
before everything was made of meshes, this is a sight to behold. There's so many moving parts. None of these areas
are copied and pasted, to the point that all of the steps on the stairs
are unique and angled differently. Every archway in this hall is different. These tentacles are somehow doing THIS… There's just machinery
working in the background. This, kids, is environment design. The game itself is very, very linear, but hey, remember in the Half-Life video where I said
that developers took the wrong lessons from Half-Life? Rogue didn't. The game is very linear
most of the time but it compensates by having huge,
elaborately designed set-pieces, which is what you do when your game is linear,
you make a ton of really memorable moments because you have that control,
as a designer, that's the primary benefit
of the linear game and Alice does that
nearly all the time. This is the first level. You run and get a key to open
a door that exits the level. But, the game is teaching you
the basic platforming and combat. You get your first weapon, the knife,
which has a primary that slashes and- OH GOD! Now that's what I call cutting cards! [AX3]
Actionable pun detected. [CIVVIE]
Yeah. *defibrillator charging up* The knife has a secondary attack
that lets you throw it All you Alice fans watching, I know,
it's called a Vorpal Blade, calm down. that has a less-
than-generous cool-down but does a good amount of damage so that I'll usually toss one
after I've weakened an enemy it's good, it's good weapon. What else you got? [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
Yeah, okay, that was better than mine. The second weapon is cards
that slice enemies up with a secondary
that launches a bunch of them. All your weapons use
the same ammo pool and enemies will drop a pickup
that gives you ammo and health back. The health is labeled as your sanity
but not in the Lovecraft kinda way, and the ammo is labeled as your will. Also, the crosshair is like
an actual physical object in the world that hovers around your target. Honestly, the third person combat
was implemented so well in this game I was looking for
Raven devs in the credits. The platforming is…
a bit weird sometimes. You can ledge grab
but kinda selectively, and sometimes it's… The fuck?… It works most of the time and the game even gives you
these little footprints that let you jump automatically between platforms
to make it as easy as possible. If you fuck it up, in the early game anyway,
it's your own fault. Hell, a lot of the earlier sections,
and some of the later ones, don't even kill you in bottomless pits,
they teleport you back to the beginning of the section and let you try again with no penalty. 🤓 C'mon McGee, where's the cruelty? 🤓 It's coming, don't worry.
I'll let you know when it gets there. You're supposed to be following Rabbit
but he shrank himself so you have to go to the school to get
some ingredients for a potion that will shrink you. I don't remember seeing
anything like this at the time. The way this building, this collection
of brushes, is swaying back and forth, and the way the environment
is shifting around in general. The way the game uses or, maybe
I guess the term is "abuses" sky-boxes and the way we're perceiving
the distance of things in those sky-boxes. [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
What is happening- OH GOD! I was not expecting that. Some kinda damage boost power-up
that turns you into a demon. Maybe I should try reading the manual. Well… it tells you some things but most of it is dedicated
to fleshing out characters and story, you might be surprised to know
that living in a Victorian asylum was… kinda bad. Alice was badly burned, comatose, and the doctor decided, you know, maybe some
bloodletting, some shock treatment, some laudanum. After about nine years,
she starts talking and drawing. And attacking people,
and herself, with a spoon. "Roll the Demon Dice wisely
or the game turns on you…" is actually important to the game. Another thing she says is a tip
on how to beat one of the bosses. It's dark, somewhat depressing,
but a very interesting companion piece, and it makes one thing clear to me, which is the very deliberate decision
to not show the Red Queen, the main antagonist of the game,
until the end. You hear about her, all the time,
but you don't see her. She doesn't pop out
and make any grand speeches. When you're faced with platforming puzzles,
like this one here, the challenge won't
so much be the platforming but the enemies who are there
to ruin your platforming, like these which are called Boojums
and they'll push you around, they're dicks. But like most things in this game,
when you kill them they explode into really nice particle effects
and give you some health and ammo back. This game is probably
the high point for ex-id employees. To give you an idea… this came out about
five months after Daikatana. And playing Alice makes me think
that this game is the only reason anyone let Tim Schafer
make Psychonauts. Oh wait, I forgot that
you got a croquet mallet. [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
Straight facts, good job. Probably my least favorite weapon. It's… fine, but there's something you should know
about the arsenal in this game: I think a lot of the combat
is based around the idea that your enemies have practical attacks
that do less damage and that you have impractical attacks
that do lots of damage. We'll get into that when
I have some of the more fun toys. This one can shoot
a ball at enemies and electrocute them
and also smack them around. It's fine and will help at this point
in the game but the cards are better. Okay, enough talking about
how this game is awesome. If I stopped to point out
every bit of good visual design, this would be a full length Let's Play. But I do hate the next part of it. It's a big swamp section! Once you drink that potion
to shrink yourself down, you're at the mercy of every
environmental hazard ever conceived. Like all of this works,
for the most part, as intended. FUCK! Giant plants shooting you,
ants with guns, Don't melee them.
DO NOT MELEE THEM. You meet a giant amphibious
minotaur in his underwear. *awkward silence* You meet a giant amphibious
minotaur in his underwear and you have to help him
get his shell back. [ALICE] [MOCK TURTLE] [CIVVIE]
This whole section can eat a dick. These bugs that you will not see
dropping fucking bombs on you, actually acorns,
exploding acorns, killer mushrooms that drag you in
and munch on you, a small army of these ants. See, you can deal with all of this if you're good enough
at dodging projectiles and target prioritization, since every dead enemy
gives you health and ammo back. Even the health pickups
are wonderfully animated. Gib 'em! Fuck yes! Okay, there's the shell I need.
And a new weapon. I'll just - Oh god no that's… the room shifting around that's cool… what the- [THE DUCHESS] [CIVVIE]
That's nightmarish,
thank you game, I'll just- OH GOD! *the Duchess bites Alice* Now's as good a time as any
to learn to use the new weapon, the JackBomb, which is, like a lot of weapons,
tricky to use, it has a very delayed explosion, but that explosion is one of
the most powerful attacks in the game. It will one-hit damn
near anything within range. Not the boss obviously,
it takes a few tries but you know how to use it now. The secondary makes it
like a flamethrower. *the Duchess sneezes* *her head explodes* OH MY GOD! Then the game teaches you swimming, where you have to follow this Mock Turtle
to keep your air supply, which has no meter to show you
how much air you have left, you just have to listen
for the sounds of Alice drowning. You won't hear that much- WOAH! This game successfully jump-scared me. The worst enemies in the game are here.
They'll come back and they were in the swamp too, they're called snarks but from now on,
I will refer to them only as Bastard Fish. Did you like the swamp? I didn't care for it but
we're back in the swamp. Finally, found this rabbit, now I- FUCK! [WHITE RABBIT] [ALICE] [WHITE RABBIT] [ALICE] [CIVVIE]
I feel attacked. [ALICE] [WHITE RABBIT] *Super Mario Bros. 3
Sky Land Theme* *Super Mario Bros. 3
Sky Land Theme* *some kinda Girl From Ipanema remix* [CIVVIE]
JESUS CHRIST! [ALICE] [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
I'm already pretty tired of this section of the game
before we get to the boulder chase. But I think we're out
of the big swamps, let's- Don't do this to me, Alice! *dead silence* Yes, it's a level with shitty ice physics, I think all platformers require them, it's mercifully pretty short and you get
a weapon out of it that freezes enemies. [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
That hints that enemies
will be able to thaw out. They don't. [CATERPILLAR] [ALICE] [CATERPILLAR] [CIVVIE]
It's cool that
you've spelled it out for me, game, it makes it a lot easier
to make this video. I don't have to put together a thumbnail
with yellow arrows and a click-bait title. Huh… a lot of killer mushrooms,
what is this though? Invisibility mirror, cool. [CENTIPEDE] [CIVVIE]
🙄 Yeah, I could never deal
with four ant soldiers! 🙄 [CENTIPEDE] [CIVVIE]
Uhhhhh…. What?! You're supposed to hit him
on the underside, which is great and all but you have to be close
to trigger that attack, and not this attack he does
when he's close, or this one… This would be a lot easier
if I could jump up and bite the mushroom first. Okay, being small sucks,
and it's the worst part of the game, what's next? [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
What do I have to do to get that stuff? I have to go to the Pale Realm first, another completely different area of the game
that has its own unique enemies and gameplay mechanics. Red chess pieces
versus white chess pieces. The Card Guards are basically
shooting rockets at you now. You're allied with the white pieces
and there's a whole battle going on, not that the white pieces are very useful,
they're mostly just getting their asses kicked. I don't know how to play chess. This castle is so detailed
they had to skimp on the stairs and make them ramps
textured like stairs. But oh no, the White Queen
has been kidnapped and taken to the Red Castle,
which is just like the White Castle, but red. It's thematically relevant
copying-and-pasting. *guillotine goes down* Oh, nevermind. Let's talk about the Demon Dice. They'll spawn a demon
that will attack enemies for you. Or it could attack you. It's like GAMBLING!
IN A VIDEO GAME! EA KNOWS ALL ABOUT THAT! The Red King is a
"shoot at him until he dies" situation, nothing really special about him. The White guys gave you a pawn
to bring who turns into a queen and it's gonna go kick some ass, I guess, I really don't understand
chess at all until… The Mad Hatter, here, being… quite tall and grotesque
as many things in this game are, and now things start to get weird. It's a good thing it starts you off
with a rage power-up or else you'll never know
that these robots are so tanky they'll take most of
your willpower to take down. Until you get the Jacks. [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
In terms of weird weapons that are slightly inconvenient
to use but are obscenely overpowered, the Jacks have to take the cake. You need time to learn to use them? Tough shit, you're
surrounded by murder bots! The best way I can describe them is
"like an intelligent flak cannon". They're amazing. You'll need them in this hall of… mirrors? This is the most twisted place you've visited
so far in this game and that's saying something. The Mad Hatter is psychologically
torturing you a little bit, it's cool. Hey, you know what he's not doing? FUCKING DANCING- Some maliciously designed platforms that make me think this game
has some kinda physics engine. LOOK VALVE,
IT MADE A SEESAW! Okay, these are Nightmare Spiders,
that's what they're called and you can see why. They're agile little bastards. The AI in this game is a bit jank
sometimes but not with these. This is a clock-and-mirror-themed level and oh boy do you get some
of the wonkiness of the platforming, and especially the ledge grabbing. What is and is not a ledge can change.
It's… uhh… fine I guess.
It works most of the time. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum
are waiting for you. [ALICE] [CHESHIRE CAT] [ALICE] [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
Yeah, that or fire, fire works. These motherfuckers are doing
Russian-nesting-doll shit and when you're in the zone
playing the game, you don't realize what an absolute bitch
that must have been to program and animate. I went frame-by-frame to see
how this happened. One of them opens up, a smaller one
scales up out of his stomach, then jumps out,
and then gets set on fire. The Mad Hatter is turning living creatures
into clockwork machines in a really grotesque way,
par for the course in this game. [ALICE] [GRYPHON] [CIVVIE]
Okay, I wasn't expecting that accent. [ALICE] [GRYPHON] [ALICE] [CIVVIE]
Oh, look, the dice
rolled good for me this time. [CHESHIRE CAT] [CIVVIE]
I don't know where he is,
but he's about to be in a world of pain. Ah! Look at him!
He's got little finger rockets! *AHHHH!* *his head goes boom!* These animations are so good! You get a watch that can temporarily
stop time out of the whole thing. That's pretty cool. Gryphon here flies you out
and drops you in the middle of nowhere, sorta moving towards the Queen's castle, and now is where lava
becomes a serious threat to you. There's these little red devils
called Fire Imps but they're a joke, throw a knife in their face. Lava fish!
They can shoot fireballs at you. That's… Well, we've seen what happens
when you get set on fire so… Oh yeah, there's the cruelty.
I was worried we wouldn't see it. Drags you into the lava. After a lot of hot platforming,
you get to face the Jabberwock, who is here to make you feel bad
AND kill you! [JABBERWOCK] [CIVVIE]
Damn that's rough. Setting the thing with the backdrop
of a burning house too, man that's not cool. The game's doing that thing
where it's using the sky-box to fuck with me again! I thought this game was gonna be easy
since you get health and ammo from every pickup but nah these guys
have some nasty attacks. You don't kill him yet but
Gryphon flies into this weird null space and grabs one of his eyes
so you can use that staff. Let's see what that does. Oh, okay the beam isn't enough, every time you stop firing it,
it shoots a big explosive. It's a little impractical
because it has a big wind up, you need it though because
the enemy count increases significantly in this part of the game. And if you use it right,
you never run out of ammo. There's a maze full of monsters and at the end is a pressure plate
that some idiot walks off of and goes through a portal. Don't follow him, you can stop time. The only thing on the other side is pain. You'll be going through battle sections
and platforming sections for the rest of this game, almost a even 50/50 split of both, and the game knows those screaming bastards are good
for pushing you off of ledges into certain death. Don't think you weren't getting out of this game
without painful water sections. Yeah, you can call this the sewer level. Did somebody call for a clock tower level? Well, lemme tell you.
Master Igarashi taught me well, I've jumped through like
fifty different hostile clock towers. Katie, find a picture of him
without a whip so it isn't weird. Okay, this one's kinda a dick. *breaks into laughter* What?! What is this shit?… This fight is no joke. He's on your ass the whole time,
spitting fire and you'll find yourself running to each side of the arena
to get the little health and ammo pickups, all the boss arenas have them because
that's the only way you can resupply ammo. But there's nothing
like a classic knife throw. [JACK BURTON from
Big Trouble in Little China]
It's all in the reflexes. [GRYPHON] [ALICE] [CIVVIE]
If a staff that shoots a laser beam
and rockets didn't sway her, I don't think anything will. I don't know if this is the most visually
impressive level in the game but… look at it. Quake 3 engine. This is mostly a hallway
where you have to kill everything, until everything becomes
like a non-stop spawner. You still have to solve
a kinda boring puzzle that seems like busywork because you go, hit a switch, go across the map,
shoot a painting, repeat another two times and then you can finally go to the… There's a lot of blood and viscera
and fleshy walls and tentacles here, that's… [CHESHIRE CAT] *some kinda Girl From Ipanema remix* *AHHH!* [CIVVIE]
OH MY GOD! STOP KILLING ALL THE CHARACTERS I LIKE!
HOLY SHIT! Alice has worse luck with friends
than Charles Bronson! This is her second: [ALICE] [CIVVIE]
We haven't seen the Red Queen yet,
she is, grotesque, horrifying, obviously controlled by some
kinda eldritch monster behind the scenes. [ALICE] [RED QUEEN OF HEARTS] [CIVVIE]
Hey, why didn't her mouth move with the- OH GOD THAT'S NOT A FACE! There's pillars to hide behind
and grab some more energy but I feel like sometimes,
this bitch is cheating. The Queen of Hearts actually uses
every attack from previous bosses on you. And since all of the characters
represent different facets of Alice herself… And she's not even the final boss
because once you defeat her- Once you defeat her, you get all shiny and lit up
and I don't know what this means exactly or if it has any gameplay effects. Maybe it's one of those artistic things
I keep hearing about that they put in games sometimes. [RED QUEEN OF HEARTS] [CIVVIE]
Yeah, this would have given me
nightmares if I'd played it as a child. [RED QUEEN OF HEARTS] [CIVVIE]
Uh, this doesn't seem to be working. I've been wondering what's in the weapon slot
after the staff and before the stopwatch… Well, kids, it's key to defeating
this final boss, and it's in this arena. Yeah, that's right,
it's a FUCKING GUN! *casually playing the drum solo
from Judas Priest's Painkiller with a shotgun* Nah, it's a blunderbuss, and it shoots a giant
explosive projectile that takes all of your willpower, and you have to hit the boss a lot with it, so you need to keep jumping,
keep moving, collecting ammo, and usually you need to do a whole circle
around this arena to get one shot off. At the time I couldn't tell
if I was hurting it but I was. *monstrous scream* Once you do kill it- Oh yeah, sweet death animations
and a chunky salsa storm. Wonderland is saved, everything turns back to normal,
no one is dead, and Alice walks out
of the asylum with her weird cat, so everything's fine, and I'm sure nothing bad will ever happen again
in Alice: Madness Returns. I mean she's out of the Asylum,
so that's good, what could go wrong between now
and the release of the upcoming Alice: Asylum? You know, Alice is very much like
American McGee in that all of this shit
that he's doing should be cringe. but he pulls it off and it's awesome! Beautiful pirate bastard. *How'd I Do?*
Why are so many youtubers reviewing this right now. I saw grimbeard, Gman and now civvie all just put a review in the last week.
This is one of the few Civvie episodes I've truly been waiting for. It's almost as big a deal as Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana.
At this rate he's going to run out of interesting boomer shooters to review.
I hope we'll get a third Alice game in the future. I love my Marios and Bandicoots, but there's something about 3D platformers with darker and more dense atmosphere like Alice, Psychonauts or even Rayman 2, that I find really enjoyable.
Me and my sister loved Alice. I think I was 13 and she was like 7 when we first played it. Needless to say it greatly impacted our interests and tastes when each of us reached edgy teen years.
I remember playing the demo for this before release, probably on a PC Gamer CD. The demo was atrocious, killed my interest in the game. The controls, feel, and handling were especially bad and the puzzles were aggravating.
They should have never released a demo (but it was a lot more standard to have a demo or shareware release back then) because the actual game was a gem, they resolved the controller problems, bugs, and polished out the platforming puzzles. I've never seen such a turnaround from demo to actual game.
Alice: Maddness Returns is on EA Play and Gamepass Ultimate. When you start it up one of the main menu options is to play the original Alice. It's a bit strange playing a Q3 engine game on an xbox.
Start with the easier task, remaster the first 2 games and push hard for people to buy them. EA doesn't understand fans, they only understand dollar bills.
Recently replayed it.
The first one is really fun. The graphics, soundtrack and sound is good. Acting isnt bad either.
The second one, madness returns, is eh. I couldn't get much into it. The platforming also felt wonky. I gave up on it tbh
This one looks a lot older than the one I remember playing. Was the one I played a sequel or something?