Alice’s late! Alice’s late! For a very important… oh you know> never mind. Creator of flawed beauties Alice and Alice: Madness Returns American McGee has announced on Facebook he hopes to have the opportunity to Kickstart Alice 3. (more…)
American McGee’s positioned himself as quite a polarizing figure within the gaming industry, but – success or horrific crash-and-burn failure – you can’t knock his imagination. And while the recently released Akaneiro: Demon Hunters‘ blend of Japanese folklore and Little Red Riding Hood at least looks> quite attractive, it’s another fairytale fusion that put him on the map. American McGee’s Alice raised quite the stir when it was released back in 2000, and Alice: Madness Returns‘ world was brilliantly realized, if not always fun to be in. But they sort of came out 11 years apart, so really, what are the odds we’ll get another anytime soon? Well, actually pretty good, if McGee get his McWay. The main thing stopping him? EA, of course. He explained the situation during a recent interview with RPS.
While in a Reddit AMA, game designer American McGee said that EA wanted to "trick" gamers into thinking Alice: Madness Returns was as dark as its marketing and called this tactic part of a "race to the bottom."
Today, Shanghai-based McGee offered a correction or an apology of sorts. "Allow me to expand on my original post while at the same time making a correction (call it a retraction if you like)," blogged McGee. "'Tricked' is the wrong word. I take that back. Apologies to EA and anyone else whose feelings were hurt. Electronic Arts doesn't trick customers into buying things. They carefully apply proven marketing techniques to achieve the desired customer response. If they were bad at this sort of thing they'd have been crushed by their competitors long ago and you'd be playing Madden Football from Activision or Atari or something."
McGee goes on to discuss how the game was marketed and the apparent disconnect between how he saw the game and how EA saw the game.
"At the end of the day," added McGee, "I've got (well, had) a good relationship with EA. They helped put my name on the map. They funded two of my favorite creations. And they helped me bring strikingly original content to a gaming world that often seems dominated by bullets and boobs. I can't and don't fully fault them or their marketing for whatever the "Alice" games might or might not have done sales-wise. As a developer, do I grumble into my beer about how it could have been different if only… ? Sure do! But I also recognize my own faults, and actions which are to blame for things not being 100%… or for inadvertently igniting firestorms."
You can read the full post in the link below.
You Can't Escape [American McGee]
"When is a cosplay not a cosplay?" queried the Mad Hatter, sipping lukewarm tea from a cracked and leaking cup. "When it's pay-per-use stock photography that someone put up for sale in case someone felt a pressing need for shots of a woman dressed as the lead character from American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns?" I reply.
In my never-ending quest for entertaining video game stock photography I've come across all sorts of strange and glorious photo shoots, but this set, posted by photographer Kiselev Andrey Valerevich across several of the more popular sites, takes the cake and grows much larger than it has any right to be.
The model isn't quite perfect for the role, but she definitely has a firm grasp of the various moods that tend to strike American's vision of Lewis Carroll's creation.
One moment she plays the bloodied innocent, tipping some tea into the cup of a decidedly off-white rabbit. The next she's sprawled across a convoluted killing floor, staring up at the sky and wondering what lies beyond (madness, and more madness beyond that).
Normal things for a rather adult-seeming girl to be doing, but when you turn your head just so; when your eyes are at the very edge of seeing, the innocent facade begins to fray.
At first it seems a playful smirk, but then you notice the too-wide eyes, alive with blossoming insanity.
Write it off as your imagination. You're reading too much into this woman-girl and her Sharpie-marked apron. She's just another soul trying to make sense of this strange world; another traveler on the path towards understanding. There are stumbling blocks, to be sure, but she'll make it there. She'll be right behind you, all the way.
Right behind you.
Chinese cosplay photographer Mengjie Luan is back with another set of spectacular pics.
In the above gallery, there are Alice: Madness Returns photos with cosplayer Jill. "There were some problems and headaches during the Alice shoot—but in the end it worked out great," Meng told Kotaku. "I also finally learned the meaning of '苦逼造就牛片' or 'hardship brings great pictures.'"
Besides Alice: Madness Returns, Meng recently completely some photo shots of popular online game League of Legends with cosplayers Xiao Luojun and Ying Tao.
"I personally prefer to cosplay games, mostly because most of my spare time is already taken up by playing League of Legends," said Xiao. "I spent a lot of time working on this cosplay and when I saw the results, I was stunned."
That's the thing about Meng's photos: you always end up stunned.
Read more about Meng in Kotaku's feature on him and his work.
Since running a big, enjoyable feature on Duncan Harris, the "video game photographer" behind the website DeadEndThrills. Harris takes some of the most evocative, compelling video game screenshots I've ever seen, and so I thought it would be fun to share some of his work each week here.
Awesomely, he has also released a new collection of shots formatted expressly for the iPad. Which means: Baller iPad backgrounds for everyone!
Anyhow, let's go through some new entires, largely focusing on Alice: Madness Returns.
Epic shot from Alice here, one of those great long-angle shots. It took me a moment to realize that London is not, in fact, burning.
Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.
Very cool one of Alice here, and she does indeed look quite a bit like Wynona.
Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.
This is interesting, so I'll just quote Harris directly:
I'm trying something a little different with some of these, in response to what strikes me as either an odd feature or technical flaw in this game's use of fog. You see it quite a bit in Unreal games, this featureless miasma that sucks contrast and colour from the entire scene where you'd expect it to be more precise. The solution, as much as there is one, is to freeze the game, take a shot, then disable the fog and take another, using a custom keyboard bind to toggle the effect. Then you layer one atop the other in Photoshop and simply lower the fog to about 40 per cent opacity. Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.
This one makes me really want to play Alice: Madness Returns. Everything I've heard about the game suggests something I won't really like… but I love the fantasy implied by these screenshots.
Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.
Let's end on something different—another of the amazing upres'd Mario Galaxy screenshots Harris was posting a few weeks back. Remarkable.
Dolphin emulator (OpenGL), 2160p rendering, antialiasing (4xMSAA), textures patched (HUD, pause screen), free camera, bilinear downsampling.
Coming to comic shops and specialty retailers near you, these Gentle Giant sculpted action figures give Alice: Madness Returns a chance to play with the darker side of Lewis Carroll's creations.
Seen above is Diamond Select Toys' Alice: Madness Returns Select Figure assortment, based on American McGee's dark video game return to Wonderland.
The $22 assortment of 7-inch-scale figures includes Alice, the Cheshire Cat and a Card Guard. Each figure is fully articulated and comes in over-sized collector packaging. Alice comes with her Vorpal blade, Hobby Horse and Pepper Grinder weapons as accessories.
Below we see the Alice: Madness Returns Hysteria Alice Select Figure PX. This bloody variant of Alice shows her in eye-bleeding Hysteria mode and comes with uniquely painted Vorpal blade, Hobby Horse and Pepper Grinder weapons. Only available to Previews customers, this 7-inch-scale figure is fully articulated and comes in oversized collector packaging for $22.
