It's always a pleasure to see a creator taking the time to read and watch critics about their works. While I have the occasion, I'd like to thank you for both Alice games and also Out Of The Woods, those are always a pleasure to play again. I'm lucky to have stumbled on the first AMG's Alice soundtrack in a corner of the internet in 2002, Chris Vrenna had made a fantastic job and it introduced me to yours. Stay creative, stay mad, love you American
I have to disagree about the Queensland section lacking narrative. I remember the power fantasy of the "eat me" cake was so fun and liberating until it dawned on me that what she was stomping to rubble was her own heart. The queen's power shrank so much from the first game it's kind of sad... it's like a role reversal where Alice is the bully now, and the queen is trying to protect what's left of her. They can never kill each other, but they keep hurting each other.
as a 10 year old kid struggling with ptsd, my grandma bought me this game accidentally thinking it was about.. well alice in wonderland. I was not allowed to play "agressive" games at home, but my parents could not deny me my grandma's present. This game resonated with my own struggle at the time in ways I still think about. I played it start to finish about 5 times, and now want to do so again. Thx for reminding me of a gem out of my childhood, and thx grandma for not knowing anything about games hahaha
I don't know what book you were reading, but OG Alice wasn't always on top of things. She was smart, but constantly fighting against those who enforcing values on her. She also cried a lot.
True. it seems to me like he really didn't read the original story or understood it or the characters. Also, he brings up Ramona Flowers as the 'Maniac Pixie Dreamgirl' archetype,but that's wrong. While the movie does no justice to this, in the comics she's actually supposed to be a deconstruction of that type. Like Scott,she's made plenty of mistakes and has flaws Over the course of 6 vols.,her seemingly perfect image is stripped back.
@@aliciadrigo3277 He was probably referring more to the movie than the graphic novels, since Ramona comes across far more like a MPDG (or at the very least a 'zoe Deschanel type' which is the more down to earth 'realistic' version) for a larger chunk of the movie, at least in Scott's POV, and only hinting at that being a shallow label with each new Ex revealing more about her as time goes on
Yeah, his grasp of the literary Alice seems very poor. She was a child (and a somewhat idealized child to boot, even by Victorian standards) having a dream, not an adult powering through an unreal situation.
It's funny you bring up Tim Burton's Alice. That movie started out as American McGee's Alice. He left the project because Disney kept pushing to make it more kid friendly.
Axetwin No is was not. But Coincidence the writer of American mcgee Alice movie was going to be John August who writer of most modern tim Burton movies. And no he did not writer Alice in wonderland 2010 but Linda Woolverton wrote that movie. Even She not the director i can see her style in that picture same with Maleficent
I remember hearing about the first game from a friend back in my grade school days, like around early middleschool. They were completely obsessed with it for months- loved everything about it. One thing I could never get a straight answer on is why they were so compelled with the character, going on and on about how all the gore had context and made sense that it was in her mind. I recall they actually brought the game case in their bookbag so they could show me the images on the back since he couldn't describe them. I didn't know what on earth they were going on about back then. To younger me- a game was something a bit like Zelda or Mario. Failing that, maybe it's a bit like Halo- on the other side of this narrow scale I saw games in at the time. But never the kind of thing they were describing, or showing me. All those rambles came back to me watching this, all of it made sense, and speaks volumes both about this game and my old friend that they'd picked up on all this around the age 11. I think it's high time I took his decade old advice, I should really play this game.
same, dude... one friend at school had a copy and everyday someone different from my class would take the game to their home to install it... then everybody was talking about it!
I feel the second games story would have worked much better- even well- had they made the new conflict something that happened to alice entirely after the events of the first game, and not retrofitted an entirely new conflict to past events. Being abused by a therapist or other figure of power when recovering is incredibly common, even today, and I think even if the specifics are unfamiliar- as they were in the first game- the general experience of feeling knocked down when you were just getting up is universal. It could have tackled similar themes and used similar aesthetics at each point, only with minor changes. Honestly, I hope for a 3rd game, only because it has a slim chance of doing something new with a great basis to build off, and even if it fails, it will at worst draw attention back to Alice and hopefully inspire some others to do better. Theres always room for this kind of story.
The second game balanced the actual combat and platforming a lot better, but a lot of the variety of the first game was lost. Even if the various environments changed aesthetically, they still had you doing the same things and did very little to use the varied aesthetics to create new gimmicks. The lack of bosses due to time constraints also meant there wasn't really much to look forward to at the end of each section.
@@chloepechlaner7806 in my experience, the reason it usually doesn't get talked about is ironically enough that people tend to think the victim is crazy or needs therapy. Perhaps this is by design. I don't know. I just feel like even decades after the fact, life isn't worth living because the rest of the world loves "professionals" so much that the trauma will inevitably repeat itself. Can't kill myself either. I tried, failed, and it repeatedly led to the same thing. I can't get "help" because it's what hurt me to begin with. I can't truly live, because I'm afraid of everything I do or say as my true self leading back to that shit. And well, I can't end myself or get the satisfaction of vengance for the same reason. I'm fucking trapped.
@@8REIS8 Even if you like it for the sexy women, violent action and blood-pumping music, there are movies out there that do the same and do it better and without the weird objectification angle. There's nothing to be had with Sucker Punch that can't be had elsewhere.
@@Joseph-cq3ij @Oscar Silva exactly. Go watch the dogshit reaident evil films to get all of the blood, gore, stylized action, and sexy women doing badass things with significantly less objectification
@JohnnyTheWolf Looking at Zack Snyder's works is like seeing a failed game of Tic-tac-toe. It's never three good movies in a row, neither is three bad movies in a row, it's really like the dude tosses a dice to decide whenever or not he is gonna make it suck or not.
It was clearly a passion project and the artistry used to execue the quite stunning designs cannot be unstated. This does not excuse the underline message as well as the context it was placed in as he that he was both writer and producer those elements are squarely on his shoulders.
@JohnnyTheWolf Man of Steel got its hate mostly from marvel fanboys pissed by the fact that there aren't any comic relief moments in-between punches and superman isn't portrayed as the blank slate boy in blue which everybody should aspire to be.
@@caesarplaysgames No incineration from me. If you are able to enjoy something or if problematic interpretation of said media do not resister with you why would I be against that. If this were so I doubt there could be honest enjoyment of anything.
I reaaallllyyyy liked Madness Returns, and felt alone in that. Glad to see such an excellent and fair assessment of the game, criticisms and praise alike, from a person and critic I respect.
I feel Zooey Deschanel gets unfairly treated. Summer, of (500) Days of Summer, is not a manic pixie dream girl. She's an explicit subversion of that idea. The film begins with Tom reflecting selectively on their relationship, curating a selection of bright, fun memories to justify his upset over the break-up. Over the course of the movie, his curation breaks down: the bad comes into focus, and Summer is rendered - all in - as sometimes happy-chirpy, and other times deeply unhappy with where she is. When the film doesn't present her in entirely, it's done so while being simultaneously framed as a failing on Tom's part, not on Summer's. She even has her own life at the end of the movie - a direct subversion of the manic pixie dream girl trope: she comes into his life as a complex human being, makes him happy, and leaves of her will as a free agent to have her own life. Similarly, Deschanel's New Girl character, Jess, is centred explicitly on her as the protagonist, demonstrates a wild array of emotional traits, and explores her entire life. What might be ascribed to her as MPDG is, I think, just the conventions of the types of sitcom it's aiming to be: a colourful one, with a colourful cast of characters. Elf... hm, a bit, but overall I think Deschanel's unfairly maligned; there are actresses who inhabit the role much more often in reality, though not in popular consciousness
Ryan McCulloch I see what you're saying, but Zooey is often typecast as an eccentric, "adorkable" girl. That's why Deschanel is having a hard time finding work currently, because she doesn't have much experience playing other roles.
I was going to talk about that, but I couldn't had said better! 500 Days is exactly a critique and observation on the theme and how it's a destructive and assholeish attitude to believe and project that on real women
Neither is Ramona Flowers. In the original Scott Pilgrim comics,her seemingly perfect image is slowly stripped back over the course of 6 vols to show that in reality,she and Scott are far more similar than they would like to admit. Like Scott,she's made her fair share of mistakes and has her flaws. Tbf,though if someone only saw the movie they'd easily believe that given how Ramona is portrayed in the film.
Alice: Madness Returns is my all time favorite game, partially because I relate to her so much. (I also love it for it's more gothic esthetic, but that's not as important as her battle is). I get what you meant in your critiques of A:MR, but I have to disagree on a few things. First off, there isn't a "cure" for mental illness, ESPECIALLY not PTSD. I have PTSD and depression myself, and even though I've dealt with it for most of my life, there are still times I fall back. 1 step forward, 2 steps back, as the saying goes. I don't think Alice was "cured" at the end of the first game. I think she was seen as "well enough" to leave, while still needing to see a therapist. Don't forget that in the era the games take place in, mental health (especially that of women) was seen in a completely different way. PMS was, in and of itself, seen as a serious mental illness at that time. Second, even with the progress she made, sometimes all it takes to make hamper progress is for someone like Bumby to step in with the intent to mentally brake her. It's easier to break down a person that is in a rough place already. I think the Dollmaker was her subconscious feeling that there was something "off" about Bumby. Finally, I think it's absolutely possible for Alice to forget about her history with Bumby, only to have those memories return after a while. I've dealt with repressed memories myself, only for them to start coming back over a decade after my abuse happened. Sometimes, you have to work through other obstacles in order to remember certain events. Like I said, I do understand what you were getting at, but I see these things differently, having experienced them myself.
It did make enough sense, yes. And it was very affecting. My fiancée was playing through it, and we were taking turns sometimes, and I had to hand the controller back at the tunnel imagery in the doll level I couldn't deal with it. Because yes it's garish and right on the nose and my thought process goes, but yes, in the real life, it IS garish and it IS right on the nose! Way too much! Just LIKE that! Huh... kept thinking back to the sky cards bit, all calm and empty. Calm and empty, and above it. And even the veil of tears before you've made sense of anything, there is a certain horrible beauty in that ignorance for a time. I mean I've had problems with fire and problems with underage abuse, and problems with amnesia. And dreams. And [finishing this bit, I just had no idea what to write here] Over a decade after, yes. Me too. Still missing most of school. Still keep blaming myself and have to handhold my mind through all the various reasons why not in order to arrive at a real place. To the point where it's got soul-crushingly annoying. Still wake up checking if everything's on fire too. I'll say this, I've yet to feel any other medium of art bring it out of me like this video game did. In tears writing this.
Thank you for sharing this. When he said American Mcgee didn't have the right or experience I don't remember the exact word I couldn't help but think does he. I never dealt with that exact abuse, but I felt like it really came close to the general consensus of how I felt after the things I'd been through. In a really weird way I felt represented not in the exact way, but I feel like it shed a light on ptsd.
This was exactly what I was scrolling through the comments to say. His opinions seem to hinge more on the creators feelings about the first game, rather than an honest look at how mental health works - additionally, sexual abuse of women is alarmingly common, and getting to see Alice's trimuph over just one asshole is ... amazing and satisfying in a way that is so rare. And I always considered the fact that she had melded Wonderland and London together to be positive - rather than blacking out, she had the best of both.
I also think the author is a little too harsh in AMR story, but we can't blame personal preferences on that. I think AMR story is incredible, and the 'on the nose' accusations have little substance: the explicit symbolism is only present in the very late game, when the player is supposed to have figured out the twist already. Before that is very subtle and well constructed. *spoilers* I also liked the ending very much. Most stories end with the hero killing the villain, but the hero is forced by the events, usually because the villain is about to kill the hero, so the killing is presented as not morally ambigous. But in Alice, the villain is not a direct threat to Alice anymore, he is going to take a train and forget about her. Alice willingly decided to kill Bumby because she decided he didn't deserve to live, and you can witness her making her mind and murdering Bumby in a matter of seconds. That's simultaneous bold, bleak, cathartic and refreshing, you don't see that in the vast majority of stories.
I understand that the game can come off as edgy sometimes, but the music, art, and level/set pieces breath with a life while most games don't. In those respects, the game's a masterpiece.
funnily enough i found about madness returns and the original alice game *through* sucker punch. it might be because a female, and the fact that i was in my mid teens when the video game came out, that madness returns and its themes spoke to me so deeply. i never really put two and two together until now, but i remember so vividly being so off-put by the scenes with the doctor, the sexual themes, and disgust with one's own body in the game -- though not enough to make me stop playing or stop looking up videos on it here on youtube. might be reading too much into it, but i think it might have been because it was disgust at how others perceived alice and the other women in the game -- and by correlation *me* as a young girl back then -- that was off-putting, not disgust entirely with myself or how look; just how others made me feel for the way i looked. then again, i could be projecting here. i was 14 at the time and like any self-centered teenage girl, i felt nearly all media with a strong female protagonist felt like it was meant to cater specifically to me and only me.
I had exactly the same experience. Games like Madness Returns and Haunting Ground left such a strong impression on me because I experienced them as a girl going through my awkward teenage years.
Paradox Acres back in the day there was a lot of correlation between sucker punch and anything alice in wonderland related. a few people made fan trailers for mcgee’s alice and madness returns featuring scenes from sucker punch or reused the cast from the movie for their fan-castings. basically it was one of those situations where you fall into rabbit hole of yt videos looking for one thing and end up watching gameplays for a 10 year old video game you had never heard of in your life. the funniest thing to me is that i didn’t like video games back then, and i still don’t. but the story in mcgee’s alice was incredibly compelling and it just spoke to me.
That comment about self-hatred at 20:55 really stuck out for me. Gave me pause to reflect on my own struggles with my low opinion of myself from years ago. It strikes me as something very much worth quoting, honestly. I would like to share it a meaningful observation on the topic, assuming you don't mind folks doing that.
I think that what "normies" don't get about the second game is that it's a relapse. This is what we go through when we're dealing with our mental illnesses and disorders. We might be okay, but then something triggers us again and we can go down and crash HARD sometimes, specially if we haven't gotten quality treatment. I also liked the more narrowing of the trauma represented. I felt seen. Because the signs are always apparent and on the nose but everyone always seemed to ignore them or say I'm overreacting because I'm "crazy". So it felt vindicating.
"The train is coming with its shiny cars, with comfy seats and wheels of stars. So hush my little ones have no fear, the man in the moon is the engineer." I've always loved this line from Madness Returns.
Hey Noah, actually the ending of Madness Returns is a lot more optimistic. Alice didn’t actually break. She actually manifests her powers in the real world, as the doctor reacts to her shifting into her Wonderland dress with surprise. It’s supposed to represent her synthesizing her trauma and growing stronger. She then goes to help others, as seen in the cartoons. She’s really going to be okay.
"I'm not sure anyone has stepped foot in [a Hot Topic] in years" Yes..... People totally don't regularly still go to them *kicks ht merch under the bed*
@@areyousureyouenteredyourna85 theyre in the back and you have to push thru all the nerd shit. But they have drag queen merch now so i cant really complain
I'm just going to say that I related very much to madness returns and feel it does decent job communicating the feelings of what it's like to go through that kind of pain. (uncomfortably content warning) My sister was raped by are uncle in the room next to me when I was 5 and I blanked it out for years but my sister was nearly driven insane by it and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. When he died I felt nothing because I know it didn't magically erase the pain he had done and we had to continue living with it.
So, first off great video, I really appreciate seeing people talk about these games, they mean a whole lot to me. Second: I think madness returns makes a lot more sense thematically then perhaps you give it credit for? It’s still messy, don’t get me wrong, and I think it’s choice to essentially change the story of the fire was a bit questionable...but here me out. I think your analysis of the first game is spot on: it’s pretty unambiguously an internal struggle for Alice. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the sequel is a little more...exterior? Think about how Nurodivergent people, especially women, are treated in the mental health system, especially for the time the game is set: you leave the “asylum,” and you’re not cured, because you don’t ever fully “recover” from trauma, you just learn to live with it, a triumph in itself but that struggle doesn’t end. And suddenly your faced with a world that won’t take you seriously, that is actively harmful to you, and that you don’t feel connected to because of that: people take advantage of you and try to get things from you assuming you are “mad.” I think a lot of the choices in madness returns make more sense when viewed through that lens: through Alice both trying to cope with the world as she now knows it, a hostile and cruel “adult world” (to quote the queen from the first game), while the adults in her life either won’t take her seriously, or are actively attempting to harm her. Relapses happen, and I’ve known too many people fucked over and made worse by bad therapists, even if they were otherwise doing well. I think the choice to change the night of the fire to be ALSO a story of abuse does feels contrived, but even then here me out: Alice spent *the whole* first game in her own head. Alice spends much of the second game retreating from reality into her delusions, even if that’s not intentional on her part (it’s not, it’s a trauma response) it still means that she’s not really interfacing with the reality that *is* right in front of her. And because she’s lost in her own head she can’t see that this man, her therapist, is abusing her, and the children around her, and had abused her sister. We’ve all been there: sometimes it takes a long time and a lot of introspection to recontextualize events in our past, and realize that maybe we missed something, and while I think this choice could have been handled a bit better, I think it’s an experience that more people can relate to than you give it credit for, even if it’s not as fucked as Alice’s experience. Example: I’m trans. It took me a very long time to come to terms with that and accept it as a thing, but once I did? Suddenly a lot of stuff, a lot of the way I acted, a lot of the things that I did and wanted made a lot more sense. Obviously not quite the same, but it’s a story that I certainly felt a kinship with on some level beyond just the aesthetic...anyways, sorry for the meandering comments, it’s early here. Thank you for giving your perspective
From what I remember-of course this is faulty because it’s been decades-reason why it turned into more of a mystery is because once she got out, she kept having dreams that told her it wasn’t actually her fault. She’s older now and sees things differently. Like, a revelation of sorts. She finally accepted that it isn’t her fault. And since it wasn’t her fault, then who’s fault was it? When you have repressed memories, you cut out certain details. You might be seeing the bigger picture, but there’s a few things still missing. Like a puzzle. That piece looks like it fits-that it should fit-but it doesn’t. And sometimes you don’t realize it until towards the bitter end that you made a mistake somewhere.
I've always loved the Alice games and could never figure out why the sequel felt like a more surface-level exploration of Alice's internal struggle. This breakdown of both games brought clarity - and a bit of nostalgia. I feel like I should get back to the games again and see the bigger picture you described for myself! Thank you, Noah
One thing that's so amazing about this game is how the difficulty level affects the actual level design. And the Music by Chris Vrenna from NIN is so good.
The music introduced me to the game :) Chris Vrenna had been playing keyboards for Marylin Manson at that time. Iirc McGee was in contact with Manson to do the soundtrack but Manson finally proposed Vrenna for the job and did his own Alice-themed album Eat Me Drink Me.
"There's one particularly notable exception to the rule" -- if you don't count the '80s films "Alice" by Jan Svankmajer or "Dreamchild" by Dennis Potter, that is.
"Where we're allowed to debate if Avenged Sevenfold counts as classic rock." You scared me more saying that than I was ever scared playing Madness Returns.
Idk as someone who constantly reaches a point where you feel like you just healed just to fall again harder i felt how the story makes you go back through "that hell" Like Yeah i can see her doing that again I know I'd do I think that ALL THAT EDGE is justified because of how debilitating is trying to heal again and again and again, and every time it just gets harder and scarier
I think that NCG is right in saying that the game didn't quite recapture the same personal universal feelings, but it also apparently did successfully resonate with some among the intended audience. Having the abuse be that of her sister, and not herself. Having the trauma and the guilt of "starting the fire" be that of her not acting bolder and more decisively is actually a great narrative plan. I'm not sure if there was anyone with personal experience with that sort of guilt on the team, but the combination of buried memory and extreme feelings does weird things to a person's psyche. Especially guilt, the kind of guilt that is looking for a fault to hang on but cannot find the cause for how deep it is buried. That guilt ends up badly assigned, to things that are clearly, rationally not our fault. But at the same time must be, have to be our fault. unburying something that upends the narrative built up in your head is a, well. It's been a common enough occurrence for me at any rate to think a second game pulling that is quite spot on. It might feel like a bit of narrative sleight-of-hand and you might question the wisdom in doing it, but that's the same thing in reality. What's the wisdom in tackling the trauma when you could let it fade to your grave, you may ask yourself. Trauma is tricky, because if you leave it lie you may be functional for now but there's a sword of damocles hangin just out of sight and not one way of knowing what might set it off. Tackling the trauma is for sure a struggle and for sure an ordeal, but afterwards at least you *know* a bit more. At least you can plan a bit better. At least you've got a better tool kit for dealing with sword inflicted neck wounds and perhaps a needle and thread to get your head on straight faster and cleaner than before.. NGC is right in saying that it wasn't universal feelings however, that's just the front half of it. The second half for buried things like this, after forgiving and letting go of the totally generalized and paralyzing feelings, is to reassign those feelings to where they are the valid and proper emotion to feel. Directionless rage stemming from a core feeling of inadequacy and impotence? Gotta find a way to accept yourself or else you'll never get anywhere. Have to let it go and accept. New interactions with someone that ends up unburying a specific and personal injustice that made you feel impotent, inadequate, and enraged? Gotta re-litigate and accept that rage as a valid emotional response for that awful happening, lest your experience be erased by some sort of train of thought. Or maybe more like a train of memory . . . I haven't played Madness Returns but I've got a bit of experience with trauma, and uh. It looks familiar to me, even from a distance. Good on ya America and co. for capturing the absolutely foul experience of getting memories unburied and then questioned by those in a position of power and trust. Thank you. good faith representation is hard as hell to come by and this looks as close as any I've seen to being functional without being dis-empowering pity-schlock and without being exploitative suffer-porn. Hard as hell to do. Thank you.
Late as hell to the party, but I liked the narrative of Madness Returns a lot and it hit me in the right spot when I was a teenage girl dealing with my own repressed childhood sexual trauma. It made perfect sense to me, having parts of your mind that are missing and coping mechanisms trying their damndest go prevent you from hurting yourself with the memory. Yeah Alice is an unflappable manic pixie, but that's how I wanted to be too. The game was on the nose and it's still just personally meaningful for it.
(falls to knees) OHHH YES! FINALLY! Although to defend Madness Returns: remember though that this takes place in the early 20th century. The safety nets that we take for granted didn't exist yet, so its about blatant sexual harassment and prostitution, but nobody gives a damn. Pair that with brainwashing and you have a pretty horrific setup. It was also something that she knew of long ago (assuming you paid attention to those flashback sequences you get when you walk through that burning house door) and it is simply resurfacing because of what the doctor is doing and what is happening around her.
I think these games were a lot darker than Psychonaut. Sure Psychonaut was about entering the mind of others, but it didnt have the mental illness angle.
Naru1243 4 levels in Psychonauts are accessed by way of patients at an asylum. Gloria was bipolar, Boyd was severely paranoid, Edgar is obsessive and suffers from fits of rage, and Fred is locked in a battle for his mind with his descendent Napoleon Bonaparte. That last one is kind of a stretch, but none the less they all have mental illnesses that are reflected in the levels you play in.
Alice’s two realities merged at the end of Madness returns. The third game could be Alice taking over the orphanage and redeeming herself by taking care of the children she neglected because she cared more for her own madness, while dealing with her joined realities in the REAL world.
Your video essays are a joy to listen to. The depth of the analysis, the metatextual references and the hypnotic delivery is always welcome. Keep it up!
after watching this i went back and re-watched a cutscene movie of Madness Returns and honestly it does hold up pretty well. i feel like it would've been so easy to establish a sense of Alice's agency by just having a bit more of a push and pull over who controls Wonderland. in the game itself, Alice is forced to run around between set pieces desperately searching for answers regarding what's happening from Wonderland's cast. ultimately, however, she gets all her major revelations from the flaming doors and her memories of the house which are just coincidentally lying around in the middle of levels, with the exception of your conversation with Lizzy. there's nothing Alice can do to halt or hinder the Infernal Train, and so she's stuck chasing its vague path of destruction and doing mostly-unrelated side quests for the cast. somehow, despite a lack of real purpose or direction, she happens upon all the answers she needs and eventually the train itself, but it does feel kind of cheap. there is that underlying thread suggested by the Hatter and Caterpillar on the train that she's punishing herself for not acting sooner by forcing herself into scenarios wherein she actually helps others, but that could've easily been way more explicit way sooner. maybe it would've worked better if, with her explicit mission to repair Wonderland, more of the levels were based around actively flushing out the Corruption and the Ruin, or repairing the damage done by the train. then you end up with this tension of Alice trying to keep up with the pace of the train's destruction, her reality and fantasy becoming more unstable as she begins losing more and more ground until the 'all is lost' moment. then you can have, at her rock bottom, the "there are no centaurs in Oxford" moment, revealing the missing piece of the memories she had been fighting to repress all this time, and that momentum of victory and fury continues all the way up to a final confrontation with The Toymaker.
I have mixed feelings. The team that made these games disbanded, it's just American and whoever he can recruit to work on it. I won't be shocked if we end up in a Mighty #9 kinda situation. I'm willling to entertain hope, tho.
@@LimeyLassen It's quite true that the games aren't entirely made by the headliner, but there's nothing wrong with new talent as long as it's talented.
@@LimeyLassen He's actually in the comments section of this video! He has his own channel too with lots of dev diary videos. The new game sounds/looks awesome from what they have on there.
To me Alice in the books is essentially a nothing character who stuff happens to, and while sometimes she's clever in pointing out how her dream doesn't make sense, she still thinks London is the capital of Paris and Paris is the capital of Rome and I don't see at all where you're coming from with the magic pixie dream girl article
well now watching this in 2021 I think its the time to do it with alternative culture coming back through tiktok games like this would fit right in and be beloved by the alternative crowd in general
I was watching the Horizon: Zero Dawn video when the notification popped up of another video. At first I thought it was a re-upload. This is part of why I love your channel. Your videos are long information dense videos that throws a middle finger to TH-cam algorithms. Instead of gaming the system and making 4 15 minute videos (with 3 of those 15 minutes about Skill Share) spread out over a month, you just upload them when you can. Please don't change! TH-cam may want you to do these short frequent videos, but I love the long form. I may have to pause at times (your NWN video I had to) but I always finish them.
Alice isn't a manic pixie dream girl because she's the protagonist of her own story, and her personality is decidedly not that. The trope explicitly concerns changing the life of the male lead, not just anyone around them. "'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' was useful when it commented on the superficiality of female characterizations in male dominated journeys, but it has since devolved into a pejorative way to deride unique women in fiction and reality."
@@ProudAchilles He is talking about the Book character that was based off of a real girl. He isn't talking about McGee's Alice. He states how that version subverts that type of character.
i disagree that it was a bad move to make madness returns about an outside force instead of repeating the same introverted themes of the first game ive always loved how the first game was all about freeing herself from a vegetative state, and the second moving on to alice living in the real world of a sexist london and learning how to protect herself(and also in the process saving others) now that shes a little more in control of her life but definitely still not sane. i thought with the third game american mcgee wanted to make, the otherlands one, could be about taking yet another step into her own healing - helping others, which would complete everything and alice can finally live somewhat normally though what you said about madness returns not having as much symbolism and sometimes just indulging in the aesthetic for the sake of it, i didnt think about it much before but i guess its true
The way I saw it was that everyone in Alice’s life whom was supposed to help her is actually exploiting her (possibly with the exception of Nan) and that is reflected in the characters in Wonderland now.
Phew, I put off watching this because I was irrationally worried that you might not like it. I remember it as being one of my favorite games growing up (girl/woman here), even though I was much more an RPG kind of gal (Baldur's Gate, Gothic and the like) who didn't like most "twitchy" action or platformer games. But I made an exception for Alice. I loved it precisely because of the hot-topicness/Goth-girl appeal. I was really glad there was a sequel and I really enjoyed playing through the sequel (I could even picture myself being more likely to replay that one). But I do think that you have a very good point on how the point of the story is missing a central relate point in the second one. It's quite sad because I think the design of Alice has so much potential for a "cult video game heroine" and I'd love nothing more than a new Alice game every couple of years. It feels like characters who aren't easy to "serialize" are at a real disadvantage when it comes to "video game pantheon" status, but serializability usually does rely on external threats and escalating those external threats over various games (even is those threats are used to occasionally reflect back on the psyche of the main character or explore emotional challenges for them too, like let's say God of War or Metroid or even Halo seemed to be trying on occasion). That said as a German speaker, the use of Schadenfreude threw me a bit. To me, in the context of German the "tone" of Schadenfreude is very much "childish glee", which to me doesn't really mesh with the kind of "reveling in a woman's suffering because it is oh so aesthetic" or even the sadistic delight of it while pretending to be concerned that I imagine to be more at the base of a Suckerpunch type of scenario. I feel like I've seen a lot of these in really old movies and books that do like "tales of sad and tragic harlot who meets a tragic end", that often are a really mixed bag culturally because many people say that in their context they really were novel and really measurably helped people understand certain others more (and maybe really did a ton for some actress portraying it in a movie), even if they weren't stories for the people themselves (kind of like an "Uncle Tom" type story for women, a work intended for an audience of others) Some of these artistic works always struck me as if to them female suffering is really an alien concept to them, maybe because it contrasts to them of what kind of more action heavy response they would consider the appropriate one and that is their way of trying to approach it (and in the process overlooking that a lot of the time the suffering isn't as passive as they perceive it to be, just because it lacks the action hero outbursts, something I think is quite well portrayed in Handmaiden's Tale which features a lot of examples of Tales of Small Resistance). Anyway, I'm trailing off. I agree with you that Alice The Original is nothing like that and it just feels like a straight forward story. And Alice 2 to me seems to me more born out of a genuine attempt to find a way to continue Alice the character, out of a desire to see the character carry on as a video game series, as an icon, because she was really frikking awesome. So the shift to more external threats makes a lot of sense to me just from a serialization point of view. I don't really have any personal connection to sexual abuse and I do kind of see how many some attempts of the story to reference it felt like taking wild knife stabs in the dark, but as an outsider I didn't mind that? Probably because I'm in the same position even if Alice isn't supposed to be? (btw, I'm nobody ;) it's a reference to the odyssee)
As someone who has only played Madness Returns and thus has only second-hand experience with the first game, this was a really interesting analysis- I wish that you'd gone through the second game's flow and level structure with the same detail you had the first game's, though.
Man you put a lot into these vids it makes my brain hurt kinda to watch them but watch them I will , back up every 30 sec. to actually pick up what your laying down I will as well , never have I seen someone pit as much into these reviews as you man it's awesome and i am thrilled I found your vids it's as real as it gets , love it man keep em coming brother
Thank you so much for this! The Alice series by American Mc Gee is my all time favorite game franchise! It‘s such a beautiful mix between fantastical horror, fantasy and it has a female protagonist which I loved! Combat platformers are really awesome but it is so hard to find one that does it for me like Alice did. I‘ve played the game probably over 5 times and I still can‘t get enough! I really hope that Alice Asylum can become a reality and I am so extremely excited about it!
Welp. I've never heard of you until you were recommended in a comment on a podcast today... this was the first video I watched... and you have my subscription. Well done sir!
As a woman I have always connected much more with A:MR, since in the original the fact that she's a woman seems almost incidental. A:MR feels like it makes more use of the protagonist being female, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't really understand the Manic Pixie Dream Girl motif here, since that trope specifically has to do with a female character existing to inspire growth in a male character. I always had trouble putting into words why the "oriental" segment was my least favorite in Madness Returns, and I think you hit the nail on the head. I never really felt like it had anything to do with the story, like it was mostly just an excuse to create imagery the dev team wanted to create.
Absolutely love this video, I had no idea I needed a critique/retrospective on this game. In 2011 I loved Madness Returns, though I certainly thought it had its flaws. Back then, being a hot topic teen, I also watched and enjoyed Sucker Punch uncritically. Now I'm shaking my head at my teenage self. How nice to get this thorough critique of both from you today, in 2019 no less. I never got to play much of the original Alice, but I remember being blown away by the levels I got through. This video has convinced med to go back at play it all the way through. You are one of my favourite video-essayists on youtube, your uploads are always worth the wait. Keep up the good work 👍🏻 Cheers from a fan from Denmark 🇩🇰
His interpretation of sucker punch as a story about the female psyche makes no sense to me however. The movie wasn't about women, but a condemnation of the idea, that there's no female empowerment when pop-culture over-sexualise female characters even if they are physically empowered in the narrative. It's made by men for men to enjoy. It's a middle-finger to 90's comic trends. It's not a man making a story about feminity. But a man making a story condemning specific parts about male-nerd culture. Babydoll gets lobotomized because Zach Snyder believes it to be sexist, that men believes women can empower themselves through a lap-dance.
@@SuperHipsterGamer Yeah, no. A woman can empower herself through a lap dance if she genuinely wishes to perform the lap dance and isn't doing so through necessity or coercion. It's not "feminist" to punish a woman for executing sexual agency, that's the exact sexist behavior the film is supposedly condemning. And is really hypocritical since it doesn't seem to mind when its actually objectifying and exploiting its women cast.
@@SuperHipsterGamer I don’t need to, because I actually understand what feminism *is*, and it’s not a bunch of women all glossy and perfect wearing sexually revealing clothes for the men to ogle at and then have them lobotomized for actually acting of their own free will that’s not motivated purely to make the male director’s dick hard. The only way you can even slightly see a hint of feminism in Sucker Punch is if you adopt the male chauvinist dudebro’s very limited understanding of feminism.
I'm excited to see this, but concerned I won't like it.... this is my current hyperfixation & I'm very protective (I'll edit this comment with my thoughts after I'm done watching, not that anyone will care, but still) Edit: Okay, I've got a lot to say & I doubt anyone will read this anyway so lemme just let it all out; Firstly I'd like to say I've played both games all the way through multiple times & platinumed the game on PS3, second I'm a female born person who has severe mental health issues & has been hospitalized for those conditions, and third, unfortunately I have my own experiences with sexual assault. So I feel it may go without saying I relate to Alice & love the types of motifs both games play with. I really like that you enjoy the games & I actually agree with many of your criticisms, especially when it comes to gameplay, however I think once the aspect of the story in the second game came up I disagreed a little more. I understand where you're coming from as far as the visuals being on the nose when relating to her trauma (though personally I enjoyed the campy feeling of the environments) but the portrayal of sexism specifically is a lot more solid than what you stated. One line in particular in the beginning starts it off strong with "your preference doesn't signify girl" Bumby says to Alice when she's uncomfortable with telling him more about the inner workings of her wonderland, this to me is layered with sexism & the power dynamic that will be later blatantly used to control Alice's emotion. Not only is he directly telling her that he doesn't care how she feels in the situation as long as he gets to do his job, by calling her "girl" it also discredits her autonomy as a grown woman as well as establishes how Bumby still views her as a helpless child that he can easily manipulate. By the time you're sliding down tongues & listening to memories of your sister talking about how she hated being used by Bumby, I feel that it's far enough in the story to have earned that level of obvious sexual trauma. One thing I really agree on however is that the trauma is very retroactive from the first story & would benefit from slight tweaks in the way it's presented. I've often thought it would have been MUCH better had it been Alice who was sexually assaulted & the trauma of the incident coupled with her being so young on top of being manipulated by a professional psychologist is what made her forget. I feel perhaps the reason they went for Lizzy instead of Alice was because of just how touchy something like sexual assault is, and I can understand why that may have been an uncomfortable idea for some of the writers, but, I think it would have made the entire uncovering of memories much more meaningfully selfish like within the first game. Instead of getting revenge for Lizzy & her family's sake, it would solely be for Alice to come to terms with what happened to her as a child, and the final push she gives Bumby all the more satisfying. Furthermore it would also just be nice to have a main character in a videogame who was taken advantage of in that way, becoming stronger by accepting and moving on from that experience; instead of being/staying an emotional wreck and being completely "ruined" by it. Also to continue on the note of sexism I feel that through the way other characters (the females included) treat Alice is very reflective of the actual types of sexism that are still often applied to women today (even more so in the time setting Alice is in). Nan Sharpe says "A woman alone sometimes does what she doesn't particularly feel like doing" talking about hooking/her brothel, essentially telling Alice that if need be a woman will & should give up anything to get by, she's a warning to Alice of what she might end up like if she doesn't find a man to marry or a solid income. Nurse Cratchet (the one who experiments on Alice in the asylum) to me represents in the context of sexism the women who are compliant in the 'mans world', and have no issue helping to keep other women under control. She's frustrated with Alice not cooperating, both her mental capabilities & of what society expects of her, which is why she's willing to try ANYTHING to cure Alice. Pris Witless (the retired nurse, who's a drunk) in the context of sexism is the very image of a crone; she's a homely old woman presumably with no husband who spends her days drinking away instead of lovingly tending to a family. She fantasizes about the French revolution & the horrors of war, a distinctly unfeminine trait for the time, and is cruel to Alice even as a child; she represents a similar but slightly different side of Nan, a woman without a man in her life to keep her grounded and safe. Jack Splatter (and his wonderland alter ego The Carpenter) are both very obviously the men who wish to use women for financial gain, helping other men to use them sexually. In the real world he's a pimp, pretty self explanatory, and in wonderland he wants to put on a show with beautiful clams (an arguably yonic food) which are wrongfully known for 'boosting libido', little do the poor clams know they're meant to be the dinner of a much larger much more powerful man who immediately steals their spotlight on the stage. Further driving home the imagery of women who prostitute themselves being taken advantage of rather than being sexually liberated, as Nan claims to be. One thing as well is that with Radcliffe (lawyer) I felt that is obsession with orientalism was reflective of the sexist motifs in the story. It's a common meme online now that weeabo neck beards believe that all Asian women are subservient, well mannered, beautiful, quiet, small waifus that are there only for the enjoyment of men. And I felt that his entire character, home, and level, were meant to reflect that idea. Alice becomes immersed in that world because part of her wishes to have a simple life & to be quietly resigned to the status quo, to be like the idealistic women Radcliffe admires, and simply being a china doll who lives to serve. She seeks advice from the wise caterpillar (who is likely Radcliffe), yet another condescending man in her life who gives her vague advice while insulting her, and this is reflective of the hierarchal society both Victorian London and Edo Japan had in common. Perhaps a bit of a stretch, however once you've played this game as much as I have, you start to read into EVERYTHING. Writing all of that out, I realize now most of the subtlety is in the real world, while Alice's wonderland is a fanciful played up version of things she experiences, which isn't really a surprise, just an interesting note. And that's all just about the sexism. I could ramble even more about the violence & death in the game, as well as the human trafficking & pedophilia. Tbh, I might have to just make my own video responding to yours, hopefully you wont mind. I just have so much to say about your thoughts, you've made me think even more critically about my hyperfixation and I love that. Thank you for the well thought out video, I really enjoyed a lot of the points you made, and was surprised to find I agreed with you on most things. Speaking of, all of this is just my opinion obviously & I respect yours, just bc I wrote WAY too much doesn't mean I disliked the video, in fact it's quite the opposite. Thank you to literally anyone who read this, you're a legend. I'll be sure to tag you & link your video if I ever decide to make my own response!
What a cool video. I've always been interested in level design for games and had no idea these games existed. Im gonna have to check them out now, thanks Noah!
I know this is a year old, but this is a FANTASTIC analysis of these games! I really enjoyed your thoughts and insights, I paused my whole morning to watch this hahaha
Just wanted to say I love your content. It's everything I loved about American literature with the cool headed confidence to approach it's problematic elements. Your videos strike me as genuine, almost humblingly honest in it's craft. I hope you know for a lot of folks you make some of the best media out there. Even against huge companies, polished small teams, and the lowest barrier of entry ever for an entertainment industry; you make some of the best content. You could retire now and I'd still enjoy your existing library for a long time, in the way someone might come back to the same book over and over. Because much like you say about the first Alice game, your videos speak to something more universal in a unique fashion. Transgressing the bounds of Americana to dip into modern and foreign concepts and see how it can uniquely utilize the American voice.
I've been hooked on yout reviews for a few months now and have loved going through your library. As I listened to the first few of them, I found myself hoping you would do a review on the Alice games. Now here they are. These are some of my favorite games. Thank you.
I agree that the second game felt less focused and introspective than the first, but I disagree with the notion that Alice embodies the "manic pixie dream girl" trope. The original trope is a male fantasy in which a free-spirited, fun-loving, and ultimately 'enlightened' young girl comes into the story in order to re-introduce light and excitement into a down-on-his-luck or cynical man's life. The trope is rooted in the image of a "cute girl savior" who exists solely to prop up the male protagonist. It's exploitative because the girl has little to no personal struggles, nor does the story concern itself with her inner thoughts and feelings except in relation to her male counterpart's romantic interest, hence the "dream girl" part of the name. (There are also male manic pixies with female counterparts, but I'm speaking to the original trope.) In these games, Alice embodies a disaffected demeanor, certainly, and, it could be argued, adopts a cute goth girl aesthetic, but that doesn't make her a manic pixie dream girl. And the story itself refutes this idea by ultimately being about her journey, her triumphs over her abusers, and her mental health. Just because the story of Madness Returns features external influences on Alice does not mean that she exists solely to teach a life lesson, or fulfill a romantic/sexual fantasy. Her perspective and influence in the story is solely used for her own benefit. It's fine for you to hold the opinion that the game is style over substance, in some ways I'd agree, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the manic pixie dream girl trope.
Nailed the first game, completely got the second one from a biased perspective. You can't *cure* madness, you can only keep it at bay. Alice feels better about the fire not being her fault and deals with the guilt involved. Then, when she starts going through *actual therapy* she starts uncovering the truths which laid behind the fire. The fact that the second game deals with things more linked to Carrol and some angles are "on the nose" *is* a flip of the first game's re-construction, and that's kinda the point. The first game finishes on an up because she left the asylum and dealt with her personal guilt. The second game finishes on a down because she can't handle the abuse she went through and has to retreat back into a level of fantasy in order to survive. This is something often seen in the victims of abuse. I won't talk too much about it 'cause it tends to be a very personal thing for people and thus one's fantasy won't gel with most others, but you'll often find that people who have gone through it have "something special" about themselves or their worldview in relation to more "normal" people. Read into that positively and negatively and you might be halfway to the point I'm making here. But who am I kidding? No-one's gonna read this. The algorithm hates me and no-one cares what I think anyway. Sometimes you've gotta shout at the wall to make yourselves feel better, is all.
Well I read the beginning and ending of your comment so you are half right. But I liked "you can't cure madness you can only keep it at bay" part so there is that.
I don't agree with a lot of your points on your videos but they give me great perspective and you've helped me grow enormously in my thoughts and arguments. I appreciate your videos a lot and I just want to say keep up the good work. My only actual critique is to maybe edit out the throat coughs but that's a pretty small thing in the grand scheme of things. Thanks for making these videos :)
I definitely think all your arguments on this video are absolutely on point though! My previous comment is just in general for all your videos. I really love you DND game videos, while I disagree with a lot of your points on them, listening to someone spend such a critical and thought provocative view on them gives me great comfort. Like I said I love your arguments and hopefully I can demonstrate my thoughts as well as you do.
Noah, you always pick incredibly interesting topics to discuss, and you cover them in such detail, with such amazing scripts. Your work ethic stuns me. Also, 30:10 made me laugh so hard
This was really good, hope you'll do more videos like this. What made it so good was : looking at the original book and comparing it to the intent of the game creator, comparing the game to another art form with similar theme and how you talk about the history of the books and the game. I think that's what made this video so good but I also feel like there's something more that I can't describe.
So somebody saw the director of Sucker Punch and genuinely thought “Yes, this is the director that will best do our superman movie.” This is so stupid and explains so much.
Watching the last bit of this video made me crave a breakdown of the Prince of Persia franchise. A 2 hours video about one of my favourite game franchises, a man may dream.
This video went from a 7/10 to a 9/10 when you said how Sucker Punch is the baseline of 0 for feminine interiorality. Excellent examination of my fave platformer adventure of all time btw.
You can't rush this. It happens when it does, and when it does it's always good! Love your work. You're the Hunter S. Thomson of videogames. Brililant!
I'd hope he's a little less self-destructive than the esteemed Doctor of Gonzo, though I suppose it's in part thanks to that willful self-destruction that Hunter S. Thompson was as important as he is these days.
Loved the video! And I love your long hair! This was one of my favorite series. Played the first one years ago and then rented the new one before blockbuster died and kept it forever.
This video was a wonderful journey into a series i had only ever seen bits and pieces of and this has given me a strong desire to finally play them for myself. thank you noah :)
Another outstanding video, your work is fantastic! I still remember being deeply unsettled by the magazine ads for the first game and I never guessed there was so much substance beneath the gory style. Maybe it's finally time to give it a shot.
Really great video I agree for the most part I just don't see the manic pixie dream girl aspect... Like Alice is never really quirky funny or feels like some kind of fantasy for a man... Idk I guess I just dislike the term
This was a very well made and informative video. You got my subscription because YOU PERSONALLY READ all those patrons names at the end and that is dedication.
The ending of the second Alice felt more Bitter Sweet than bitter to me. The game went out of its way to make the real world look kind of crap, so her embracing her Madness enough to turn London into Londerland while also embodying the strength of her own avatar felt closer to a good ending than a bad one.
That was great. Thanks for sharing. Will take your comments into consideration! :)
Thanks for your art.
Please... don't.
It's always a pleasure to see a creator taking the time to read and watch critics about their works.
While I have the occasion, I'd like to thank you for both Alice games and also Out Of The Woods, those are always a pleasure to play again.
I'm lucky to have stumbled on the first AMG's Alice soundtrack in a corner of the internet in 2002, Chris Vrenna had made a fantastic job and it introduced me to yours. Stay creative, stay mad, love you American
Both Alice games are one of my fondest gaming experiences looking back, thank you (and everyone else involved ofc).
I have to disagree about the Queensland section lacking narrative. I remember the power fantasy of the "eat me" cake was so fun and liberating until it dawned on me that what she was stomping to rubble was her own heart. The queen's power shrank so much from the first game it's kind of sad... it's like a role reversal where Alice is the bully now, and the queen is trying to protect what's left of her. They can never kill each other, but they keep hurting each other.
as a 10 year old kid struggling with ptsd, my grandma bought me this game accidentally thinking it was about.. well alice in wonderland. I was not allowed to play "agressive" games at home, but my parents could not deny me my grandma's present. This game resonated with my own struggle at the time in ways I still think about. I played it start to finish about 5 times, and now want to do so again. Thx for reminding me of a gem out of my childhood, and thx grandma for not knowing anything about games hahaha
What a great comment. So interesting to see how even the most seemingly random games left and impact on people
I don't know what book you were reading, but OG Alice wasn't always on top of things. She was smart, but constantly fighting against those who enforcing values on her. She also cried a lot.
True. it seems to me like he really didn't read the original story or understood it or the characters. Also, he brings up Ramona Flowers as the 'Maniac Pixie Dreamgirl' archetype,but that's wrong. While the movie does no justice to this, in the comics she's actually supposed to be a deconstruction of that type. Like Scott,she's made plenty of mistakes and has flaws Over the course of 6 vols.,her seemingly perfect image is stripped back.
@@aliciadrigo3277
He was probably referring more to the movie than the graphic novels, since Ramona comes across far more like a MPDG (or at the very least a 'zoe Deschanel type' which is the more down to earth 'realistic' version) for a larger chunk of the movie, at least in Scott's POV, and only hinting at that being a shallow label with each new Ex revealing more about her as time goes on
Yeah, his grasp of the literary Alice seems very poor. She was a child (and a somewhat idealized child to boot, even by Victorian standards) having a dream, not an adult powering through an unreal situation.
"Alice gave her self very good advice, though she very seldom followed it."
Take a shot every time he says women
It's funny you bring up Tim Burton's Alice. That movie started out as American McGee's Alice. He left the project because Disney kept pushing to make it more kid friendly.
Wait, really? Wow.
Do you have any source on that? It's quite intriguing
It's not that kid friendly is bad, its the way Disney and other Studios keeps trying to make every children's tale effing Lord of the Rings.
TheCivildecay I found an article talking about it; www.google.com/amp/s/kotaku.com/alice-creator-on-tim-burtons-alice-in-wonderland-5639799/amp
Axetwin No is was not. But Coincidence the writer of American mcgee Alice movie was going to be John August who writer of most modern tim Burton movies.
And no he did not writer Alice in wonderland 2010 but Linda Woolverton wrote that movie. Even She not the director i can see her style in that picture same with Maleficent
I remember hearing about the first game from a friend back in my grade school days, like around early middleschool.
They were completely obsessed with it for months- loved everything about it. One thing I could never get a straight answer on is why they were so compelled with the character, going on and on about how all the gore had context and made sense that it was in her mind. I recall they actually brought the game case in their bookbag so they could show me the images on the back since he couldn't describe them. I didn't know what on earth they were going on about back then. To younger me- a game was something a bit like Zelda or Mario. Failing that, maybe it's a bit like Halo- on the other side of this narrow scale I saw games in at the time. But never the kind of thing they were describing, or showing me.
All those rambles came back to me watching this, all of it made sense, and speaks volumes both about this game and my old friend that they'd picked up on all this around the age 11. I think it's high time I took his decade old advice, I should really play this game.
I wish there were more comments like this, nice story dude.
same, dude... one friend at school had a copy and everyday someone different from my class would take the game to their home to install it... then everybody was talking about it!
That kid sounds like me from middle school 😂 brought the doctors book to school and made her dress in home ec!
@@Zalastorkids these days will never know
I feel the second games story would have worked much better- even well- had they made the new conflict something that happened to alice entirely after the events of the first game, and not retrofitted an entirely new conflict to past events. Being abused by a therapist or other figure of power when recovering is incredibly common, even today, and I think even if the specifics are unfamiliar- as they were in the first game- the general experience of feeling knocked down when you were just getting up is universal. It could have tackled similar themes and used similar aesthetics at each point, only with minor changes.
Honestly, I hope for a 3rd game, only because it has a slim chance of doing something new with a great basis to build off, and even if it fails, it will at worst draw attention back to Alice and hopefully inspire some others to do better. Theres always room for this kind of story.
The second game balanced the actual combat and platforming a lot better, but a lot of the variety of the first game was lost. Even if the various environments changed aesthetically, they still had you doing the same things and did very little to use the varied aesthetics to create new gimmicks. The lack of bosses due to time constraints also meant there wasn't really much to look forward to at the end of each section.
They actually are in pre-production for a 3rd title however the way it's explained makes it sound like a prequel that acts like a reboot.
@@TitaniumSalvage something like a reboot seems the best idea
@floret
@@chloepechlaner7806 in my experience, the reason it usually doesn't get talked about is ironically enough that people tend to think the victim is crazy or needs therapy. Perhaps this is by design. I don't know. I just feel like even decades after the fact, life isn't worth living because the rest of the world loves "professionals" so much that the trauma will inevitably repeat itself. Can't kill myself either. I tried, failed, and it repeatedly led to the same thing. I can't get "help" because it's what hurt me to begin with. I can't truly live, because I'm afraid of everything I do or say as my true self leading back to that shit. And well, I can't end myself or get the satisfaction of vengance for the same reason. I'm fucking trapped.
Noah Caldwell-Gervais presents _American McGee's Alice,_ with special guest star _God I Hate Sucker Punch So Much_
My first reaction was to go to IMDB and to give the movie 10 stars.
A think most bitter snobs hate sucker punch. I really love that movie.
Honestly hating Suckerpunch is one of the most relatable things I can think of.
@@8REIS8 Even if you like it for the sexy women, violent action and blood-pumping music, there are movies out there that do the same and do it better and without the weird objectification angle. There's nothing to be had with Sucker Punch that can't be had elsewhere.
@@Joseph-cq3ij @Oscar Silva exactly. Go watch the dogshit reaident evil films to get all of the blood, gore, stylized action, and sexy women doing badass things with significantly less objectification
In addition to the wonderful work on the Alice games, I would also like to thank you for the succinct breakdown of why Sucker Punch was just awful.
@JohnnyTheWolf Looking at Zack Snyder's works is like seeing a failed game of Tic-tac-toe. It's never three good movies in a row, neither is three bad movies in a row, it's really like the dude tosses a dice to decide whenever or not he is gonna make it suck or not.
It was clearly a passion project and the artistry used to execue the quite stunning designs cannot be unstated. This does not excuse the underline message as well as the context it was placed in as he that he was both writer and producer those elements are squarely on his shoulders.
@JohnnyTheWolf Man of Steel got its hate mostly from marvel fanboys pissed by the fact that there aren't any comic relief moments in-between punches and superman isn't portrayed as the blank slate boy in blue which everybody should aspire to be.
UrbanTheFox I don’t mind Sucker Punch. I think it’s an entertaining movie. I know I know, burn me at the stake.
@@caesarplaysgames No incineration from me. If you are able to enjoy something or if problematic interpretation of said media do not resister with you why would I be against that.
If this were so I doubt there could be honest enjoyment of anything.
I reaaallllyyyy liked Madness Returns, and felt alone in that. Glad to see such an excellent and fair assessment of the game, criticisms and praise alike, from a person and critic I respect.
It's my number one favorite game ever, so trust me, you're far from alone there, lol.
Alice and Alice: Madness Returns are both in amongst my favorite games of all time.
Me too I loved it! I thought it was interesting story telling and the game play was fun af
@Heavy Metal Collector yeah I would say combat got really repetitive but it was still fun. Idk I had a really good time and would play it again
You're not alone because I love it
I feel Zooey Deschanel gets unfairly treated. Summer, of (500) Days of Summer, is not a manic pixie dream girl. She's an explicit subversion of that idea. The film begins with Tom reflecting selectively on their relationship, curating a selection of bright, fun memories to justify his upset over the break-up. Over the course of the movie, his curation breaks down: the bad comes into focus, and Summer is rendered - all in - as sometimes happy-chirpy, and other times deeply unhappy with where she is. When the film doesn't present her in entirely, it's done so while being simultaneously framed as a failing on Tom's part, not on Summer's. She even has her own life at the end of the movie - a direct subversion of the manic pixie dream girl trope: she comes into his life as a complex human being, makes him happy, and leaves of her will as a free agent to have her own life.
Similarly, Deschanel's New Girl character, Jess, is centred explicitly on her as the protagonist, demonstrates a wild array of emotional traits, and explores her entire life. What might be ascribed to her as MPDG is, I think, just the conventions of the types of sitcom it's aiming to be: a colourful one, with a colourful cast of characters. Elf... hm, a bit, but overall I think Deschanel's unfairly maligned; there are actresses who inhabit the role much more often in reality, though not in popular consciousness
Ryan McCulloch I see what you're saying, but Zooey is often typecast as an eccentric, "adorkable" girl. That's why Deschanel is having a hard time finding work currently, because she doesn't have much experience playing other roles.
I was going to talk about that, but I couldn't had said better!
500 Days is exactly a critique and observation on the theme and how it's a destructive and assholeish attitude to believe and project that on real women
Neither is Ramona Flowers. In the original Scott Pilgrim comics,her seemingly perfect image is slowly stripped back over the course of 6 vols to show that in reality,she and Scott are far more similar than they would like to admit. Like Scott,she's made her fair share of mistakes and has her flaws. Tbf,though if someone only saw the movie they'd easily believe that given how Ramona is portrayed in the film.
Even in Elf, we're only seeing her through the eyes of a manic pixie dream guy.
Alice: Madness Returns is my all time favorite game, partially because I relate to her so much. (I also love it for it's more gothic esthetic, but that's not as important as her battle is). I get what you meant in your critiques of A:MR, but I have to disagree on a few things.
First off, there isn't a "cure" for mental illness, ESPECIALLY not PTSD. I have PTSD and depression myself, and even though I've dealt with it for most of my life, there are still times I fall back. 1 step forward, 2 steps back, as the saying goes. I don't think Alice was "cured" at the end of the first game. I think she was seen as "well enough" to leave, while still needing to see a therapist. Don't forget that in the era the games take place in, mental health (especially that of women) was seen in a completely different way. PMS was, in and of itself, seen as a serious mental illness at that time.
Second, even with the progress she made, sometimes all it takes to make hamper progress is for someone like Bumby to step in with the intent to mentally brake her. It's easier to break down a person that is in a rough place already. I think the Dollmaker was her subconscious feeling that there was something "off" about Bumby.
Finally, I think it's absolutely possible for Alice to forget about her history with Bumby, only to have those memories return after a while. I've dealt with repressed memories myself, only for them to start coming back over a decade after my abuse happened. Sometimes, you have to work through other obstacles in order to remember certain events.
Like I said, I do understand what you were getting at, but I see these things differently, having experienced them myself.
It did make enough sense, yes. And it was very affecting. My fiancée was playing through it, and we were taking turns sometimes, and I had to hand the controller back at the tunnel imagery in the doll level I couldn't deal with it. Because yes it's garish and right on the nose and my thought process goes, but yes, in the real life, it IS garish and it IS right on the nose! Way too much! Just LIKE that! Huh... kept thinking back to the sky cards bit, all calm and empty. Calm and empty, and above it. And even the veil of tears before you've made sense of anything, there is a certain horrible beauty in that ignorance for a time. I mean I've had problems with fire and problems with underage abuse, and problems with amnesia. And dreams. And [finishing this bit, I just had no idea what to write here]
Over a decade after, yes. Me too. Still missing most of school. Still keep blaming myself and have to handhold my mind through all the various reasons why not in order to arrive at a real place. To the point where it's got soul-crushingly annoying. Still wake up checking if everything's on fire too.
I'll say this, I've yet to feel any other medium of art bring it out of me like this video game did. In tears writing this.
Thank you for sharing this. When he said American Mcgee didn't have the right or experience I don't remember the exact word I couldn't help but think does he. I never dealt with that exact abuse, but I felt like it really came close to the general consensus of how I felt after the things I'd been through. In a really weird way I felt represented not in the exact way, but I feel like it shed a light on ptsd.
This was exactly what I was scrolling through the comments to say. His opinions seem to hinge more on the creators feelings about the first game, rather than an honest look at how mental health works - additionally, sexual abuse of women is alarmingly common, and getting to see Alice's trimuph over just one asshole is ... amazing and satisfying in a way that is so rare.
And I always considered the fact that she had melded Wonderland and London together to be positive - rather than blacking out, she had the best of both.
I also think the author is a little too harsh in AMR story, but we can't blame personal preferences on that. I think AMR story is incredible, and the 'on the nose' accusations have little substance: the explicit symbolism is only present in the very late game, when the player is supposed to have figured out the twist already. Before that is very subtle and well constructed.
*spoilers*
I also liked the ending very much. Most stories end with the hero killing the villain, but the hero is forced by the events, usually because the villain is about to kill the hero, so the killing is presented as not morally ambigous. But in Alice, the villain is not a direct threat to Alice anymore, he is going to take a train and forget about her. Alice willingly decided to kill Bumby because she decided he didn't deserve to live, and you can witness her making her mind and murdering Bumby in a matter of seconds. That's simultaneous bold, bleak, cathartic and refreshing, you don't see that in the vast majority of stories.
PTSD isnt real, lmao
"nobody's set foot in a hot topic in years" my friend, i can assure you, people do. people gotta get their harley quinn body pillows somewhere
Noah reading out the Patreon names at the end sounds like a teacher calling roll 😂
J0J0 Reference
It was nice of him to do.
I understand that the game can come off as edgy sometimes, but the music, art, and level/set pieces breath with a life while most games don't. In those respects, the game's a masterpiece.
funnily enough i found about madness returns and the original alice game *through* sucker punch. it might be because a female, and the fact that i was in my mid teens when the video game came out, that madness returns and its themes spoke to me so deeply. i never really put two and two together until now, but i remember so vividly being so off-put by the scenes with the doctor, the sexual themes, and disgust with one's own body in the game -- though not enough to make me stop playing or stop looking up videos on it here on youtube. might be reading too much into it, but i think it might have been because it was disgust at how others perceived alice and the other women in the game -- and by correlation *me* as a young girl back then -- that was off-putting, not disgust entirely with myself or how look; just how others made me feel for the way i looked.
then again, i could be projecting here. i was 14 at the time and like any self-centered teenage girl, i felt nearly all media with a strong female protagonist felt like it was meant to cater specifically to me and only me.
I had exactly the same experience. Games like Madness Returns and Haunting Ground left such a strong impression on me because I experienced them as a girl going through my awkward teenage years.
@
mus7c Out of curiosity, how did Sucker Punch lead you towards these Video games..? 🤔
Paradox Acres back in the day there was a lot of correlation between sucker punch and anything alice in wonderland related. a few people made fan trailers for mcgee’s alice and madness returns featuring scenes from sucker punch or reused the cast from the movie for their fan-castings.
basically it was one of those situations where you fall into rabbit hole of yt videos looking for one thing and end up watching gameplays for a 10 year old video game you had never heard of in your life. the funniest thing to me is that i didn’t like video games back then, and i still don’t. but the story in mcgee’s alice was incredibly compelling and it just spoke to me.
@@mus7c That's cool. I honestly never noticed people liked to mash the film and games together.
@@AraiiarA
I lost love of Alice madness
When I found out who bumby
was, he ruined the game people rarely talk about Him he's a awful villain.
That comment about self-hatred at 20:55 really stuck out for me. Gave me pause to reflect on my own struggles with my low opinion of myself from years ago. It strikes me as something very much worth quoting, honestly. I would like to share it a meaningful observation on the topic, assuming you don't mind folks doing that.
I think that what "normies" don't get about the second game is that it's a relapse. This is what we go through when we're dealing with our mental illnesses and disorders. We might be okay, but then something triggers us again and we can go down and crash HARD sometimes, specially if we haven't gotten quality treatment.
I also liked the more narrowing of the trauma represented. I felt seen. Because the signs are always apparent and on the nose but everyone always seemed to ignore them or say I'm overreacting because I'm "crazy". So it felt vindicating.
"The train is coming with its shiny cars, with comfy seats and wheels of stars. So hush my little ones have no fear, the man in the moon is the engineer."
I've always loved this line from Madness Returns.
Hey Noah, actually the ending of Madness Returns is a lot more optimistic. Alice didn’t actually break. She actually manifests her powers in the real world, as the doctor reacts to her shifting into her Wonderland dress with surprise. It’s supposed to represent her synthesizing her trauma and growing stronger. She then goes to help others, as seen in the cartoons. She’s really going to be okay.
I'm sorry, in the _what_
@@yeethittter1285 Sorry, meant comics! There are comics by Dark Horse that continue the story.
@@halfpintrr Ahh cool
@@halfpintrr Wher can i read it?
@@cotren8860 I don’t believe that they’re online but you can Google the comics.
I miss the 2000's emo aesthetic so much...
anonymous6705 same here
Ive been buying oversized black shirts and more eyeliner just to feel something
We have been blessed by two videos in 1-2 days
Omg TY for this comment I some how missed the other video, SO happy ! Thank you Noah !!!!!
"I'm not sure anyone has stepped foot in [a Hot Topic] in years"
Yes..... People totally don't regularly still go to them *kicks ht merch under the bed*
I was thinking of seeing if my mall still has one. I need a new chain wallet, and maybe another skull necklace or something.
@@areyousureyouenteredyourna85 theyre in the back and you have to push thru all the nerd shit. But they have drag queen merch now so i cant really complain
I'm just going to say that I related very much to madness returns and feel it does decent job communicating the feelings of what it's like to go through that kind of pain.
(uncomfortably content warning)
My sister was raped by are uncle in the room next to me when I was 5 and I blanked it out for years but my sister was nearly driven insane by it and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. When he died I felt nothing because I know it didn't magically erase the pain he had done and we had to continue living with it.
I will manifest most painful and humiliating death for that pedophile rapist.
I'm sorry that happened did anybody
Find out about it?? Or you're mom
Or dad say something??
So, first off great video, I really appreciate seeing people talk about these games, they mean a whole lot to me. Second: I think madness returns makes a lot more sense thematically then perhaps you give it credit for? It’s still messy, don’t get me wrong, and I think it’s choice to essentially change the story of the fire was a bit questionable...but here me out. I think your analysis of the first game is spot on: it’s pretty unambiguously an internal struggle for Alice. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the sequel is a little more...exterior? Think about how Nurodivergent people, especially women, are treated in the mental health system, especially for the time the game is set: you leave the “asylum,” and you’re not cured, because you don’t ever fully “recover” from trauma, you just learn to live with it, a triumph in itself but that struggle doesn’t end. And suddenly your faced with a world that won’t take you seriously, that is actively harmful to you, and that you don’t feel connected to because of that: people take advantage of you and try to get things from you assuming you are “mad.” I think a lot of the choices in madness returns make more sense when viewed through that lens: through Alice both trying to cope with the world as she now knows it, a hostile and cruel “adult world” (to quote the queen from the first game), while the adults in her life either won’t take her seriously, or are actively attempting to harm her. Relapses happen, and I’ve known too many people fucked over and made worse by bad therapists, even if they were otherwise doing well. I think the choice to change the night of the fire to be ALSO a story of abuse does feels contrived, but even then here me out: Alice spent *the whole* first game in her own head. Alice spends much of the second game retreating from reality into her delusions, even if that’s not intentional on her part (it’s not, it’s a trauma response) it still means that she’s not really interfacing with the reality that *is* right in front of her. And because she’s lost in her own head she can’t see that this man, her therapist, is abusing her, and the children around her, and had abused her sister. We’ve all been there: sometimes it takes a long time and a lot of introspection to recontextualize events in our past, and realize that maybe we missed something, and while I think this choice could have been handled a bit better, I think it’s an experience that more people can relate to than you give it credit for, even if it’s not as fucked as Alice’s experience. Example: I’m trans. It took me a very long time to come to terms with that and accept it as a thing, but once I did? Suddenly a lot of stuff, a lot of the way I acted, a lot of the things that I did and wanted made a lot more sense. Obviously not quite the same, but it’s a story that I certainly felt a kinship with on some level beyond just the aesthetic...anyways, sorry for the meandering comments, it’s early here. Thank you for giving your perspective
From what I remember-of course this is faulty because it’s been decades-reason why it turned into more of a mystery is because once she got out, she kept having dreams that told her it wasn’t actually her fault. She’s older now and sees things differently. Like, a revelation of sorts. She finally accepted that it isn’t her fault. And since it wasn’t her fault, then who’s fault was it? When you have repressed memories, you cut out certain details. You might be seeing the bigger picture, but there’s a few things still missing. Like a puzzle. That piece looks like it fits-that it should fit-but it doesn’t. And sometimes you don’t realize it until towards the bitter end that you made a mistake somewhere.
I've always loved the Alice games and could never figure out why the sequel felt like a more surface-level exploration of Alice's internal struggle. This breakdown of both games brought clarity - and a bit of nostalgia. I feel like I should get back to the games again and see the bigger picture you described for myself! Thank you, Noah
One thing that's so amazing about this game is how the difficulty level affects the actual level design. And the Music by Chris Vrenna from NIN is so good.
The music introduced me to the game :)
Chris Vrenna had been playing keyboards for Marylin Manson at that time. Iirc McGee was in contact with Manson to do the soundtrack but Manson finally proposed Vrenna for the job and did his own Alice-themed album Eat Me Drink Me.
wait what? how design changes?
@Elleborus ah okay thank you for the reply
"There's one particularly notable exception to the rule" -- if you don't count the '80s films "Alice" by Jan Svankmajer or "Dreamchild" by Dennis Potter, that is.
Kinda sorta White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane too
'Lost Girls' by Alan Moore too!
@@FuckYourSelf99 I feel like that one kinda leans in to the sexual undertones instead of subverting it
And the book "Alice" by Christina Henry.
"Where we're allowed to debate if Avenged Sevenfold counts as classic rock."
You scared me more saying that than I was ever scared playing Madness Returns.
It will eventually be considered so.
Idk as someone who constantly reaches a point where you feel like you just healed just to fall again harder i felt how the story makes you go back through "that hell"
Like
Yeah i can see her doing that again
I know I'd do
I think that ALL THAT EDGE is justified because of how debilitating is trying to heal again and again and again, and every time it just gets harder and scarier
Holy crap! Two videos? In less than two years!?!?!
I think that NCG is right in saying that the game didn't quite recapture the same personal universal feelings, but it also apparently did successfully resonate with some among the intended audience. Having the abuse be that of her sister, and not herself. Having the trauma and the guilt of "starting the fire" be that of her not acting bolder and more decisively is actually a great narrative plan. I'm not sure if there was anyone with personal experience with that sort of guilt on the team, but the combination of buried memory and extreme feelings does weird things to a person's psyche. Especially guilt, the kind of guilt that is looking for a fault to hang on but cannot find the cause for how deep it is buried. That guilt ends up badly assigned, to things that are clearly, rationally not our fault. But at the same time must be, have to be our fault.
unburying something that upends the narrative built up in your head is a, well. It's been a common enough occurrence for me at any rate to think a second game pulling that is quite spot on. It might feel like a bit of narrative sleight-of-hand and you might question the wisdom in doing it, but that's the same thing in reality. What's the wisdom in tackling the trauma when you could let it fade to your grave, you may ask yourself.
Trauma is tricky, because if you leave it lie you may be functional for now but there's a sword of damocles hangin just out of sight and not one way of knowing what might set it off.
Tackling the trauma is for sure a struggle and for sure an ordeal, but afterwards at least you *know* a bit more. At least you can plan a bit better. At least you've got a better tool kit for dealing with sword inflicted neck wounds and perhaps a needle and thread to get your head on straight faster and cleaner than before..
NGC is right in saying that it wasn't universal feelings however, that's just the front half of it. The second half for buried things like this, after forgiving and letting go of the totally generalized and paralyzing feelings, is to reassign those feelings to where they are the valid and proper emotion to feel. Directionless rage stemming from a core feeling of inadequacy and impotence? Gotta find a way to accept yourself or else you'll never get anywhere. Have to let it go and accept.
New interactions with someone that ends up unburying a specific and personal injustice that made you feel impotent, inadequate, and enraged? Gotta re-litigate and accept that rage as a valid emotional response for that awful happening, lest your experience be erased by some sort of train of thought. Or maybe more like a train of memory . . .
I haven't played Madness Returns but I've got a bit of experience with trauma, and uh. It looks familiar to me, even from a distance. Good on ya America and co. for capturing the absolutely foul experience of getting memories unburied and then questioned by those in a position of power and trust. Thank you. good faith representation is hard as hell to come by and this looks as close as any I've seen to being functional without being dis-empowering pity-schlock and without being exploitative suffer-porn. Hard as hell to do. Thank you.
Late as hell to the party, but I liked the narrative of Madness Returns a lot and it hit me in the right spot when I was a teenage girl dealing with my own repressed childhood sexual trauma. It made perfect sense to me, having parts of your mind that are missing and coping mechanisms trying their damndest go prevent you from hurting yourself with the memory. Yeah Alice is an unflappable manic pixie, but that's how I wanted to be too. The game was on the nose and it's still just personally meaningful for it.
Yeah you're right it was definitely on
The nose & kind of predictable.
(falls to knees) OHHH YES! FINALLY! Although to defend Madness Returns: remember though that this takes place in the early 20th century. The safety nets that we take for granted didn't exist yet, so its about blatant sexual harassment and prostitution, but nobody gives a damn. Pair that with brainwashing and you have a pretty horrific setup. It was also something that she knew of long ago (assuming you paid attention to those flashback sequences you get when you walk through that burning house door) and it is simply resurfacing because of what the doctor is doing and what is happening around her.
people back then lived in a rough
Environment & life to them was
Cheap & their morals were the
Same blindly ignorant of people
around them.
I always kind of saw these games as a poor man's Psychonauts, but I respect them a lot more now.
This is a cultured woman’s psychonauts.
I think these games were a lot darker than Psychonaut. Sure Psychonaut was about entering the mind of others, but it didnt have the mental illness angle.
@Rambonus Ravager I played it through a couple of times
@@Naru1243 I mean...most of the game is about entering the mentally ill minds of others, innit it?
Naru1243
4 levels in Psychonauts are accessed by way of patients at an asylum. Gloria was bipolar, Boyd was severely paranoid, Edgar is obsessive and suffers from fits of rage, and Fred is locked in a battle for his mind with his descendent Napoleon Bonaparte. That last one is kind of a stretch, but none the less they all have mental illnesses that are reflected in the levels you play in.
Alice’s two realities merged at the end of Madness returns. The third game could be Alice taking over the orphanage and redeeming herself by taking care of the children she neglected because she cared more for her own madness, while dealing with her joined realities in the REAL world.
Actually I think it’s supposed to be like a prequel to the games where she’s at the asylum
Your video essays are a joy to listen to. The depth of the analysis, the metatextual references and the hypnotic delivery is always welcome.
Keep it up!
after watching this i went back and re-watched a cutscene movie of Madness Returns and honestly it does hold up pretty well.
i feel like it would've been so easy to establish a sense of Alice's agency by just having a bit more of a push and pull over who controls Wonderland.
in the game itself, Alice is forced to run around between set pieces desperately searching for answers regarding what's happening from Wonderland's cast. ultimately, however, she gets all her major revelations from the flaming doors and her memories of the house which are just coincidentally lying around in the middle of levels, with the exception of your conversation with Lizzy. there's nothing Alice can do to halt or hinder the Infernal Train, and so she's stuck chasing its vague path of destruction and doing mostly-unrelated side quests for the cast. somehow, despite a lack of real purpose or direction, she happens upon all the answers she needs and eventually the train itself, but it does feel kind of cheap.
there is that underlying thread suggested by the Hatter and Caterpillar on the train that she's punishing herself for not acting sooner by forcing herself into scenarios wherein she actually helps others, but that could've easily been way more explicit way sooner.
maybe it would've worked better if, with her explicit mission to repair Wonderland, more of the levels were based around actively flushing out the Corruption and the Ruin, or repairing the damage done by the train. then you end up with this tension of Alice trying to keep up with the pace of the train's destruction, her reality and fantasy becoming more unstable as she begins losing more and more ground until the 'all is lost' moment. then you can have, at her rock bottom, the "there are no centaurs in Oxford" moment, revealing the missing piece of the memories she had been fighting to repress all this time, and that momentum of victory and fury continues all the way up to a final confrontation with The Toymaker.
McGee is making a third game. Look up Alice: Asylum.
I have mixed feelings. The team that made these games disbanded, it's just American and whoever he can recruit to work on it. I won't be shocked if we end up in a Mighty #9 kinda situation. I'm willling to entertain hope, tho.
@@LimeyLassen
It's quite true that the games aren't entirely made by the headliner, but there's nothing wrong with new talent as long as it's talented.
@@LimeyLassen He's actually in the comments section of this video! He has his own channel too with lots of dev diary videos. The new game sounds/looks awesome from what they have on there.
seems like it is exploring ptsd as the theme neat
To me Alice in the books is essentially a nothing character who stuff happens to, and while sometimes she's clever in pointing out how her dream doesn't make sense, she still thinks London is the capital of Paris and Paris is the capital of Rome and I don't see at all where you're coming from with the magic pixie dream girl article
well now watching this in 2021 I think its the time to do it with alternative culture coming back through tiktok games like this would fit right in and be beloved by the alternative crowd in general
I was watching the Horizon: Zero Dawn video when the notification popped up of another video. At first I thought it was a re-upload. This is part of why I love your channel. Your videos are long information dense videos that throws a middle finger to TH-cam algorithms. Instead of gaming the system and making 4 15 minute videos (with 3 of those 15 minutes about Skill Share) spread out over a month, you just upload them when you can.
Please don't change!
TH-cam may want you to do these short frequent videos, but I love the long form. I may have to pause at times (your NWN video I had to) but I always finish them.
Underrated little series, glad to see you play it, Noah.
Alice isn't a manic pixie dream girl because she's the protagonist of her own story, and her personality is decidedly not that. The trope explicitly concerns changing the life of the male lead, not just anyone around them.
"'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' was useful when it commented on the superficiality of female characterizations in male dominated journeys, but it has since devolved into a pejorative way to deride unique women in fiction and reality."
You might want to actually watch the video, as that is not what he's saying
He called her a manic pixie dream girl, what are you talking about?
@@ProudAchilles He is talking about the Book character that was based off of a real girl. He isn't talking about McGee's Alice.
He states how that version subverts that type of character.
i disagree that it was a bad move to make madness returns about an outside force instead of repeating the same introverted themes of the first game
ive always loved how the first game was all about freeing herself from a vegetative state, and the second moving on to alice living in the real world of a sexist london and learning how to protect herself(and also in the process saving others) now that shes a little more in control of her life but definitely still not sane.
i thought with the third game american mcgee wanted to make, the otherlands one, could be about taking yet another step into her own healing - helping others, which would complete everything and alice can finally live somewhat normally
though what you said about madness returns not having as much symbolism and sometimes just indulging in the aesthetic for the sake of it, i didnt think about it much before but i guess its true
The way I saw it was that everyone in Alice’s life whom was supposed to help her is actually exploiting her (possibly with the exception of Nan) and that is reflected in the characters in Wonderland now.
Phew, I put off watching this because I was irrationally worried that you might not like it. I remember it as being one of my favorite games growing up (girl/woman here), even though I was much more an RPG kind of gal (Baldur's Gate, Gothic and the like) who didn't like most "twitchy" action or platformer games. But I made an exception for Alice. I loved it precisely because of the hot-topicness/Goth-girl appeal. I was really glad there was a sequel and I really enjoyed playing through the sequel (I could even picture myself being more likely to replay that one).
But I do think that you have a very good point on how the point of the story is missing a central relate point in the second one. It's quite sad because I think the design of Alice has so much potential for a "cult video game heroine" and I'd love nothing more than a new Alice game every couple of years.
It feels like characters who aren't easy to "serialize" are at a real disadvantage when it comes to "video game pantheon" status, but serializability usually does rely on external threats and escalating those external threats over various games (even is those threats are used to occasionally reflect back on the psyche of the main character or explore emotional challenges for them too, like let's say God of War or Metroid or even Halo seemed to be trying on occasion).
That said as a German speaker, the use of Schadenfreude threw me a bit. To me, in the context of German the "tone" of Schadenfreude is very much "childish glee", which to me doesn't really mesh with the kind of "reveling in a woman's suffering because it is oh so aesthetic" or even the sadistic delight of it while pretending to be concerned that I imagine to be more at the base of a Suckerpunch type of scenario. I feel like I've seen a lot of these in really old movies and books that do like "tales of sad and tragic harlot who meets a tragic end", that often are a really mixed bag culturally because many people say that in their context they really were novel and really measurably helped people understand certain others more (and maybe really did a ton for some actress portraying it in a movie), even if they weren't stories for the people themselves (kind of like an "Uncle Tom" type story for women, a work intended for an audience of others) Some of these artistic works always struck me as if to them female suffering is really an alien concept to them, maybe because it contrasts to them of what kind of more action heavy response they would consider the appropriate one and that is their way of trying to approach it (and in the process overlooking that a lot of the time the suffering isn't as passive as they perceive it to be, just because it lacks the action hero outbursts, something I think is quite well portrayed in Handmaiden's Tale which features a lot of examples of Tales of Small Resistance).
Anyway, I'm trailing off. I agree with you that Alice The Original is nothing like that and it just feels like a straight forward story. And Alice 2 to me seems to me more born out of a genuine attempt to find a way to continue Alice the character, out of a desire to see the character carry on as a video game series, as an icon, because she was really frikking awesome. So the shift to more external threats makes a lot of sense to me just from a serialization point of view. I don't really have any personal connection to sexual abuse and I do kind of see how many some attempts of the story to reference it felt like taking wild knife stabs in the dark, but as an outsider I didn't mind that? Probably because I'm in the same position even if Alice isn't supposed to be?
(btw, I'm nobody ;) it's a reference to the odyssee)
As someone who has only played Madness Returns and thus has only second-hand experience with the first game, this was a really interesting analysis- I wish that you'd gone through the second game's flow and level structure with the same detail you had the first game's, though.
I really appreciate your thoughtful essays, especially for the more introspective aspects
Man you put a lot into these vids it makes my brain hurt kinda to watch them but watch them I will , back up every 30 sec. to actually pick up what your laying down I will as well , never have I seen someone pit as much into these reviews as you man it's awesome and i am thrilled I found your vids it's as real as it gets , love it man keep em coming brother
Thank you so much for this! The Alice series by American Mc Gee is my all time favorite game franchise! It‘s such a beautiful mix between fantastical horror, fantasy and it has a female protagonist which I loved!
Combat platformers are really awesome but it is so hard to find one that does it for me like Alice did. I‘ve played the game probably over 5 times and I still can‘t get enough!
I really hope that Alice Asylum can become a reality and I am so extremely excited about it!
I always got to pump the volume up on these.
Welp. I've never heard of you until you were recommended in a comment on a podcast today... this was the first video I watched... and you have my subscription. Well done sir!
As a woman I have always connected much more with A:MR, since in the original the fact that she's a woman seems almost incidental. A:MR feels like it makes more use of the protagonist being female, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't really understand the Manic Pixie Dream Girl motif here, since that trope specifically has to do with a female character existing to inspire growth in a male character.
I always had trouble putting into words why the "oriental" segment was my least favorite in Madness Returns, and I think you hit the nail on the head. I never really felt like it had anything to do with the story, like it was mostly just an excuse to create imagery the dev team wanted to create.
A new Noah video, the day has suddenly turned into a glorious one. Awesome video as always!
Watched a bunch of your videos, near perfect balance of nostalgia mixed with rational and honest critique. Keep up the good content!
I really love how you dive in to the story of games. Looking at the narrative not just the mechanical.
Absolutely love this video, I had no idea I needed a critique/retrospective on this game.
In 2011 I loved Madness Returns, though I certainly thought it had its flaws. Back then, being a hot topic teen, I also watched and enjoyed Sucker Punch uncritically. Now I'm shaking my head at my teenage self.
How nice to get this thorough critique of both from you today, in 2019 no less.
I never got to play much of the original Alice, but I remember being blown away by the levels I got through. This video has convinced med to go back at play it all the way through.
You are one of my favourite video-essayists on youtube, your uploads are always worth the wait. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
Cheers from a fan from Denmark 🇩🇰
His interpretation of sucker punch as a story about the female psyche makes no sense to me however.
The movie wasn't about women, but a condemnation of the idea, that there's no female empowerment when pop-culture over-sexualise female characters even if they are physically empowered in the narrative. It's made by men for men to enjoy. It's a middle-finger to 90's comic trends.
It's not a man making a story about feminity. But a man making a story condemning specific parts about male-nerd culture. Babydoll gets lobotomized because Zach Snyder believes it to be sexist, that men believes women can empower themselves through a lap-dance.
@@SuperHipsterGamer Yeah, no. A woman can empower herself through a lap dance if she genuinely wishes to perform the lap dance and isn't doing so through necessity or coercion. It's not "feminist" to punish a woman for executing sexual agency, that's the exact sexist behavior the film is supposedly condemning. And is really hypocritical since it doesn't seem to mind when its actually objectifying and exploiting its women cast.
@@ravenfrancis1476 You can argue with Snyder about that premise.
@@SuperHipsterGamer I don’t need to, because I actually understand what feminism *is*, and it’s not a bunch of women all glossy and perfect wearing sexually revealing clothes for the men to ogle at and then have them lobotomized for actually acting of their own free will that’s not motivated purely to make the male director’s dick hard. The only way you can even slightly see a hint of feminism in Sucker Punch is if you adopt the male chauvinist dudebro’s very limited understanding of feminism.
@@ravenfrancis1476 No. I am saying you can argue with him, because I certainly don't intent to.
I'm excited to see this, but concerned I won't like it.... this is my current hyperfixation & I'm very protective (I'll edit this comment with my thoughts after I'm done watching, not that anyone will care, but still)
Edit:
Okay, I've got a lot to say & I doubt anyone will read this anyway so lemme just let it all out;
Firstly I'd like to say I've played both games all the way through multiple times & platinumed the game on PS3, second I'm a female born person who has severe mental health issues & has been hospitalized for those conditions, and third, unfortunately I have my own experiences with sexual assault. So I feel it may go without saying I relate to Alice & love the types of motifs both games play with.
I really like that you enjoy the games & I actually agree with many of your criticisms, especially when it comes to gameplay, however I think once the aspect of the story in the second game came up I disagreed a little more.
I understand where you're coming from as far as the visuals being on the nose when relating to her trauma (though personally I enjoyed the campy feeling of the environments) but the portrayal of sexism specifically is a lot more solid than what you stated. One line in particular in the beginning starts it off strong with "your preference doesn't signify girl" Bumby says to Alice when she's uncomfortable with telling him more about the inner workings of her wonderland, this to me is layered with sexism & the power dynamic that will be later blatantly used to control Alice's emotion. Not only is he directly telling her that he doesn't care how she feels in the situation as long as he gets to do his job, by calling her "girl" it also discredits her autonomy as a grown woman as well as establishes how Bumby still views her as a helpless child that he can easily manipulate. By the time you're sliding down tongues & listening to memories of your sister talking about how she hated being used by Bumby, I feel that it's far enough in the story to have earned that level of obvious sexual trauma.
One thing I really agree on however is that the trauma is very retroactive from the first story & would benefit from slight tweaks in the way it's presented. I've often thought it would have been MUCH better had it been Alice who was sexually assaulted & the trauma of the incident coupled with her being so young on top of being manipulated by a professional psychologist is what made her forget. I feel perhaps the reason they went for Lizzy instead of Alice was because of just how touchy something like sexual assault is, and I can understand why that may have been an uncomfortable idea for some of the writers, but, I think it would have made the entire uncovering of memories much more meaningfully selfish like within the first game. Instead of getting revenge for Lizzy & her family's sake, it would solely be for Alice to come to terms with what happened to her as a child, and the final push she gives Bumby all the more satisfying. Furthermore it would also just be nice to have a main character in a videogame who was taken advantage of in that way, becoming stronger by accepting and moving on from that experience; instead of being/staying an emotional wreck and being completely "ruined" by it.
Also to continue on the note of sexism I feel that through the way other characters (the females included) treat Alice is very reflective of the actual types of sexism that are still often applied to women today (even more so in the time setting Alice is in). Nan Sharpe says "A woman alone sometimes does what she doesn't particularly feel like doing" talking about hooking/her brothel, essentially telling Alice that if need be a woman will & should give up anything to get by, she's a warning to Alice of what she might end up like if she doesn't find a man to marry or a solid income. Nurse Cratchet (the one who experiments on Alice in the asylum) to me represents in the context of sexism the women who are compliant in the 'mans world', and have no issue helping to keep other women under control. She's frustrated with Alice not cooperating, both her mental capabilities & of what society expects of her, which is why she's willing to try ANYTHING to cure Alice. Pris Witless (the retired nurse, who's a drunk) in the context of sexism is the very image of a crone; she's a homely old woman presumably with no husband who spends her days drinking away instead of lovingly tending to a family. She fantasizes about the French revolution & the horrors of war, a distinctly unfeminine trait for the time, and is cruel to Alice even as a child; she represents a similar but slightly different side of Nan, a woman without a man in her life to keep her grounded and safe. Jack Splatter (and his wonderland alter ego The Carpenter) are both very obviously the men who wish to use women for financial gain, helping other men to use them sexually. In the real world he's a pimp, pretty self explanatory, and in wonderland he wants to put on a show with beautiful clams (an arguably yonic food) which are wrongfully known for 'boosting libido', little do the poor clams know they're meant to be the dinner of a much larger much more powerful man who immediately steals their spotlight on the stage. Further driving home the imagery of women who prostitute themselves being taken advantage of rather than being sexually liberated, as Nan claims to be. One thing as well is that with Radcliffe (lawyer) I felt that is obsession with orientalism was reflective of the sexist motifs in the story. It's a common meme online now that weeabo neck beards believe that all Asian women are subservient, well mannered, beautiful, quiet, small waifus that are there only for the enjoyment of men. And I felt that his entire character, home, and level, were meant to reflect that idea. Alice becomes immersed in that world because part of her wishes to have a simple life & to be quietly resigned to the status quo, to be like the idealistic women Radcliffe admires, and simply being a china doll who lives to serve. She seeks advice from the wise caterpillar (who is likely Radcliffe), yet another condescending man in her life who gives her vague advice while insulting her, and this is reflective of the hierarchal society both Victorian London and Edo Japan had in common. Perhaps a bit of a stretch, however once you've played this game as much as I have, you start to read into EVERYTHING.
Writing all of that out, I realize now most of the subtlety is in the real world, while Alice's wonderland is a fanciful played up version of things she experiences, which isn't really a surprise, just an interesting note. And that's all just about the sexism. I could ramble even more about the violence & death in the game, as well as the human trafficking & pedophilia.
Tbh, I might have to just make my own video responding to yours, hopefully you wont mind. I just have so much to say about your thoughts, you've made me think even more critically about my hyperfixation and I love that. Thank you for the well thought out video, I really enjoyed a lot of the points you made, and was surprised to find I agreed with you on most things. Speaking of, all of this is just my opinion obviously & I respect yours, just bc I wrote WAY too much doesn't mean I disliked the video, in fact it's quite the opposite.
Thank you to literally anyone who read this, you're a legend.
I'll be sure to tag you & link your video if I ever decide to make my own response!
What a cool video. I've always been interested in level design for games and had no idea these games existed. Im gonna have to check them out now, thanks Noah!
I know this is a year old, but this is a FANTASTIC analysis of these games! I really enjoyed your thoughts and insights, I paused my whole morning to watch this hahaha
I love how I haven't played this in like 15+ years yet remember everything shown in the video perfectly. Really says a lot about a good visual design.
Just wanted to say I love your content. It's everything I loved about American literature with the cool headed confidence to approach it's problematic elements. Your videos strike me as genuine, almost humblingly honest in it's craft. I hope you know for a lot of folks you make some of the best media out there. Even against huge companies, polished small teams, and the lowest barrier of entry ever for an entertainment industry; you make some of the best content. You could retire now and I'd still enjoy your existing library for a long time, in the way someone might come back to the same book over and over.
Because much like you say about the first Alice game, your videos speak to something more universal in a unique fashion. Transgressing the bounds of Americana to dip into modern and foreign concepts and see how it can uniquely utilize the American voice.
I've been hooked on yout reviews for a few months now and have loved going through your library. As I listened to the first few of them, I found myself hoping you would do a review on the Alice games. Now here they are. These are some of my favorite games. Thank you.
I've been binging so much Noah Caldwell-Gervais that my inner monologue is starting to speak in his voice.
Not mad about it.
A serious and observant critique of a couple of my favourite games. You've made my Monday, Noah!
This is probably your finest, most impressive work. Your critical powers are staggering, and I’m excited to see so much more!
This is such a good video! I never see anybody really talk about these games, and this was an absolute treat! ^__^
As a committed adherent to the Emo aesthetic, I'm a tad miffed I missed out on these games the first time around. Might have to give them a go.
I agree that the second game felt less focused and introspective than the first, but I disagree with the notion that Alice embodies the "manic pixie dream girl" trope.
The original trope is a male fantasy in which a free-spirited, fun-loving, and ultimately 'enlightened' young girl comes into the story in order to re-introduce light and excitement into a down-on-his-luck or cynical man's life. The trope is rooted in the image of a "cute girl savior" who exists solely to prop up the male protagonist. It's exploitative because the girl has little to no personal struggles, nor does the story concern itself with her inner thoughts and feelings except in relation to her male counterpart's romantic interest, hence the "dream girl" part of the name. (There are also male manic pixies with female counterparts, but I'm speaking to the original trope.)
In these games, Alice embodies a disaffected demeanor, certainly, and, it could be argued, adopts a cute goth girl aesthetic, but that doesn't make her a manic pixie dream girl. And the story itself refutes this idea by ultimately being about her journey, her triumphs over her abusers, and her mental health. Just because the story of Madness Returns features external influences on Alice does not mean that she exists solely to teach a life lesson, or fulfill a romantic/sexual fantasy. Her perspective and influence in the story is solely used for her own benefit.
It's fine for you to hold the opinion that the game is style over substance, in some ways I'd agree, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the manic pixie dream girl trope.
wait thought this was praise to american mcgee for making alice not a manic pixie dream girl. imaybe i missed something. it's been a while
Nothing for 2 months then 2 videos in the same day. Now I have to set aside my plans and watch these.
Excellent work Noah, as always. I loved these games growing up, and you beautifully articulated why. Please keep it up!
Nailed the first game, completely got the second one from a biased perspective. You can't *cure* madness, you can only keep it at bay. Alice feels better about the fire not being her fault and deals with the guilt involved. Then, when she starts going through *actual therapy* she starts uncovering the truths which laid behind the fire. The fact that the second game deals with things more linked to Carrol and some angles are "on the nose" *is* a flip of the first game's re-construction, and that's kinda the point. The first game finishes on an up because she left the asylum and dealt with her personal guilt. The second game finishes on a down because she can't handle the abuse she went through and has to retreat back into a level of fantasy in order to survive. This is something often seen in the victims of abuse. I won't talk too much about it 'cause it tends to be a very personal thing for people and thus one's fantasy won't gel with most others, but you'll often find that people who have gone through it have "something special" about themselves or their worldview in relation to more "normal" people. Read into that positively and negatively and you might be halfway to the point I'm making here.
But who am I kidding? No-one's gonna read this. The algorithm hates me and no-one cares what I think anyway. Sometimes you've gotta shout at the wall to make yourselves feel better, is all.
Well I read the beginning and ending of your comment so you are half right. But I liked "you can't cure madness you can only keep it at bay" part so there is that.
I don't agree with a lot of your points on your videos but they give me great perspective and you've helped me grow enormously in my thoughts and arguments. I appreciate your videos a lot and I just want to say keep up the good work. My only actual critique is to maybe edit out the throat coughs but that's a pretty small thing in the grand scheme of things. Thanks for making these videos :)
I definitely think all your arguments on this video are absolutely on point though! My previous comment is just in general for all your videos. I really love you DND game videos, while I disagree with a lot of your points on them, listening to someone spend such a critical and thought provocative view on them gives me great comfort. Like I said I love your arguments and hopefully I can demonstrate my thoughts as well as you do.
Double Noah days are the best days.
Noah, you always pick incredibly interesting topics to discuss, and you cover them in such detail, with such amazing scripts. Your work ethic stuns me.
Also, 30:10 made me laugh so hard
This was a wonderful critique, I can't believe I hadn't seen any of your videos before
I was just recommended your channel and I'm definitely a fan. You have the most relaxing voice lol
This was really good, hope you'll do more videos like this. What made it so good was : looking at the original book and comparing it to the intent of the game creator, comparing the game to another art form with similar theme and how you talk about the history of the books and the game. I think that's what made this video so good but I also feel like there's something more that I can't describe.
So somebody saw the director of Sucker Punch and genuinely thought “Yes, this is the director that will best do our superman movie.”
This is so stupid and explains so much.
Time to stay up watching this. You're such an excellent writer Noah, and your videos always touch me in some profound way.
Came for a thoughtful critique of Alice games, stayed for Noah's righteous tirade against Sucker Punch and Zack Snyder.
Watching the last bit of this video made me crave a breakdown of the Prince of Persia franchise. A 2 hours video about one of my favourite game franchises, a man may dream.
This video went from a 7/10 to a 9/10 when you said how Sucker Punch is the baseline of 0 for feminine interiorality. Excellent examination of my fave platformer adventure of all time btw.
the movie sounds like
Cringe 3/10 for me.
You can't rush this. It happens when it does, and when it does it's always good!
Love your work. You're the Hunter S. Thomson of videogames. Brililant!
I'd hope he's a little less self-destructive than the esteemed Doctor of Gonzo, though I suppose it's in part thanks to that willful self-destruction that Hunter S. Thompson was as important as he is these days.
TWO new videos!? We are truly blessed.
Loved the video! And I love your long hair!
This was one of my favorite series. Played the first one years ago and then rented the new one before blockbuster died and kept it forever.
3 great analysis's in one day. It was a great watch!
2 in one day. You made my night. Thank you, I've missed your content.
This video was a wonderful journey into a series i had only ever seen bits and pieces of and this has given me a strong desire to finally play them for myself. thank you noah :)
Another outstanding video, your work is fantastic! I still remember being deeply unsettled by the magazine ads for the first game and I never guessed there was so much substance beneath the gory style. Maybe it's finally time to give it a shot.
24:08 damn I played all parts of silent hill (and other horror games) but that bleeding eyesocket image kinda shocked me haha
The colors are just superb, wish more games were like that.
Really great video I agree for the most part I just don't see the manic pixie dream girl aspect... Like Alice is never really quirky funny or feels like some kind of fantasy for a man... Idk I guess I just dislike the term
very interested in what your opinion is of the Psychonauts games storytelling
I have fallen down a rabbit hole watching your videos, your cadence and perspective is very enjoyable
This was a very well made and informative video. You got my subscription because YOU PERSONALLY READ all those patrons names at the end and that is dedication.
Know this channel for some time, this is the first video that I actually watched.
It was really good.
Another fantastic deep dive into the world of videos games, thank you Noah.
The ending of the second Alice felt more Bitter Sweet than bitter to me. The game went out of its way to make the real world look kind of crap, so her embracing her Madness enough to turn London into Londerland while also embodying the strength of her own avatar felt closer to a good ending than a bad one.