Gameplay

Play!

Inherently, Alice is a third person action/adventure game. If we stay within those constraints, Alice can only consist of a few things: action (shooting and hacking things), puzzles, (and to rapturous applause) jumping puzzles.

Ill tempered shrooms

Death glow

Action-wise, Alice is pretty straightforward, use your weapon and muss up everything in sight. I don't think I encountered anything like weapon-specific characters; you can pretty much use anything within your means to dispatch everything around you. Your health and weapons are replenished by little red crystals and other assorted baubles which are usually obtained from deceased enemies.

The enemies themselves aren't too difficult to kill. Some of them charge, others float about, but they all have one thing in common: they aren't terribly intelligent. The baddies are just hard enough to serve as some sort of obstacle. On the whole we weren't really disappointed with this aspect of the game; I guess as long as the enemies aren't too stupid or too hard you really can't screw up in this type of game.

Funky

Don't look up!

Crosswords

The puzzle aspect of the game wasn't very exciting. When the chess levels came up I was expecting some really cool stuff to happen, maybe even a castling or two. Alas, all I got to do was move around a few pieces from the board game. Other times, the game tries to disguise the usual key finding missions with some other object. There was exactly one musical puzzle, a la Loom. Most of the puzzles aren't difficult to figure out, but they are very cool nonetheless. Pretty much the usual with a zany twist or two.

The deadly bulb!

Beware marbles!

Jump! Jump!

I know you love jumping puzzles! Who doesn't? The best part about the jumping puzzles in Alice is that they have some really cool effects to go with them. Entire levels sway, bridges seesaw in different directions; clocks spin, and whirly wheels whirl. There are quite a few jumping puzzles in Alice, but you are usually distracted by something really cool going on around you. If you get caught in a particularly hard one, the all too true reality will hit home - you are indeed trying to bunny hop thorugh a level. Once that sinks in, anger levels tend to go up, with annoyance being a common side effect. I warn you, expect them - entire levels of them.