EDIT: Since many people seem to be quizzical as to why I'm choosing to compare these two games, let me point out that 1) they're both long overdue sequels to games that debuted on PC and were created by some of the foremost talents of the formative FPS era (American McGee and George Broussard) and 2) like Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat, they're both coming out the same day. Also, I've read a lot of posts by Escapists disgruntled by the DNF demo indicating they're likely to pick up Madness Returns instead. American Duke Nukem Returns Forever, anyone?
Amid all of the paranoia that DNF will flop because its outdated PAX East demo--gasp--isn't one hundred per cent polished, and borrows a few elements from other popular first-person shooters (as if design that wasn't arcane is a bad thing), it seems like a lot of people have begun adjusting their gaming itinerary to include Alice: Madness Returns at the expense of Duke. Coming from someone whose played Duke Nukem 3D, followed the press surrounding DNF extensively, and played every game American McGee has made since his days as an upstart level designer at id, let me give you some advice: this isn't a very good idea.
First, there's the issue of whose behind each game. Gearbox has--since their work on Half-Life Opposing Force; itself an acclaimed expansion pack--put out one workmanlike shooter after another, from James Bond: Nightfire to the Brothers in Arms series to Borderlands. These are mostly good games--so when Randy Pitchford states of Duke's critical response that "you're going to see a lot of 8s and 9s" and even "some 7s" I have no reason not to believe him--Gearbox has already proven themselves capable of producing shooters in the upper stratum of the genre. What one shouldn't do, however, is expect Duke to change the world--that kind of hype tends to lead to a letdown. In my opinion, DNF will probably be one of Gearbox's best offerings yet--provided we don't extinguish our enjoyment of it by expecting it to be, say, better than Borderlands (also, the graphics in this game aren't "old": they look fine, and the DNF team has already clarified that barring one joke everything is circa '09 or after).
American McGee is another story. He's the lead designer of Madness Returns, and since the original Alice--which was a visually creative game that had huge problems when it came to enemy AI and some unfortunate jumping puzzles--his C.V. has expanded to include Scrapland, Bad Day L.A., and Grimm. To call these games mediocre would be generous: Scrapland is probably the best of the bunch--a so-so action-adventure title about robots with some truly terrible on-foot sections--but Bad Day L.A. is truly awful; an undercooked romp through modern-day Los Angeles that's political commentary couldn't conceal its paper-thin gameplay, and Grimm was similarly flaccid; an episodic game that featured gameplay that when it wasn't aping Katamari Damacy seemed like it was taken out of a handbook on 3D platformers. Bad Day L.A. received 28 on metacritic. Grimm received a middling 6s--not great scores, given his profile and the inflated nature of game scores.
Above all, if I could cite one problem with American McGee's games, it's that they always seem to preference flashy visual design and highbrow artistic concepts over anything resembling enjoyability, as if "gameplay" were a bad word. So it didn't really surprise me--given his role in the new Alice--to read this excerpt of an advance review from Official PS Magazine, giving the game 5/10:
Amid all of the paranoia that DNF will flop because its outdated PAX East demo--gasp--isn't one hundred per cent polished, and borrows a few elements from other popular first-person shooters (as if design that wasn't arcane is a bad thing), it seems like a lot of people have begun adjusting their gaming itinerary to include Alice: Madness Returns at the expense of Duke. Coming from someone whose played Duke Nukem 3D, followed the press surrounding DNF extensively, and played every game American McGee has made since his days as an upstart level designer at id, let me give you some advice: this isn't a very good idea.
First, there's the issue of whose behind each game. Gearbox has--since their work on Half-Life Opposing Force; itself an acclaimed expansion pack--put out one workmanlike shooter after another, from James Bond: Nightfire to the Brothers in Arms series to Borderlands. These are mostly good games--so when Randy Pitchford states of Duke's critical response that "you're going to see a lot of 8s and 9s" and even "some 7s" I have no reason not to believe him--Gearbox has already proven themselves capable of producing shooters in the upper stratum of the genre. What one shouldn't do, however, is expect Duke to change the world--that kind of hype tends to lead to a letdown. In my opinion, DNF will probably be one of Gearbox's best offerings yet--provided we don't extinguish our enjoyment of it by expecting it to be, say, better than Borderlands (also, the graphics in this game aren't "old": they look fine, and the DNF team has already clarified that barring one joke everything is circa '09 or after).
American McGee is another story. He's the lead designer of Madness Returns, and since the original Alice--which was a visually creative game that had huge problems when it came to enemy AI and some unfortunate jumping puzzles--his C.V. has expanded to include Scrapland, Bad Day L.A., and Grimm. To call these games mediocre would be generous: Scrapland is probably the best of the bunch--a so-so action-adventure title about robots with some truly terrible on-foot sections--but Bad Day L.A. is truly awful; an undercooked romp through modern-day Los Angeles that's political commentary couldn't conceal its paper-thin gameplay, and Grimm was similarly flaccid; an episodic game that featured gameplay that when it wasn't aping Katamari Damacy seemed like it was taken out of a handbook on 3D platformers. Bad Day L.A. received 28 on metacritic. Grimm received a middling 6s--not great scores, given his profile and the inflated nature of game scores.
Above all, if I could cite one problem with American McGee's games, it's that they always seem to preference flashy visual design and highbrow artistic concepts over anything resembling enjoyability, as if "gameplay" were a bad word. So it didn't really surprise me--given his role in the new Alice--to read this excerpt of an advance review from Official PS Magazine, giving the game 5/10:
. . .McGee's descent from industry golden boy to the routine co-signer of games that rehash blasé FPS and platformer elements probably explains why his name--for a first--wasn't included in the new Alice's title. I hope Alice does well--McGee has always had potential if nothing else--and I may even buy it, but if you pre-order looking for a replacement to the likely success of Duke Nukem Forever you may end up very, very disappointed.
