Alice in Wonderland – DS

This was one of the games I borrowed while Brad and I were traveling. I was lucky enough to have someone offer to lend it to me while we were staying in this location which I will not slip up and expose. I can’t call this game a complete disappointment because I wasn’t expecting all too much out of it in the first place. Most games that are brought about because of a movie tend to fall short with the whole gaming experience. I do admire the decision to not stick strictly to the script (try to say that five times fast . . .) It’s basically a platformer with a bunch of puzzles thrown in and you have to use your characters strategically to manipulate the situation to your advantage.

When I first picked the game up within five minutes I wanted to put it back down again. Despite what the title might allude to nowhere in the game do you play as Alice. She’s basically one of those annoying characters that follows you around, slows you down, makes obnoxious noises, and really just makes you want to leave her in a pit somewhere because she’s always in the way. I’ve never been a fan of this approach. I have yet to see a game that manages to add a secondary character that follows you around without making you want to slap them around a bit. I mean how many times have you tried to figure out if you could slap or stab the thing following you? I’ll admit there are some games that have pulled it off better than others. A Boy and his Blob for instance, I was impressed they managed to pull off the extra character without making me want to strangle the thing, it also helped that Blob was incredibly cute, but that’s not the point.

If you have issues with the whole dumb blonde stereotype I’m telling you right now that it’s probably not a good idea to play the game. I felt that was Alice’s whole purpose in the game, to reinforce the dumb blonde stereotype.

Okay, I’m being a bit negative. I will say that after playing the game for about . . . oh I don’t know . . . an hour maybe? It gets a lot more interesting. It basically gets more interesting the more characters are added to the equation. The last two additions seemed to have a lot more thought put into them then the first two. I enjoyed the art style and the animations, I could tell that was thought out a good deal. The puzzles got cool and the abilities were really neat. Despite the fact I constantly just wanted to pick Alice up and throw her, it was pretty cool all around.

However, they completely downplay the Queen of Hearts, MAJOR disappointment for me because I loved her character art. Not to mention the Queen of Hearts seems like the type of character you would really want to exploit in a game. I mean she’s a raving, self obsessed, whiny baby. How many people would LOVE to just throw a flamingo golf club at her? It’d be awesome.

The White Queen creeped me out majorly. They made her about as obnoxious as Alice. I was waiting for her to pull out an insanely large lollipop, stare at you with empty eyes, and just giggle. Creepy giggle, not cute giggle, creepy.

Of course through this entire game I was thinking “Well it keeps getting better. The gameplay is getting better, the characters more interesting. I’ll bet the final boss fight is going to be AWESOME!”

In short, that was THE most disappointing boss fight EVER. I figured they’d bring puzzles into it, no. The characters’ abilities? Not so much. Not to mention Alice decides to go run into a corner and shiver with fright. For some reason I got the feeling I was actually going to be able to USE her character. I need to stop expecting so much from games. However, I think I now fully understand how those guys/girls in movies feel when the obnoxious tagalong decides to make their job harder. I mean if it weren’t for wanting the game to continue I would have just let Alice get eaten. That would have made my life so much easier.

I just wonder how a game that seemed so close to getting it right could go so so so SO wrong. The art was cool, the plotline decent, the gameplay was interesting, but none of that matters if the final boss fight is HORRIBLE! I could have beaten that part of the game with one hand and blindfolded. I could have probably beaten it if I decided to use my nose instead of the stylus. I mean geez . . .

In short, this game is just a time waster. If you don’t want to think or deal with anything intense then buy the game, WHEN IT IS ON SALE! (write that down)