American McGee’s Alice is simply sensational, what with its weird, janky hybrid of shooter-inspired action and surreal 3D platforming, and though the sequel Madness Returns didn’t hit me quite as hard, it’s still well worth your time. The problem, for PC gamers at least, is that Madness Returns has a pretty rough port that’s only gotten harder to work with since its release in 2011; until now, anyway.
Modder Wemino has undertaken the noble task of brushing up the port themselves, and released the initial build of their custom MadnessPatch Friday. It’s remarkably feature-rich for a fanmade patch: not only does it improve textures, force subtitles to scale correctly above 720p, and adjust the camera for ultrawide resolutions, it also addresses crashes, fixes up broken physics at high framerates, and helps the game run in windowed mode without it throwing a fit. In other words, it’s hard to imagine going back to an unmodded build.
It’s a bright spot for a beloved cult series that’s fallen on rough times. In 2023, McGee pleaded with EA in the public forum to help him make a third game and even released a design bible for the theoretical project. Once it was clear EA wasn’t interested, he abandoned the idea, telling fans it truly had never been more over and that they should move on.
Regardless, I’m perfectly pleased with the Alice games whether a third one releases or not. They are bold, fascinating little time capsules, and there’s never been a better time to play them on PC. That’s assuming you can get your hands on them, anyway: Madness Returns is available for a tenner on Steam, but the original is MIA on digital storefronts at the time of writing.
