The Shopping mall 4u

The Art of Alice: Madness Returns

The Art of Alice: Madness Returns

List Price:	$34.99
Price:	$23.09 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.

Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 months
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com

Average customer review:  

Product Description

Legendary game designer American McGee created one of the most visually arresting games of all time in Alice. Eleven years later, McGee returns with a sequel just as groundbreaking as his critically acclaimed classic - Alice: Madness Returns! Just in time for Madness Returns, Dark Horse and Spicy Horse Games invite Alice fans to take a journey through the wonderland of American McGee's imagination for a look at this magnificent and disturbing world. With text by Madness Returns lead writer and executive producer R. J. Berg, and featuring an introduction by McGee, The Art of Alice offers an intimate look into the artwork behind this blockbuster interpretation of Lewis Carroll's enduring masterpiece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #666 in Books
• Published on: 2011-05-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 184 pages

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
Strange and outstanding
By Parka
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RZ5UCKU7HB9FS The Art of Alice: Madness Returns is a video game art book. A very good one.

The book's a 184 page hardcover published by Dark Horse. It's in a large vertical format. The paper is thick low glossy. Binding is superb. Production value is top notch.

The concept art and ideas are awesome. There are out-of-the-world background paintings, character designs, props, weapons and gruesome creations. Also included are discarded ideas that didn't make it - usually the too abstract.

When you mix a classic like Alice in Wonderland with pop culture, video game designers, concept artists and throw in a Victorian-gothic theme, you get very strange new world. A world so dangerous Alice has to be equipped with a kitchen knife at all times or sometimes a Bazooka firing hammer (yes, hammer) or a teapot cannon.

Every page brings a little element of surprise and twist. You can see crows with baby faces, Jack the Ripper with tentacles, Alice helping a mother giving birth to a load of kids (gruesome concept), an angler fish with human legs, cow birds, steampunk-like contraptions, a Chinese Humpty Dumpty, flying pig noses, embellished pieces of weaponry, etc. There are lots of mix and matches for things that shouldn't go together.

The environment and set designs are amazing. It looks like some gothic Victorian hell that Alice is treading through. The landscape is ever changing along the game. The are is beautiful and detailed. They totally nailed the mood.

There's also plenty to read with the little captions that describe the designs, characters and stories. It gives a nice idea of how such a strange game came about. It's all very interesting to read.

Some of the artists involved in the book are Ken Wong, Sun Guoliang, Luis Melo, Hong Lei, Wu Yuehan, Ben Kerslake, Nako, Tyler Lockett, Fellipe Martins, Pu Jinsong, Wang Shenghua, Yuan Shaofeng, Jin Lei.

This is an excellent art book. It should be one of the best for 2011.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Amazing Art and Very Insightful!
By Socially aware
I have been a huge Alice fan since I played the original on the PC. I was really glad to see that a sequel was being made, and knew I had to pick this Artbook up as well. The book is a nice size which is great. It is a hardcover, and the pages are thick and very nice quality. The colors and art can be appreciated with the bigger size and the better quality paper.

The content is beyond incredible. The art in the book comes with blurbs about the piece from the artist or a producer, and it often goes into detail about the piece, why it was made, and what the goal for the piece was. Most of the work is concept art, but they are of high quality. There is alot of complete pieces with full color and depth. Not just sketches or storyboards which is common in alot of artbooks you get as preorder bonuses with games. The book is broken into chapters, with each chapter giving insight on an aspect of the game, such as preproduction or Wonderland locations. Each chapter has art pertaining to the theme. So in preproduction, you see alot of the brainstorming and ideas that came up early in the game's development that ended up getting cut from the game. It's a real treat to see. Even the design of the characters are in detail.

The book is about 170 pages or so, and has a ton of material to go through. I could not put the book down, and finished it in a day. It was just really good and kept my interest up the whole time.

If I have any small gripes, it is that a few of the pieces which are VERY interesting, have no blurbs about them. There were a couple of pictures I had really hope had some context to it, but it only lists who did them. About 5% of the pictures have no blurbs. Also, some of the artwork isn't talked about enough. For example, there is a really neat picture released when the game was announced of alice scaling a tower crawling with snails and a mechanical snail at the top. The piece is here, but is only briefly discussed. Another minor gripe is that book is a bit spoilerish in that it shows some of the new characters and the new look of original characters. Also, in talking about the levels, alot of information is given about them, which kind of gives away a tiny bit of the story. It doesn't ruin the story by any means though. I couldn't fathom an artbook without ALL the material either, so I am glad it wasn't cut out for the sake of being spoilerish. I do wish there was a disclaimer somewhere though.

Still, this is an excellent book, and one I enjoyed. I hope you enjoy it too!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Great art work :)
By Sakura
I've been a fan of Alice since the original game on the computer and I can't wait for the 2nd game to come out! Anyways the book came in a box. After I opened it, I was already staring at the front cover. I love the cover alot, it shows you exactly what your getting your self into before you open the book. The book is hard covered and the pages are thick and have some nice weight to them. This is one of the better art book for video games I've had. Most of the other ones are paper back.

For what it costs right now ($20) this book is definitely a must buy. If you are a fan of Alice from the original game on the PC you should get this one. Theres tons of content to read about the processes and somethings about the upcoming sequel. The art itself is very beautiful, its dark and yet there is so much detail put into every page. There's comments and such on each page, its very nice to read what the artists take on things were. My favorite section was Alice and her Dresses, which shows you sketches and reasons behind the designs and such.

If your a fan of Alice you should get this book, the price is nice. If you like the original fairy tales that were more dark and morbid, than you would probably like this book. You won't be disappointed, it also makes for a good gift for those who like more dark and twisted things.