Alice: Madness Returns' 'Online Pass' grants you Alice 1 (it's $10 otherwise)

by Alexander Sliwinski on Apr 20th 2011 11:32AM

"I should very much like to tell you of Project Ten Dollar," pleaded Alice.

"Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense," replied The Mock Turtle.

EA has confirmed that the original American McGee's Alice will be bundled as a downloadable bonus with Alice: Madness Returns when it's released on June 14. The catch is that the download will be tied to an "Online Pass," EA's special name for access to its games' online components, which are unlocked with registration codes included in new copies of the games. Additionally, players will be required to have the Madness Returns disc in the tray to access Alice 1. If you purchase Madness Returns used (and without an unused Online Pass code), you'd have to pay $10 for the downloadable bonus.

This marks the first time that the original Alice will be available on consoles. It will not be available on XBLA or PSN as a separate purchase -- at least, not immediately.

Show full PR text

EXPERIENCE A DOUBLE DOSE OF MADNESS WITH FREE DOWNLOAD OF AMERICAN McGEE'S ALICE AVAILABLE WITH ALICE: MADNESS RETURNS ON JUNE 14

Jump down the rabbit hole! Fans may think they're seeing double, but it's not Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum; it's a double dose of Alice from American McGee. EA announced today that Alice: Madness Returns, shipping on June 14, will include a one-time-use Online Pass registration code (for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360) that gives players access to the original cult-classic American McGee's Alice. Players that do not have the code can purchase American McGee's Alice for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace and $9.99 on the PlayStation®Network * through the main menu of Alice: Madness Returns. This download for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system marks the console debut for the infamous PC hit. Together, the two games take players through the two dark chapters of American McGee's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to the 2000 PC hit, American McGee's Alice. A dark adaptation of the Alice in Wonderland fiction, Alice: Madness Returns finds an adult Alice returning to the Wonderland of her mind to find the truth about her past only to discover that her place of refuge has been transformed into a sinister nightmare. As madness threatens to overcome both Alice and Wonderland, she falls deeper into the ravaged Wonderland and is granted powers and abilities to fight all enemies who stand before her. Designed with the same distinct vision of the original, but now featuring entirely new visuals, story and game design, Alice: Madness Returns will let players explore highly-detailed worlds and engage in epic battles against a cast of truly diabolical characters.

Alice: Madness Returns will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. For more information on Alice: Madness Returns, please visit http://AliceMadnessReturns.com.

* Alice: Madness Returns disc required in console to access American McGee's Alice.

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Tags: Alice, Alice-2, Alice-Madness-Returns, american-mcgees-alice, microsoft, online-pass, pc, playstation, project-ten-dollar, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (41)

Fair deal. As I said yesterday my interest level went from 0 to 86.4%.

I have the first one that i just dug up. Now maybe i`ll actually play it on my ps3

the only thing holding me backing from buying this game, was the fact i never played the original, you have earned my money EA

It's cool that this is included, but if I paid full price for the game or $10 for the item separately, I really don't feel I should have to have the disc of the other game in there. Maybe I'm alone in that, I don't know.

They did this with Dead Space Extraction too.

@Softserve

It is a bit weird, let's say that you trade in Alice: Madness Returns, you then have a full game that is non-playable. I guess if you look at this as DLC, then it's reasonable but if you look at it as a game, then it seems a bit odd.

Sounds fair to me.

I'll take it!

I went back to play the original Alice on PC after I watched the Giant Bomb quick look last week...no thanks...unless they really really change stuff about the original one.

The new one does look cool though.

I don't mind that. I buy my games new anyways and it's fair enough, but I really don't like the fact that you have to have the disc in to play the first one. It would be a lot nicer to just have it on the hard drive like every other downloaded game.

Side note - playing Alice freaked me out when I originally played it.

HD remake with Trophies/Achievements? Or is it a straight port?

@doreo

Would also like to know this...

@doreo

Yes, I think so!

Another platinum for the original game would be awesome! I would definetly take my time with it then instead of just rushing to get to the new one already :)

@doreo

I've already finished the original but a HD remake would be worth playing through again, to get the the whole experience of 1 + 2 in a row.

A normal remake would work as well if it was treated as even like an arcade game and only came with the 200.

I haven't played the original in years, but this announcement just sealed the "day one purchase" deal.

Almost thought it said you must have Madden in there to play it

It seems like a better plan might be to just put the original up on XBLA/PSN. Then people might play it and want to buy the sequel. The problem with attaching it to the sequel is that people will want to play the first one before they buy, but if they play it first then there's no incentive to buy the new copy of the sequel.

@Acosta02

Oh wait, I shoulda have added:

This isn't project 10 dollar, it's Catch 22!

...

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have.

@Acosta02 I'm sure they will eventually. If they put it up now, it wouldn't be free, so getting it for free with the game is really the best deal. Play the original first, you don't have to throw the new hotness into your system the day you buy it, you can wait a week or two...

this is fair, I know people like to complain about having to pay an extra $10 when they get a used game but if you pay $10 for a used game and pay $10 for online thats still a good deal. It's your fault if you paid $50 at Gamestop for a used game, besides the devs should be getting the money and not gamestop.

I like the idea of paying $10 to get an extra game more then paying $10 JUST to play online. Think about how many times we're paying to be able to play multiplayer. The initial purchase price of the game, your broadband connection cost, Live subscription, & project 10 dollar. All those may not apply to everyone or every game at once but things are starting to get a little out of control.

@sin2sin
All I was paying was my internet cost.

@sin2sin Maybe you should stop buying your games used for $5 under retail only to have to pay $10 to play online.

And if you do stop, the people that made the game might make some money too; that's always a nice plus.

@onan was I too obvious? I was trying to throw off the suspicion. Guess I failed.

@sin2sin

I'm yet to see a game from this project 10 dollar which hasn't let you play online without the 10 dollar key.

Just out of blind curiousity...

...does GameStop charge less for used copies of games that use Online Pass? Do they compensate the consumer for the fact that, say, a used copy of Dead Space 2 is effectively a single-player only affair?

Do they make any attempt to inform more casual gamers that they're not getting all the content advertised on the back of any EA game's box?

Because that seems kinda', uh...shitty of them.

Not that it would surprise me greatly if they didn't...

@Urethra Alfredo Not sure, but if they do compensate for it, that just means they give less $$ in trade-in. If they do, it's a chance to get a steal, I've bought used games that haven't had the online stuff redeemed before....

@Urethra Alfredo as far as I know they do not. And to be honest their used vs new prices these days are basically nothing. You will usually see a game for around $3-4 less than the new.

@Jing2487

Yeah.

After doing a bit of research, it seems that a used copy of Bulletstorm goes for forty-eight bucks, while the new copy is, of course, sixty bucks.

Factoring in tax, that comes to about fifty bucks for the used title, which one can assume won't have an online pass.

Therefore, one is forced to spend an extra ten dollars to get access to the full content of the used game.

Which bring the used game's price up to sixty dollars.

So, in conclusion, it seems the only benefit of buying a used copy of Bulletstorm from GameStop would be the ability to return it for a full refund within seven days in the event that you realize shooting people in the dick-tits gets fairly old, fairly quickly.

@Urethra Alfredo Yeah if a game has online pass, the used copy costs less.

now this just makes me want the game even more now. I had to "barrow" the original Alice because I couldnt find it anymore (for a reasonable price) but I would love to have a copy for myself.

@Jing2487 I know you were trying to subtly tell everyone you pirated it, but I can't help but read that and think you were making fun of your own spelling with ironic quotation marks.

So it looks like EA is sweeping 'Shadows of the Damned' under the rug. Awesome.

@(Unverified)

What?

New SotD screens dropped just the other week.

@Urethra Alfredo

They're releasing Alice within a week of SotD and just added a ton of value and incentive to buy one of those titles; it's going to cannibalize sales.

SotD has a great pedigree and I like the bold move by EA to release a Grasshopper game, but this smells like Oddworld: Stranger all over again.

So how does this EA Pass thing work for the Steam version?

Never played the original; but I guess I will now! Very nice.

Now to decide what platform to get it on...

and for some reason joystiq linked this to the wrong comment yay!

I highly doubt that they would work on a port of a game and include it as a free bonus only, I'm almost positive it'll have a PSN release. I mean they'll have to edit controls and everything, it's not like they won't be spending time and money on it.

@Grimcicle

maybe her madness will return the game to you....
at least that's what I hope =)

Eh. That makes the deal a little sweeter. But if someone doesn't want to buy this new, I don't think this is going to push them in that direction.

Does the console version render in 1080p (and/or use MSAA) and include high-quality video and audio?

The Prince of Persia re-releases looked great in-game, but the video and audio was of awful quality. ubisoft couldn't afford a re-render, I guess, so hopefully EA can :)

Very excited for this, hopefully they release Scrapland on PSN soon as well.

Alice: Madness Returns

Alice: Madness Returns' 'Online Pass' grants you Alice 1 (it's $10 otherwise)

Reader Comments (41)

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:33AM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:35AM CaptainHowdy72 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:37AM phatman516 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:38AM Softserve said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:51AM doreo said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:39AM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:39AM Design by Adrian said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:42AM sammo21 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:48AM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 11:50AM doreo said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 12:06PM redrings said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 2:36PM Dropeti said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 7:05PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 12:07PM EvilCartographer said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 12:07PM godly967 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 12:18PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 12:18PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 2:56PM Hoops said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 1:05PM kcswanko said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 1:36PM sin2sin said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 1:56PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 6:40PM onan said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 7:06PM Jing2487 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 7:24PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 1:57PM Urethra Alfredo said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 2:51PM Hoops said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 3:00PM Jing2487 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 3:39PM Urethra Alfredo said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 10:25AM Kira Blaize said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 3:02PM Jing2487 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 6:47PM onan said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 4:40PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 5:14PM Urethra Alfredo said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:58AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 5:23PM TheAngryIntern said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 6:18PM GewurztraminerX said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 7:07PM Jing2487 said

Posted: Apr 20th 2011 9:57PM VanillaNowah said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:05AM Da Mr said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 10:23AM Kira Blaize said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 4:01PM matthargett said

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