McGee: Alice in Madness Returns has a "superhero persona" while in Wonderland

American McGee has said in Madness Returns, Alice thinks she's free of the psychological problems which plagued her in the first game.

The girl has issues, man

Speaking with Joystiq, McGee said Wonderland starts to re-invade her reality, and when she ventures back into Wonderland, she will take on more of a superhero persona in order to combat the mental demons emerging in her real life.

"I think compared to the first game, where it was a given that it was a psychological adventure, in this one we're really playing that up by having the contrast between Wonderland and London, so you're actually getting to see the real-world Alice and the real effect that these events are having on her; while at the same time she goes into Wonderland and takes on this sort of superhero persona," he said.

"In Wonderland, she's invincible, practically. I mean she's extremely strong and confident -- she's got all these powers. But when you come back to London, you start to see the real person: who she is and the struggle that she's having. Being able to see that contrast in the character is probably one of the biggest defining things about this product that makes it more interesting.

"You know in the first game, she was in there the entire time, sort of working through these psychological problems. In the second game, we're sort of building up the idea that she thinks she's free of this; she's free of the traumatic experience of her past that led her there in the first place. But as you've seen in the hands-off demo that we had today, Wonderland starts to sort of re-invade her reality; so in a sense, she's sort of pulled back into it.

"But you have to keep in mind that anything that's happening to her in Wonderland is in fact a function of her own psyche, so you could say that as problems emerge in her real life, this is where her psyche goes to seek sanctuary, and then work through those problems."

She's a beauty, one in a million girls

McGee also chatted a bit about Alice's dynamic look, and how her look will change over the course of the game, showing how different elements and her strength change her appearance.

"[Her looks are ]not animated. It's all dynamic -- it's real-time," said McGee. "It's quite a feat of technology. There's a guy on our team named Milo Yip, who is from Hong Kong; really, really good at this kind of physics and material technology. So he went in there and built this entire system for cloth and hair in the game, which we think is actually really special.

"Again, it's a game about Alice as a main character. We really wanted to sell her, and the beauty of her and the strength of her -- and everything about her just being as present and real as possible on screen. So we had it in our minds very, very early on that she as a character could be very dynamic in the world. We had to see a lot of change occur on her and in her clothing, in her hair; so there's stuff we haven't even revealed yet in terms of how these elements on her person change over the course of the game. Once the product is released you'll see that and more of it."

Sounds really awesome, and we can't wait.

A trailer for the game was shown at TGS, and you can watch it again here, and we've re-posted the screens released at the event below as well. Just for fun.

There's no exact date yet, but it's slated for sometime in 2011 for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

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