How's this for a kick in the nuts? That really good looking trailer for Return of Alice that we ran earlier in the week is apparently a fan-made fake and not an official video. Despite looking very professional and more than a little brilliant, it has no connection to American McGee's Alice on a substantial level.

"Yesterday, a few sites picked up a video of Alice made by one of our fans and confused it as an official trailer of Alice 2," states McGee on his official blog. "I wanted to clear up any confusion -- as I mentioned in my post it was unofficial, and does not represent any of the final art direction or story elements in Alice 2. We look forward to sharing information on the game in the future."

Well, that sucks. I guess McGee and pals will now have a tough act to follow with the official trailer, whenever it appears. If it's not better than the one we saw, they'll have some explaining to do.

American McGee's Alice is coming back with a fresh coat of paint, and we have a brand new teaser trailer to prove it. Return of Alice will be a remake of the original game, courtesy of Electronic Arts, and has a release date of 2011 slated. Yeah, we know, that's ages.

It'll be a long wait, but this creepy new trailer should keep you going. It uses the ancient tradition of stop-motion animation for maximum weirdness, and really is quite the cool little video. Check it out and let us know if you're excited for Alice's big comeback.

Unfortunately, we don't have anyone at the DICE summit this year. Something about me blowing our entire 2009 budget on Bob the Builder DVDs, Skittles, and zombie make-up. (Don't ask.)

So it's a good thing MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo is there to hear stuff like this: this afternoon Electronic Art's John Riccitiello mentioned that there will be a new installment to American McGee's Alice series this year. As I was writing this, EA hit our inbox with a press release which clarifies that the title will come to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in 2009. It's being developed by McGee's Shanghai-based Spicy Horse studio, most recently responsible for the GameTap-episodic-exclusive, Grimm.

Originally released in 2000 for PCs, Alice was a third-person action title that was a twisted take on the Alice in Wonderland story through the eyes of game designer American McGee. Word of the title being spun off into a film (and being ported to the consoles) never quite panned out. Perhaps this sequel will give the series some much-needed new life. 

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A Boy Learns What Fear Is is the first episode in a weekly, 24-part series revolving around the fracturing of classic fairy tales at the hands of the series' protagonist, Grimm.

Being that episodic gaming turns out to be either lousy and eventually canceled (Sin) or incredibly awesome and entertaining (Sam and Max), Grimm is an interesting proposition. Episodic gaming has never been done with such frequency before, and certainly never with the sort of "run around, turn things evil, pee on stuff, and buttstomp the ground a lot" gameplay Grimm offers.

Given that the first episode is available as a free download today, you might want to hit the jump and find out if Grimm is worth your time, or just Bad Day L.A. in Mother Goose land.

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The debut episode of American McGee's Grimm entitled "A Boy Learns What Fear Is" is available for download.

As with each of the other 23 game episodes, it will be free for the first 24 hours, otherwise you'll need to have a subscription to GameTap or $3.99 (per episode).

Grimm has been split up into 3 volumes, each containing 8 episodes. If you decide to give the game a go and like what you find, there will be a new episode waiting for you every Thursday. Not a bad deal, huh?

You can download episode one by clicking here.

Have you ever found yourself thinking that fairy tales are just too damn happy nowadays? If so, then you may just find a kindred spirit in Spicy Horse Games, a developer that is creating a new franchise that focuses on giving these tales a much darker makeover.

American McGee’s Grimm: A Boy Learns What Fear Is serves as the introduction to a new episodic videogame series that will be exclusively distributed on GameTap. Taking a cue from the previous American McGee-branded game, Alice, Grimm takes the fairy tales we’ve all grown up hearing and puts a much darker spin on things.

These stories won’t start out grim, however: it will be up to the player -- and a horrid little bearded man named Grimm -- to gradually corrupt them, chapter-by-chapter. By properly utilizing Grimm’s foul aura, colorful landscapes will quickly be transformed into spooky, foreboding wastelands, full of lava, black skies, and barking hellhounds.

Hit the jump to get a detailed look at the corrupting revision process that American McGee’s Grimm employs.

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I might not be the biggest American McGee fan, but I can never pass up a good videogame intro song. Needless to say, the opening number for American McGee’s Grimm does not fail on that front.

The concept of turning family-friendly fairy tales into their original, dark forms is an interesting one, but I haven’t seen enough of the 24-part episodic series to make up my mind on the game yet.

I will, however, say with certainty that I’m liking Grimm’s art style quite a bit (not to mention the title of the game).

GameTap subscribers can check out American McGee’s Grimm when it arrives this July.

[Thanks, Professor Pew!]

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Back in 2000 I and everyone I knew was unbelievably excited for American McGee's Alice.  Following the game's release we could all be found hovering over our keyboards, gleefully WASDing our way through McGee's twisted vision of Wonderland.  Sure, Alice may not stand the test of time, but many of us have fond memories of that damned anorexic cheshire cat and for us the game remains iconic of that time.

So when word that a game based on the tales of the Brothers Grimm was being developed by American McGee's design house Spicy Horse I was, needless to say, more than a little excited.  However this trailer is a bit of a disappointment.  Yes the game looks cute, and it has an interesting art style, but I don't want cute from American McGee. I want the blood drenched fever dream of a mental patient distilled and packaged into 24 episodes for my GameTap downloading pleasure, and this trailer makes it seem as though I'll only have the latter.

Now I'll still definitely pick this up, especially if it comes to Xbox Live as McGee has alluded it might, and with R.J. Berg, the lead writer and executive producer for Alice, on board maybe I'll be surprised. But the sad fact remains that this really doesn't look like the horrific bastardization of classic fairy tales we've been hoping for.

[Thanks, Justin]

American McGee. McGee. McGeeeeee! Isn't it just fun to say it?

McGee (which also fun to type) has confirmed that his Chinese-based studio, Spicy Horse, is currently working on an Unreal Engine 3 powered "big publisher, multi-platform, twisted tale project." In a post on his official blog, McGee is looking for everyone from a producer to a junior programmer, so maybe it's time to start polishing those resumes. No further information is given on the title, but one can speculate that this project will find its home on either the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, if not both. 

This is Spicy Horse's second project, the first of which is the episodic GameTap project, American McGee's Grimm, which McGee says is at "the half-way point." The team is currently 12 episodes into the 24 episode project.

[Via GamaSutra]

The mastermind behind the twisted Alice (in Wonderland) and the upcoming Bad Day L.A. announced two exciting projects today - a new "episodic game set in a dark, fairy tale universe." There are no details beyond noting Mr. Ken Wong's participation, a talented character design artist who's portfolio screams "you just found a new wallpaper". American Mcgee has long been a favorite of mine for his bold approach to game design, blowing convention out of the water with each creative release. If you are a video game craftsman with an itch to live in China, he's also hiring. Don't be silly about about the bird flu either - he's also got that cornered. [ thx Kayka! ] Visit American Mcgee's blog

Arguably the only American that still makes original video games. While the rest of them make First-Person-Wrestling-Shooter-Sequels on the new Quake/Ford Hybrid engine, his blog reveals he's also been doing some hard work at a movie, Oz before disappearing into Taiwan (I'm an asshole who didn't check my facts, and almost fell off my chair when I got this email. He saw my site! OMG I"m your biggest fan whooooo): American writes: -- -American McGee Creative Director The Mauretania Import Export Company And that's precisely where his bones will someday lay; and have let him know we stand corrected and flushed with groupie redness. If I got an email from anybody else I would totally fix the punctuation, but if American wants lower case i's, who am I to say otherwise? Anyway, we hope Mr. McGee sticks around for the next-gen consoles and doesn't die unexpectedly at an early age, like all the other supernuts we've loved. His most recent game: Bad Day LA. Its like Grand Theft Auto with eerie cartoony characters, except that you get to throw poo, and after you set someone on fire you can nurse them back to perfect health. Then there was Alice. Tim Burton, eat your wheaties.

Updated 4/1: New screenshots discovered here

Updated 4/2: Get ready for Hansel and Gretel

The game has a scheduled release date of Q1 for the xbox and pc