9 Famous Video Games That Are Actually Responses To Other Famous Video Games

8. American McGee's Alice Was Born To Challenge Quake And Doom

Now, on the surface it might not appear that the third-person, puzzle-based Alice in Wonderland games have anything to do with the super gory first-person Quake and Doom franchises, but they were actually built to directly contrast with these hyper-masculine experiences.

The titular American McGee was the creative director at id Software, and after working on those shooters, he branched off to prove that games didn't have to be about space marines and drab industrial corridors to sell.

In response, he took inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books, putting players in the shoes of the titular character and placing her in horrific, nightmarish dreamscapes where she battled her own demons, literally and figuratively. The game still had the blood and the gore of a title like Doom and Quake, but eschewed the regular conventions of those titles, with more metaphorical storytelling and imaginative, fractured levels.

It wasn't a total success, but it was a creatively rich title, and even spawned a sequel in Madness Returns years later, all because American McGee was sick of seeing space marines on video game box art.