The holidays have become a time when games flood the market and frenzy breaks out to get the hottest game titles. As usual, Electronic Arts has a few PC titles that are sure to be worth checking out, and could very well make excellent gifts too! At a recent meeting at Electronic Arts' offices in Redwood City, California, many of the planned holiday titles were shown to the gaming press for the first time since E3. The individual developers have made quite a bit of progress on the exciting titles. Unfortunately, Lionhead Studios was not able to be present to show their upcoming Black and White, but we were able to see American McGee's Alice, The Sims: Livin' Large and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.

American McGee came up with the concept of a gaming title based on the popular Alice in Wonderland universe when he started thinking about all the titles of the adventure genre, and how they are all much the same. What he came up with is an incredibly rendered and highly stylized psychological thriller that passes under the category of adventure. The rich graphics and the use of the Quake III Arena engine, combined with the symbolism created by American and his crew at Rogue Entertainment, are sure to extend the universe created by Lewis Carroll all those years ago.

While there are plenty of characters from the book like the white rabbit and the grinning Cheshire Cat, not everything is as it seems when peering through the looking glass, or the monitor screen. Players will find that this version of Alice's adventure assures a unique look at the storyline. American feels that he is finding it more difficult to live up to the two books of Lewis Carroll's adventure rather than that he only has two source books to limit his abilities in creating this peculiar tale.