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American McGee's Alice Alice: Madness Returns Wonderland
Card Guard
Card Guard
Also known as Cards
First appearance Dementia [AMA]
Queensland [AMR]
Series American McGee's Alice
Alice: Madness Returns
Statistics
Melee attack Hands [AMR], poleaxe (Armored Card Guard only) [AMR], staff
Ranged attack Staff (spades, diamonds, and hearts only) [AMA]
Image gallery (23)
The Guards lack imagination; don't play with them, unless you're ready to deal.
Cheshire Cat

Card Guards are enemies that are literally humanized cards with four types: Diamond, Spade, Club, and Heart. They appear to be living in Alice Liddell's third return to Wonderland, but have since been a zombified version when the Dollmaker had arrived and caused Wonderland's destruction. They are servants of the Queen of Hearts.

History[]

American McGee's Alice[]

Alice encountered a club Card Guard shortly after obtaining the Vorpal Blade. She quickly defeated it and continued on her journey.[1]

Alice: Madness Returns[]

The Card Guards were still defending the remains of Queensland. Alice saw these enemies come to life in the courtyard before meeting the White King. After defeating them, she was able to talk to the King and enter the castle.[2]

Appearance[]

American McGee's Alice[]

Club Card Guard

A Club Card Guard.

  • Clubs – The club Card Guards are the lowest of the guards. They are taller than Alice and stand with their back slightly hunched. They are black in color and contain the club symbol on their arms, front and back. Their body is thin and rectangular to mimic that of a card. They also wear black gloves and black boots, as well as a black hood.
  • Diamonds – The diamonds are second on the card guard totem pole. They are red in color, and similar to the other Guards, they are thin and rectangular in shape. They have red boots, gloves and head pieces and their diamond symbol can be seen on their arms, front and back. They shoot diamond-shaped projectiles from their staffs.
Majestic Maze - Card Guards at gate

Spade Card Guards at the Majestic Maze.

  • Spades – Spades are next in the order of Card Guard lethality. They are, just like the clubs, black in color. They are also thin and rectangular with black boots, black gloves and black headwear. A spade appears on the Guards arms, back and front. They are slightly hunched in appearance.
  • Hearts – Hearts are the most potent of the card guards. They wear the regular uniform in red, with red boots, red gloves and red head pieces. Their bodies are thin and rectangular to replicate a cards. They have a heart symbol on their arms, fronts and backs. Their eyes are pure white and they stand in a slightly hunched posture.

Alice: Madness Returns[]

Card Guard appearance

Card Guard appearances.

The Card Guards' resurrection have left them a little more than mindless zombies, with skeletal faces, crudely stitched-together bodies, and feral minds. Each Card Guard has a massive bloody hole in the torso, the shape pertaining to the suite of cards it comes from: Heart, Diamond, Spade or Club. The eye sockets of their skulls are also shaped after their card suite. In addition their bodies sport a number of bloody cuts and stains, the most obvious around their arms and legs right at the sockets, where their limbs appear to have been stitched back on. Unable to remember their skill with weapons, these undead warriors are just as hostile towards Alice as they were in her previous adventure.

Attacks[]

American McGee's Alice[]

  • Clubs – Club Guards only have a single melee attack, which is to hit Alice with their staff. They will do so continuously until either Alice or the Guard dies.
  • Diamonds – Similar to the Club Guards, their attacks are fairly weak and can be deflected easily, however, rather than only one attack they have two, a melee and a ranged attack. Their melee attack is the same as the Club Guards, which is to merely whack Alice with their staff, but they can also shoot Alice using energy from the staff. The energy is shaped like a diamond.
  • Spades – Spades have a slightly more complex plethora of attacks. Not only can they use the basic melee hit with their staff, but they can shoot two spade-shaped projectiles which can also explode in a fiery blue mass upon impact, whether it has hit Alice or not, making it more dangerous as it may not hit Alice, but still backlash.
  • Hearts – Heart Guards have less attacks than the Spades, but their attacks are considerably more deadly. Again, they contain the regular melee Card Guard attack featuring the Guard hitting Alice forcefully with their staff. They can also launch projectiles with their ranged attack, however, unlike the Spade, they only shoot one heart-shaped projectile. This is more deadly as they act like homing missiles, following Alice in a relatively arc.

Alice: Madness Returns[]

  • Hands – The Card Guards use their claw-like hands to swipe at Alice.
  • PoleaxeArmored Card Guards use the weapon by swinging at Alice. It deals a lot of damage as its wielder is powerful.
  • Staff – After Alice ate the Eat Me cake and became large, Card Guards used staffs to attack and stop her from getting to the Queen of Hearts.

Tactics[]

American McGee's Alice[]

  • Clubs – Club Guards are the weakest of all the Guards. They can be killed with only one hit from the Vorpal Blade, which can send two halves of their body in two different directions, or have their heads rolling. To reduce the chances of taking any damage, Alice can throw her blade at the Guard. This is helpful for the areas such as the Village of the Doomed.
  • Diamonds – Similar to the Clubs, they have a fairly small amount of health and can be taken out by the Vorpal Blade, however, they may take more than a single hit on some occasions, depending on how deadly the hit is. As they contain more than one attack, it is suggested to use a combination of attacks.
  • Spades – They are the second most difficult Guard. Normally, they can be defeated by two clean swipe of the Vorpal Blade but may take more with less accuracy. It is recommended to keep a fair distance of a meter or so, but not so far as to allow the Guard to use its ranged attacks. If it uses its ranged attack, it is advised to stay clear so no backlash affects Alice.
  • Hearts – Heart Guards can take around three throws of the blade to kill, making them more deadly than the Spades, however, unlike Spades they only shoot one projectile at a time. These missiles home in on Alice and follow her, so it can be more convenient to attack them using melee attacks rather than staying far back enough for them to launch missiles.

Alice: Madness Returns[]

The new Card Guards attack by charging at Alice and blindly clawing at her. They may also grab her and bite her neck, and Alice must butterfly dodge to escape. They are generally a low-level threat, but tend to come in large groups, or as support for more dangerous foes, such as the Executioner. Additionally, they can revive themselves after being knocked down, unless Alice quickly finishes them off with a powerful blow. However, three consecutive hits with the Hobby Horse should do the trick as well.

A new variant of the Queen's minions is the Armored Card Guard, which features chain mail armor and a massive poleaxe weapon. It is slow but powerful, and only vulnerable in the symbol on its back.

Merchandise[]

Card Guard merchandise

Both sets.

There are very little amounts of merchandise from both games, but the merchandise that is most known would be the action figures from both games. Not only was it rare for the enemies to be seen in both games, but they were also the only enemies to come back in both action figure sets. There were not many characters that generally came back, either. The only characters that came back in both sets were Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

Card Guard figurine

Undead Card Guard figurine.

From the original Alice game, it was possible to buy all four editions of the card guards; Clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts, however, they were packaged randomly. A box included one red card guard and one black. Diamonds and hearts were red while spades and clubs were black. These could be mixed and matched, making it difficult to receive a full set.

Unlike the American McGee's Alice edition, only one edition of the Card Guards was released, which was clubs. It has a black color scheme and unfortunately a red edition was never released.

Trivia[]

  • In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, it is implicitly specified that spade Cards are gardeners, club Cards are soldiers, diamond Cards are courtiers and heart Cards are royal children. However, in the games, all Cards have the same function: they're guards.
  • Card Guards are one of two enemies that can be directly mentioned as a clue from the Cheshire Cat; the other is the Boojum.
  • Card Guards are one of the few enemies which made an appearance in both Alice games.
  • Killing 52 Card Guards grants the player the achievement/trophy "52 Pick-Up."

References[]

  1. Rogue Entertainment (2000-10-06). American McGee's Alice. (Electronic Arts). Scene: Dementia. Level: Village of the Doomed.
  2. Spicy Horse (2011-06-14). Alice: Madness Returns. (Electronic Arts). Scene: Least Wing. Level: Chapter 4: Queensland.
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