Alias

PS2 review by Jim Smith - Monday 19th April 2004

Back in the early 80s, my favourite video game was Commando on my trusty Sinclair Spectrum - the upgraded 48K ram version. The little blue commando guy didn't look a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger I'll admit, but that was okay because the little white character in the Rambo video game didn't look much like Sylvester Stallone either. Come to think of it, none of the movie franchise games had characters that looked anything like their big screen counterparts, but such were the times we lived in so nobody really minded. My school playground was clearly split into two factions act the time: those who played Rambo and those who swore by Commando. I was firmly encamped in the second of the two groups and I was fiercely proud of that fact, as were all my Commando-loving comrades. So, imagine my shock when I discovered that the Commando game had nothing to do with the Arnie movie at all and was in fact just one of the first licensed import titles by a small Japanese software house called Japan Capsule Computing.



It explained a lot really; Rambo was a bit rubbish and was licensed off a movie, Commando was wicked and wasn't. It's telling that Ocean, the publishers of Rambo, were unhappily swallowed up by Infrogames a few years later, while Japan Capsule Computers went from strength to strength. In later years they shortened that long, awkward name to simply Capcom. The rest, as they say is history.

So, what's the moral of this story? Well, quite simply, movie licensed video games are more than likely always going to be a bit crap. With the obvious exception of the illustrious Goldeneye, that theory is reasonably hard to disprove, and for good reason. A video game based on a popular movie, or in this case a successful TV franchise, has two major problems. Firstly, a chunk of the development budget is spent acquiring the license in the first place, so there's money written off straight away. Secondly, there's the problem of the target audience. Do you design a game of respectable complexity and sell it to the trusty game buying hardcore, or do you dumb the title down to appeal more to the fans of the original movie or show, assuming they are more likely to be only casual gamers? Or even more risky, do you somehow attempt to appeal to the two markets, courting the danger that you might in fact alienate both?

This is the decision the clever bods over at Acclaim Interactive had to make soon after acquiring the license to the hit ABC show, Alias. As you would expect, Acclaim have chosen the most difficult path and tried to please everyone. They have created a title which is essentially a post-Metal Gear infiltration caper, albeit with the back up option to wade in fist firsts if that's your thing, making it easily accessible to those unfamiliar with the stealth-action genre.



Talking of unfamiliarity, I wonder how many of you actually watch Alias on the box. I've seen a couple of episodes and this is what I can make of the plot, bearing in mind that this hit show, starring Jennifer Garner as the heroine Sydney Bristow, is now in it's third season.

Alias tells the everyday story of an American College student who leads a double life as a covert operative for a secret government agency called SD6. She soon finds out, though, that this agency is actually evil, goes undercover for the CIA after her fiancé is murdered and then discovers her supposedly dead mother is actually alive but is now a bad guy too. At least I think she's a bad guy; it's actually quite hard to tell who's good and who's evil in Alias since the show has more twists in it than a Chubby Checkers song.

Alias the video game is essentially a stealth action title in much the same vein as Splinter Cell or Metal Gear, although sadly it's no where near as good as either of those titles. The stealth action genre is big at the moment and Acclaim jumped straight on the bandwagon with Alias, but they sadly chose to dumb the whole thing down and that seriously effects its credibility. As you progress through each level all the tools you'd expect from a generic stealth title are available to you; you can creep along walls, peer round corners, duck behind objects and all that kind of stuff, and they also even included the Tenchu-style stealth kill in a desperate attempt to win you over. This is pretty neat, as it goes, and is one thing that Alias does have going for it, although I'm not too sure about the ring around your victim's feet with the big 'S' flashing in it. It kind of screams 'Kill me!' and so when you do sneak up, hit the special attack button and watch the obligatory death sequence, you kind of feel cheated, like it was a bit of a given.



The presentation of each level, though, is handled very nicely. You get the little talky bit you're expecting, then the camera pans around the level while a voice-over points out where you have to get to, what you have to do there and the key obstacles you'll have to overcome in the process. As you complete each objective a new one is added to your list, again with the accompaniment over the handy voice-over, and things tick along nicely. Well, that's what should happen anyway. Things start to go pear-shaped as soon as you get in to the actual game; Alias is sadly plagued by a couple of major flaws.

The first problem is the whole stealth thing. Frankly, it's a mess. Being a good little boy I played the whole first level or so as I assume the developers intended, i.e. by utilizing all the stealth tools at my disposal, and it turned out to be a remarkably frustrating experience marred by terribly inconsistent bad guy artificial intelligence. I've had occasions when I've wandered into a room with a guard in, and he's simply turned his back on me and walked off. Other times I've sneaked expertly along the side of a set of crates, monitoring the guards' positions using the Alias spy-o-vision gadgets, and out of nowhere three of them come at you all at once. The funniest occasion I found was when I sneaked past a door where the guard was on the other side and couldn't open it. Every time I stepped up to the door, the guy says, 'What was that?' And if he said it 10 times he must have said it 30 before I got bored of it. Um, yeah, it was very late.

Anyway, while I'm whining about the flawed stealth aspect, I must mention the camera. It's the same old story; the thing's fine when you're out in the open but go near a dark corner - you know, where the good places to hide are - and it decides to do it's own thing. I once got stuck in the back of a truck (I didn't get there by my own stupidity, it was a plot device) and I couldn't for the life of me make the camera behave so I could swing it round and actually see what was outside. In the end I was forced to gamble and jump out, only to be surrounded by guards in a split-second.



And this brings me on to the second major problem; combat. When you inevitably cock up the stealth bit and 3 or 4 guards swarm you, you think that's it, I'm done for! Not so. Whether they are armed with sticks, machetes, guns or even snooker cues, they all do the same thing. Namely, they run up to you, squeeze one smack off (or hit, or quick burst of fire, whatever) and then step back in order to circle you lamely. It's a bit odd, and like watching a bad kung-fu movie where the villains all line up to get a pasting from the hero. Still, you're the hero now, so it's time to hammer those two, yes two, attack buttons. One is a normal attack and one is a special, but these are as inconsistent as the guards' AI. Sometimes Sydney will kick, sometimes rattle off a couple of punches, sometimes both, who knows. She's got a throw in there too, and a special off the wall move, but the latter usually implies tempting your assailant over to the wall and then hoping you can fluke the right button combo.

Alias does make the effort to let you pick up anything you can find to use as a weapon, but these don't last very long and, bizarrely, there doesn't seem to be a lot of technical difference between them. Since the guards circle a lot but don't attack all that much, a broom from the kitchen is as good as a gun any day. It's quite something actually, watching two guys with guns circle you expectantly while you hit them over their heads with a frying pan doesn't happen every day.

But should you get a gun, there's one thing you should remember. You only get as many bullets as the guard has left in it when you nabbed it off him. And when the clips out, the gun's useless and you have to chuck it. Yes, Sydney Bristow maybe a top CIA double agent or whatever, but she could learn a thing or two about reloading weapons.



When it comes to gadgets, however, this little lady has the most idiot-proof set I've ever seen in a spy game. To use the lock pick you select it on a locked door, then spin the left analogue round until the pin raises, hit 'X', and repeat. Not exactly rocket science. The hacking element is even worse; you have to break a two or three letter code which only uses the letters 'A', 'B', 'C' or 'D', and it even tells you how many you got right each time. It's a bit like Mastermind, if you've ever played that. Sometimes they add a little pressure by giving you perhaps a 30-second time limit, but since a monkey could do it in 10, it's not enough to break out into a sweat about.

In fact, it's here where I started to worry about the target audience. The game is seemingly either aimed at inexperienced gamers who are fans of the show, or pre-teen kids with liberated parents that don't mind their offspring playing games that allow you to perform stealth kills. It's a shame too, the graphics are more than adequate, the sound is good and the menus and presentation from the start are of a high standard. The voice-overs too are quality and fans of the show will feel right at home, although watch out for the constant interruptions from the techie, Flinkman; his over-excited mutterings can grate in no time.

But that's it really, this game is just mutton dressed as lamb. It's a seriously average stealth-em-up with a brand name attached. It'll appeal to fans of the show I'm sure, but for those of you that aren't there's not much point playing this when there already plenty of better stealth titles out there. I only wish Acclaim had spent more time tweaking the game engine and less time motion-capturing Jennifer Garner's pert buttocks, although I'll admit that in that aspect, they did do a really, really good job. Still, it's not enough to save this title, so I'm sending my review copy straight to my 10 year old nephew. And yes - his parents are the liberated kind.

Thunderbolt score: five out of ten

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