Alias - Australian Review

Alias is of course the popular TV show starring Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, the glamourous CIA spy. Like a female James Bond, she dresses up to the nines, packs high-tech gadgets and travels the world kicking asses. Alias is a 3rd-person stealth-action game along the lines of Metal Gear Solid, with a twist. You’ll appear in outrageously sexy outfits, before crawling through ventilation ducts, avoiding cameras, hacking into computer systems and beating people up with kung-fu.

The Alias show mixes this clandestine-thriller action with the drama of Sydney trying to maintain her family and personal relationships amid the dangerous life she leads. There’s little personal drama in the game, though – it’s all CIA action. As usual, the CIA is tracking the criminal activities of one Arvin Sloane, as he seeks certain priceless artifacts from history. In the game you’re mostly working against various henchmen of Mr Sloane, such as the familiar Englishman called Sark, as well as Anna, a caustic operative from the former USSR. Thanks to Anna’s sudden disappearance during the first series, she’s someone you can kill without contradicting the storyline on TV. The Alias storyline is extremely complicated, so it’s cool that the game’s story is really well integrated with the TV show’s events. It takes place in an intermediary timeline between the first and second TV series, with all the key characters fans will know. CIA agents Jack Bristow and Dixon, along with Marshall, the talkative spy-tech operative, are all brought to life flawlessly.

They look fantastic in the rendered cinematic sequences and exhibit spot-on personality and behaviour throughout the game. Unfortunately Vaughn, Sydney’s love interest from the show, doesn’t quite look his usual dashing self. On the whole, though, the characters are very well portrayed. Sydney receives frequent radio communications from the whole team during missions.

Like Metal Gear Solid, Alias plays out almost entirely in a third-person view. You’ve usually got a short section where you hide in plain sight using your alias. Then once you’re in, you find a quiet spot and put on the black ninja-suit. From there you’re doing a lot of crawling, creeping, climbing, peering around corners and sticking to walls. There’s a great context-camera which pops up in a little window to show you the surroundings when you’re picking a lock, or the outer corridor when you’re devilishly hiding in a closet.

Of course, you’ll have to solve the occasional technical problem during your infiltration escapades. Marshall Flinkman, the dorky technician is ever on hand to lavish you with compliments and help you defeat even the toughest security barrier.

Sneaking up behind an enemy, you can do an instant stealth-kill. Or you can just overtly beat the stuffing out of him. One defining element of Alias is that there isn’t really increased levels of enemy alertness. People in rooms adjacent to yours will be totally unaware of the disturbance. The most you’ll have to do is kill everyone in the current room, which Sydney is generally more than capable of doing. The melee combat in Alias is fantastic. Sydney is armed with an enormous arsenal of martial-arts punches, high kicks, throws and combo attacks which are amplified when she’s holding a melee weapon. You can also pick up hilarious items from the landscape and use them as weapons: in a kitchen area we whooped posterior with wine bottles, meat tenderisers and soup ladles, to name just a few. In another level, a huge museum, we handed out the biff with spears, swords and polearms from the displays, along with the occasional candelabrum.

There’s also MP5 sub-machine guns, although ammo is limited, and they’re not as overwhelming as you might expect. In fact, while holding a gun your offensive options are severely cramped. In Alias, it’s far better to face a group of enemies in close quarters wielding a frying pan, rather than an automatic weapon. Such is the dynamics of the game. Of course, this saves Alias from turning into a military corridor shoot-out which would compete directly with the likes of Splinter Cell, so it suits the overall style of the game.

Amazingly, you can be shot to pieces in a confrontation without much of a penalty. Your health fully regenerates over time, so you can just find a quiet spot for two minutes and let your bones knit. This forgiving attitude makes Alias great for casual gamers who don’t have unlimited hours to while away on videogames – and perfect for people who buy it because they love the TV show.

Seasoned gamers will rarely have to attempt anything in Alias twice, yet the game still has quite a satisfying length to it. It’s a huge game for casual players and still worth the money if you’ve beaten every stealth and sneaker game since Alone in the Dark. It’s a great vicarious experience as Sydney Bristow.

Score = 8/10