Alias - Hands On Preview

Developed across three formats, at their internal Cheltenham studio, this game, based around the U.S TV series, Alias, is an intriguing offering. To British gamers the fact the series has been shown on Sky's satellite TV, where only a small audience would have been able to tune into the series, may not help to give it instant appeal but with a number of well known actors and a good script, Alias can potentially live up to Acclaim’s already high expectation.<br><br>Alias is a third-person action adventure game that allows players to step into the role of the series' lead character, Sidney Bristow, an agent for the CIA. Bristow must use her cunning, extensive knowledge of martial arts and array of high-tech gadgetry to accomplish dangerous missions. Alias will encompass all of the key elements behind the series' success, including high-action combat, stealth missions, time-based objectives, espionage, intriguing plot twists, high-tech weaponry and stunning gameplay locations that span the globe.<br><br>Derek dela Fuente spoke with Ana Louise Marsh, Alias’ Lead Designer, at their Cheltenham Studio to find out more.<br><br>The first basic premise you can judge any game on, in its early stages, is the expertise of the dev team, what kind of background story and ideas the game will offer, along with any game technology and hoping an initial set of screenshots will show the kind of polish and detail to formulate a positive fix for the game. It appears that on all counts, including some rather flashy screenshots, a very high standard is being met already. The programming team has been very focused on getting the most out of the targeted hardware so the game looks as good as possible. Adding that extra bit of detail and attention can't fail to be noticed by the ever attentive gamer and Ana was eager to elaborate. “A couple of examples to ensure full authenticity are the cloth and hair technology which we use to make Sydney much more life-like than your average game character, and the split screen rendering, where in certain parts of the game we show the action from two different camera angles at the same time." <br><br>It does appear this is not a mere game license worked off of the back of a series that has done well, for actors Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin, Carl Lumbly, Kevin Weisman and David Anders join Series' Producer, J.J. Abrams, and the writing team will collaborate on the development of the next-generation title offering Hollywood authenticity of this hit series. “We’ve managed to work very closely with the TV production team. They provided us with detailed photographs of the cast, blueprints of set designs and gadgets used in the show. I also work with the show's costume designer to come up with the outfits for the game and the scriptwriters to construct the story." <br><br>The story, ensuring continuity with the TV show, is set in place as was highlighted. “We started off by taking inspiration from the TV show on the types of locations and situations that Sydney would go and created missions around them. We had to increase the number of objectives and obstacles that Sydney encountered in each mission because the action sequences in the TV series can be quite short. We then started to work with the TV scriptwriters to make our designs work in the 'Alias' universe. The story sees Sydney tracking down her arch rivals, Anna Espinosa and Mr. Sark, and finding out exactly what the mysterious 'Machine' is for that they are working on."<br> <br>Using voices by the key actors has meant a lot of sound recording and at the start of each mission the player receives a briefing from familiar characters from the TV show, and during the mission those characters will be on hand to give the player help and advice. The voices of all the key actors in the show have already been recorded.<br><br>To complement the dialogue, Sydney has facial expressions to give further realism and she'll look around herself at stimuli in the environment - NPCs, objects she can interact with. <br><br>We were informed by Ana that it's actually a bit spooky at the moment watching Sydney’s eyes move and look at the NPCs, as if she really knows what's going on around her. She's also a great martial artist, and has lots of gadgets at her disposal, and can use her cunning to outwit her enemies using disguises and stealth moves. The in game cast features some of the really nasty bad guys and girls from the TV series so they've had a lot of fun giving them some great fighting styles. <br> <br>Alias offers plenty of action, stealth missions, as well as time based missions and locations that span the globe! <br><br>The action is in most cases pertinent to the locations and detail is a very high priority for the team. “Yeah, the game takes Sydney all over the world - some of the locations are Romania, Brazil, Monaco, and Saudi Arabia. Each mission has its own objectives, which will revolve around the location it's based in. For instance, in Monaco Sydney is disguised as a waitress in a casino, so in this alias she must drug the drink of a target so that the CIA can trace him. In Romania she is infiltrating an Asylum and one of her objectives there is to hit one of her arch-enemies with tranquillisers and attempt to sneak him out of the Asylum by disguising herself as a doctor and him as a patient." <br> <br>Trying to compare this to another game on the market is hard and a few other games were mentioned as being similar but Alias has many qualities of its own. It has stealthy elements and gadgets like Splinter Cell and MGS, but also hand to hand combat like Buffy, and use of disguises like Hitman. There's also some elements which haven't been fully exploited in other games before - using objects found in the environment as improvised weapons for example (favourite one at the moment with the team is the frying pan found in the Casino kitchen, makes a great sound...), and using the split screen rendering to give the player multiple views of a situation. <br><br>The objectives in each mission have a definite solution to achieving them; however there are usually several ways to reach that solution. A small example is where the player has to get through a locked door, they might sneak up to it and use their lock pick quickly to get through it. Or they might hide in a dark corner and wait until they can stealthily attack a guard carrying the key. Or yet again, they might disarm a guard and shoot the lock off, risking alerting other guards with the sound of the gun. <br><br>Asking about the in game AI and whether it executes and works in a sensible manner and if the opposition is not merely placed as weak cannon fodder was answered reassuringly along with an example. “Because there's a variety of different ways that the player can approach the game the AI has to work hard to make sure that it can cope and act believably in response to all the actions that the player can do. For example, if the player is in disguise they won't spot her, but if she starts a fight with one NPC then all the others will realise that she's not actually a waitress or a doctor and respond accordingly. And if they see the player somewhere out of their immediate reach they will radio other NPCs closer to the player's location to alert them to her presence. When they're fighting her in groups they work as a team, trying to surround her - they'll also grab objects lying around to use as weapons so the player has to be very careful where they choose to pick a fight." <br> <br>Alias, thus far, revolves around the activities of Sydney, an agent from the CIA, whose prime task will be to find Arvin Sloane, the man who murdered her fiancé, appears to be one worthy of interest, which offers its own original story, along with a myriad of game features that include a blend of combat, espionage and stealth. <br><br>Also on offer is a combat system, which enables players to simultaneously fight multiple opponents in fierce hand-to-hand combat and fully interactive environments allowing players to use objects as weapons or to create diversions. <br><br>Unique camera direction - utilizing multiple, simultaneous angles are a couple of the other in game details.