laying as Sydney Bristow, gamers will need to negotiate a handful of exotic and dangerous locales in a series of events that tie into the end of Alias’ second season. The game’s plot is essentially like an unfilmed episode of the show. Sydney is a real-life über-spy with a safety net of CIA operatives and the most endearingly dorky character in recent memory, Marshall, to supply gizmos to complete her missions.

Really, this game is very parallel to Atari’s Enter the Matrix. It makes great use of its license by having the cast do all of the voice work, and the series’ creator, JJ Abrams, penned its script. Those who are still in the dark about the alphabet channel’s secret gem of a show will find, upon playing the game, that it’s a reasonably solid stealth/action title with nifty gadgets.

The combat system lacks polish mostly in that it doesn’t often require you to use all of the actions in your repertoire. For instance, I didn’t really need to use my block until almost halfway through the game. This is unfortunate because the animations and the attacks performed are contextual – like Sydney on TV, the video game heroine isn’t bigger or stronger than most of these goons; so she has to use tabletops, doors, brooms, and balconies to her advantage. Even though some of these attacks aren’t necessarily executed by the player (a Special Attack button generally decides what, specifically, Sydney will do), they make you feel smart. And, they look cool.

What’s generally the biggest downfall of spy games, for myself at least, is the stealth AI. Thankfully, Alias doesn’t really have any of the usual problems associated with sneaking around. I never wondered how someone saw me, and I also didn’t get away with anything. Consistently solid, the enemy AI found me out when the should have, picked up weapons from fallen comrades, and generally behaved in a reasonable way – which is all good news.

Graphically, however, Alias falters. During actual play, characters and environments have noticable jaggies. The cutscenes are unnervingly realistic, though. The characters get a serious upgrade in these sequences and the animations, coupled with some great texture maps, scarily recreate the cast and their mannerisms. Of course, some are better than others (why does Vaughn look like he’s substantially heavier and markedly older than his TV counterpart?).

Alias, in essence, boils down to an age-old sentence in the gaming review business: Fans will mostly dig it and newbies won’t be terribly disappointed.  

ANDREW REINER   6.25 With a wonderfully enigmatic story that ties into the greater Alias universe, whimsical Marshall banter every few minutes, and beautifully illustrated cutscenes which feature voice work by the entire cast, there’s more than enough here to make fans’ mouths water. You’ll even have the option to change Sydney’s clothes like she so loves to do on the show. When it comes to gameplay, however, Alias is neither gripping nor finely tuned. The stealth component is generations behind the Splinter Cells of the world. Hand-to-hand combat is equally as forgettable. For some reason, the developer felt the need to show gamers exactly where to go and what to do with pre-level fly-by sequences. It’s like a builtin strategy guide! Sydney worshipers will definitely get something out of it, but everyone else will likely feel like they were drugged and tortured.