Graphics wise the game is convincing and Sydney herself is well animated and looks like her real life counterpart. The first area however has the tell tale PS2 jaggies, but the graphics improve as you progress. By no means are they ever bad, just at times the environments come across as a bit stiff and basic. The frame rate is nice and consistent and the game flows quite smoothly.
The game is an action adventure with a great emphasis on stealth. Sydney employs standard stealth tactics, martial arts and an assortment of gadgets to accomplish her objectives. These range from taking out surveillance equipment, to eaves-dropping, spiking someone's drink, breaking into high tech places and so on and so forth. Her gadgets range from lock picks, to remote modems to fingerprint analysers and are generally fun to use.
Kung Fu Fighting!!
The fighting is not overly deep, however it works well enough and there are plenty of different techniques to learn despite only having 2 attack buttons and a block button. It can be a bit of a mash fest, but that really comes down to how much the player wants to experiment. As a nice touch there is a huge range of weapons from wine glasses to brooms, and the broom actually breaks into smaller pieces if you keep hitting it against walls or solid objects. The disarm/throw moves have special animations triggered when you are next to a wall or similar object which helps keeps things consistent.
Alias actually incorporates a few new/evolved ideas that really boost the stealth gameplay. One is the use of split screen action. Upon entering a room a portion of the screen may show a different camera angle that is necessary to help you pass an obstacle or avoid a certain event. In one section after hacking a camera, the camera's field of view is shown in the top right corner so you can time your movements to avoid being spotted. Another is the use of 'extended vision'. Basically this adds a bluey-green tinge to the screen and highlights enemies by using little directional arrows and circles. There is even a colour scheme to show their awareness of your presence. It is like an onscreen radar stretched over your field of view in an incredibly non-intrusive way that is so very useful because you can focus on what you are doing, and the movements of the enemy at the same time.
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