In August 2005, I visited Perception for an opportunity to play Stargate SG-1 The Alliance and give a review on it. At that time, there was a lot I couldn't see. A lot I wasn't allowed to look at. Characters that were to remain a secret and the basic story that gives the game it's title - The Alliance - was to remain secret as well. What was the Alliance exactly?

Given some recent, unfortunate developments, I was invited to go to Perception to play the game once more and give another game play review. Why? To see what could have been. To show people how much the game had changed in 5 months and to give an idea of what we are sadly missing out on.

As of leaving the Perception offices I am allowed to discuss and mention all aspects of the game. I can tell you who is in it, I can tell you what the Alliance is, I can tell you what the Haaken look like and I can tell you what the game played like.

In my first review I said "Forget everything you have read about this game, it is going to blow your mind! Five months later that still holds true. Only more so.

On to the review.

Rather than being a controlled environment with which to play carefully selected levels, I could quite literally pick and choose any level I wanted. What I wanted to see first was the levels I saw in August. Game play since then has improved immeasurably. Smooth doesn't adequately describe the animation, depth doesn't adequately describe the attention to detail and kick-arse doesn't adequately describe it's addictive playability.

The first level had me playing as Daniel. Leading the team, P-90 in hand through dark and dangerous grounds. "Enemy spotted", distinctly O'Neill's voice yelled. The team took cover while I opened fire. The Jaffa ran towards us and the team as a cohesive unit took him out. Onward we marched, firing at various Jaffa that dared get in our way.

You have to take cover in this game. These Jaffa aren't mindless dots on a computer screen, they think! They react to your moves, and they take cover themselves when fired upon. I learnt the take cover lesson pretty quickly. Death is not a good way to go - or as Daniel said "that'll leave a scar". Back at it, taking cover, disposing of Jaffa left right and centre ... out of ammo. Let me say this. These guys are HARD to kill. Even the light guards take a lot to get them down. When I thought they were bad, I faced the Haaken, but more on them later. Ammo-less I automatically switch to the next available weapon. In this case it was the pistol. Firing that last time was somewhat static. Firing it this time was amazing to watch. I never thought I'd be impressed by seeing a gun fire on a game but the way this thing works is a sight to see! Everything about it smooth and painless. You fire, you run out of ammo you eject the clip, load a new one, cock the gun and fire again.

It was about here I remembered that Daniel had the Hand of Light (HoL) to play with. Loaded that up and ... wow! The last time I saw this thing it looked amazing, now it looks incredible. Where as before it was more or less a hand device for Danny-boy to wear, it is now a unique weapon. Using it your hand becomes transparent and you see the bones in the hand and fingers. Firing it causes a vortex to form at the target sucking them into it - never to be seen again. Cool! Ultimate weapon right? Just suck everyone into the vortex, repeat 3 times and game over. Wrong! Like most energy based weapons it has a bar that has to be charged for it to work. The more you use it the lower the bar, the less effective it becomes. You could stand around and wait while the bar recharged, hoping your team mates don't mind, or you could change weapon again - I did so by picking up the staff weapon the vortex affected Jaffa left behind.

Nice weapon, but like the HoL it's an energy based weapon so rapid fire isn't an option with this one. What is an option though is charged build ups. Press and hold the fire button and you get a more powerful shot. Now a question. What do you do when a Jaffa gets so close you can smell what he had for lunch? Press the alternate fire button and your staff weapon becomes a mighty big clubbing stick. Quite handy to beat Jaffa with and surprisingly used often.

A new level and a new character. This time I am Teal'c. T's primary weapon is of course the staff weapon. He doesn't have any special weapons like Carter or Jackson, but he does have a really cool melee attack. Alternate fire with him has him ran towards a Jaffa and strike with full force. I must admit, I didn't play him too long. The level I was on here froze up on us. Don't forget this game has come a long way since I last saw it, but it still has a little more fine tuning to do.

New level, this time I'm O'Neill. I wont go too much into the scenery and the environments. Don't get me wrong, they are amazingly detailed and look fantastic. Having said that, most scenes are visible in some form in the various screenshots that have been given out in the past. If you aren't familiar with them, take a look at our screenshot section. What I found most interesting about playing O'Neill was how much like him he is. What I mean is all through-out you get those little quips that make O'Neill who is he is. O'Neill, apart from being the head guy doesn't seem to have any "special" abilities. Although the level that required the use of the sniper rifle was O'Neill's territory. The sniper rifle is nice. Real nice. You hide away in a cave or in a tower and sniper the bad guys as Carter drives a Hummer getting some refugees to safety. The sniper rifle is pretty powerful too. Remember earlier when I said that the Jaffa were hard to take out? One shot to the head with the sniper rifle and problem solved. Got to love that!

Carter was interesting to play. She has all the usual toys as well as the ribbon device. Cool little thing that is. Aim, fire and watch the Jaffa fly - literally. The light Jaffa were pretty easy to take out using this. The heavier Jaffa took more punishment from it but ultimately they were disposed of too. The biggest thing I noticed about playing as Carter - or any team member for that mater, but Carter particularly is that when you are that character you control the other team members of SG-1 to do what you want them to do. For example, playing as Carter we're running a long a hall and I order the team to focus fire. They do so. This time though I want only one of the SG-1 team to do something, so I press and hold the F key (F for focus) then point the mouse at O'Neill. Carter then says something along the lines of "General, fire on my target". So by now you asking why I found that interesting? Well the fact she used the rank of General to talk to O'Neill. Hearing this I asked when exactly this game is set as I had thought it was somewhere between season's 7 and 8. It's actually set towards the end of season 8, that's why she refers to O'Neill as General.

The Tokra are in the game. Specifically Jacob/Selmak is in it and Carmen Argenziano's voice is distinctly heard. The level I played involving the Tokra was one where the Jaffa had invaded the tunnels and you had to find a way out. Jacob took on an advisory role in this and looked injured, but it was still great to see him in there. The character of Jacob, along with all characters I saw were clearly recognisable. The quality of the images for characters has improved greatly and are a credit to the designers who worked on them. I'll talk more about specific characters a little later.

Playability for this game is very very high. The minute you start you are thrown into the action. You are either trying to get to a way point in time, trying to clear a path of Jaffa or even decipher text. Yes, that's right as Daniel you discover some text and have to decipher what it says in order to progress in the game. This truly is a first person shooter that goes beyond just run and shoot. As in the TV show Stargate SG-1, the game Stargate SG-1 The Alliance involves a multi-faceted approach to completing a given objective.

Following is a list of characters I either played in the game or interacted with in some way.

• Jack O'Neill - Life like. His comments and language in the game really make you believe that he next to you or that you are him. Looking at him as a different player you can clearly see who it is
• Samantha Carter - Life like. Her voice, the way she gives orders, it's Sam. No two ways about it. Looking at her, or as was once the case with me, seeing her die, you can see Amanda Tapping there.
• Teal'c - Life like. Teal'c is with you in this game. When you give him an order he follows it exactly the way Teal'c from the TV show would.
• Daniel Jackson - Life like. Danny-boy is there, is doing what he loves best - deciphering and translating as well as what he has come to do more often - firing a gun against an enemy out to take them all down.
• Jacob Carter. That's definitely Jacob. Standing looking him in the eye the likeness was quite amazing.
• Thor. Thor is in there. I didn't actually get to see him but I heard some of the voice recording Michael Shanks did for the voice.
• Oma. Again I didn't see her, but on one mission I played on entering the level from the gate, Carter mentions that the planet must be the one Oma told them about. That planet incidentally is the one in the video trailer where it's all green and the leaves are gently falling from trees with the Stargate on the edge of a cliff.
• Kull Warriors. Big, bad and determined to destroy the SGC. The level I played that involved them was a foothold situation where the Kull invade the base and it's your job to stop them. They are so much harder to kill than the Jaffa. Thank goodness for the Kull Disruptor.
• Jaffa. Various types and plenty of them. They range from hard to kill to "Oh man he is tough!"
• Retou. Didn't see them directly. But did see the Retou Queen in passing. She is big, she looks bad and looks really hard to kill.
• Replicators. Didn't see them but did see the Replicator "Queen" in passing. I realise that the Replicators don't have a Queen per se however they did have that replicator on the Submarine that made itself bigger to spawn more replicators. This Replicator was one of those types.
• Haaken Warriors. Big and really really hard to kill. I had a quick play of a level that was inside a Haaken ship. It was quick because it didn't take them long to kill me. You really have to be on your guard when facing them and have plenty of C4 handy too!
• Haaken Queen. She's slim, with tubes out the top of her head and dangerous looking. I didn't face off against her directly but I saw her in passing again. She looks like she might have a surprise or two up her sleev ... uh tubes, that just when you think you have her beat she hits you with it.
• Walter Harriman. Saw him and it was like looking at Gary Jones directly. His voice is also heard at many stages of the game, particularly at the start up stage when you are picking what options you want to play with. I also saw the video taken of Gary when he was recording the voices for use in multi-player. You are able to select Walter as a character in multiplayer. Some great lines were heard like "Bet you didn't expect THAT from the technician!"
• Anubis. Didn't face off against him at all, but saw his rotating mother ship over head and saw him "on the decks".
• Hammond. Hammond is there and sure enough so is his voice. The only interaction I had with Hammond was hearing his voice. I never got to see him at any stage.
• Tokra in general and various SGC personnel. They are there and are more or less background fillers. Having said that though you are able to interact with some of them.
• Siler. Yep he is there. I didn't see him but the opening sequence where you select your options has Walter calling Siler to the power relay units.
• M.A.L.P. It's in there. I saw it loaded up with equipment being taken to the gate room to help out another off world Sg team.

One of the big questions that always gets asked is "are you able to free roam around the SGC?". Yes free roam around the SGC is possible. The first thing you do in the game is the tutorial level. During this you are in the infirmary having a medical exam when the doctor tells you to follow her to the target range. Initially she asks you to open the door for her and that is the first lesson done - how to open a door. At this point you can either follow her or roam around opening other doors and seeing all the various rooms. If you don't follow her she will wait for you to get back to her. Free roaming allows you to see and hear many things. For example I opened up one door and saw two SGC personnel talking to each other on the other side of a cage. Walking up to them I could hear their conversation which was about leaking pipes and how to fix them. Leaving that room I then came across a vending machine. You can actually interact with the machine by moving the mouse over it and pressing the E key. You then hear coins going into the machine and a drink or food dropping down to the collection tray. The E key is the action key through out the whole game.

Instead of more roaming around, which I could have done, I went back to the waiting doctor and continued my training/tutorial. at this stage you learn how to use the weapons available to you. Those being the P-90, the pistol, the staff weapon. From that the alarm sounds with an unscheduled off world activation and away you go head first into game play. If you shoot any SGC personnel at any time it's game over.

Another of the big questions is "is there any blood?" Yes to that one too. Depending on how far away from the bad guy you are depends on how much you see. Shooting a Jaffa with a P-90 up close results in a lot of blood being seen, while shooting the Jaffa with a P-90 at distance you don't see much at all. I should clarify when I say a lot of blood, it's not excessive, it's just visible and noticeable at times but it doesn't hang around and really there is so much going on, you barely even notice it.

Screenshots? No more I'm afraid. Well no new ones at any rate. Any new screenshot that could be taken need MGM's approval to be released. Also as was said today, there are plenty of screenshots to give you an idea of what things look like. This review is more on the game it self and how it plays.

Overall opinion of it?

Pro's"

• Visually stunning
• Ultra smooth animation
• Lip-sync was just about perfect. There were a few times when the lips didn't totally match the words
• Highly addictive
• Thanks to multi-player - infinitely re-playable
• Thanks to the game engine the possibility for mods, add-ons, and player customisations are enormous
• Believability of game play. What I mean is you really do feel as though you are part of Stargate SG-1 and not simply an observer like you are with the TV show. It truly gives you the opportunity to experience first hand what it's like to be on the front lines as an active member of SG-1.
• Mission depth is huge. There appeared to be so many levels. I think 26 in total. Each one is amazing to look at and even more amazing to play. I didn't get to play all 26 but I must have played at least a dozen of them.
• Multiplayer maps range from small, intimate maps to massive maps designed to have 16 active players at once. The MP map I saw was one of these huge maps and the attention to detail with every aspect of the Stargate universe was incredible

Cons:

• Some levels need work to complete. A few times the PC locked up on me. However given it is an incomplete game that is to be expected
• The game has been cancelled. The chances of anyone ever being able to play it again are next to none. The tragedy here is that so much work and so much time has gone into getting the details right. The way the Zat gun fires, the way the P-90 sounds as the bullets hit the Jaffa's armour, all the little things haven't been over looked, they are in there. The guys and girls that made this game clearly put massive amounts of time and energy into it. The fan base wanting this game is enormous, it is sad to see that massive Stargate fan base that has driven SG-1 into it's tenth season miss out on the long awaited and highly anticipated game.

This game would not only have met fans expectations but completely blown them away with the amount of details and re-playability it offers. Lets hope that the roar of the fans will be heard and this game will have the chance to show the world what it can do.