For those of you who were living in a cave with Osama Bin Laden or are blind, Dark Angel is about Jessica Alba. Well, ostensibly it's about her character Max, but we all know the main reason people watched it was for her. She's feisty, hot, and the show actually had some great ideas and some pretty cool fight scenes.

But then it got cancelled after its second season. And then they released a game based on it anyway. This is really indicative of the game as a whole, which is a shame as it had the potential to be a really great title. Sadly, like the story arc of the series, one cannot help but feel the game is half done and incomplete.

To begin with, they've managed to get Jessica Alba (Max) and Michael Weatherly (Logan) to do the voices, which is a big plus for a licenced title. Problem is, both must've known the roles were defunct as they provide some of the most lifeless and drab dialogue I have heard in a game for quite some time, especially Weatherly, whose drone barely leaves monotone the entire time. Alba fires off a volley of sassy one-liners which may make you laugh the first few times but tend to get repetitve real quick. Overall the sound is decent, nearby troops engage in radio chatter and there are a variety of ambient sounds to add a bit of life to the environment, along with the usual assortment of breaking bones and victim's groans.

The environments seem good at first too, in fact I was pleasantly surprised to see headlights shatter and bins bang closed as I thumped people into them. Again however, it seems unfinished, as other objects that you would expect an interaction from yield nothing, and crates and barrels you would like to climb on are met with the invisible force-field which is my pet peeve in third-person titles. And it's everywhere, believe me. In fact, in the earlier levels there is basically nothing you can jump on at all, meaning that what appears to be a nice 3D world is really a pretty level playing field with the occasional ladder or two to break things up where the plot requires it.

One of the biggest let-downs is the fact that while the actor's do their own voices, apparently nobody wanted to pay for likeness rights, so the characters only bear a vague resemblance to their small-screen counterparts. It's not a huge problem, but it is a little dissapointing for fans who would like to actuall see Jessica Alba kicking ass in the game rather than a low-poly hispanic model who you wouldn't pick out of a line-up as being the real deal.

While the graphics on the whole aren't horrible, they bear all the hallmarks of a ps2 port...low poly models, jaggies, and a general lack of anything that would tax the capabilities of the Xbox. Some things stand out like when it rains the drops never hit the ground and characters don't kick up dust when they hit the deck, but the game does have some fairly decent lighting effects, specifically character shadows. Texture-wise the levels are interesting enough but as you progress you'll notice many of them are reused constantly, so the same bar will show up in five different locations and little things like that.

While discussing the levels, it cannot be stressed enough how badly the stealth levels have been implemented. If done right they could have been a brilliant addition to the game, because as any fan of the series knows, Max relies more on her cat-like stealth to infiltrate undetected where possible, fighting only as a last resort. The developers have tried to capture this, but the end result is possibly one of the worst sneaky-sections in a game. All you have is a general "danger-meter” which lets you know how much of a risk you run of getting caught, but it seems that only really proximity affects this as opposed to noise or lighting. And on occasions I was detected through walls and other solid objects just by being too close to an enemy, which was really infuriating. Thankfully at least the direction the guards are facing plays a part so some tactics are involved as you study their route and try to sneak around.

Worse though is the fact that if they spot you, the mission either automatically ends or you have a set amount of time to defeat the guards before reinforcements arrives, and this is usually no more than 2 minutes to dispatch half a dozen soldiers in one go, which is no small feat. It definitely adds to the tension, but the initial frustration of the stealth sequences may be enough to discourage many gamers.

On the plus side, the controls are great and quite intuitive. Max can pull off some great combo attacks and the game occasionally slows down into a Matrix-esque bullet time mode when Max is doing some particularly cool butt-kicking. There are literally dozens of different moves you can use and it's fun trying out diffent button mashing combos to see the effect. New combos can be discovered through trial and error as you go along so it definately pays to experiment.

Again I find myself having to mention camera problems. So many third person games, so few with decent cameras! Dark Angel is another title to add to the list of games which has some annoying camera quibbles. If it was a straight-up fighting title I wouldn't even mention it, but when there is an element of stealth it is absolutely crucial to be able to see your enemeis and the routes they are travelling. Sadly in DA it is very difficult to do this in some of the indoor locations, and this makes an already frustrating stealth component even more infuriating.

Fans of the show can take heart in the fact that the game actually has some decent extras on the disc. A couple of big galleries of Jessica Alba goodness get the ball rolling, as well as interviews with the cast and crew including James Cameron himself along with trailers and other miscellania. Beyond these however, there is little incentive to replay the game as it is totally linear.