Review: Alpha Protocol

For about two days, I became an international man of mystery. Sure, there was the occasional glitch and stutter, but I think I managed alright. I still beat the bad guys, got the girl, and saved the world.

Come with me as I sing about my adventures.

Okay, jokes, don't go away. I talk about it only.

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When I started up Alpha Protocol for the first time, my reaction was "What the f......"

The graphics were horrendous, like something from 2001 (because 2001 is pretty old in gaming years); think of Counter-Strike graphics from a map like de_dust, beta version mind you, and you wouldn't be too far off. Blocky, undetailed, and totally uninspired design. And the worst part was, de_dust would've beat AP's maps hands down because at least that was painstakingly crafted with strategy in mind. I liken AP to being a rat running through a linear maze.

Rome's ruins did not look like ruins; a warehouse in Taipei looked like it could've been a warehouse in Moscow. Obsidian didn't put enough effort into distinguishing their locales, it all seemed a little fake - a dash of red to represent Taipei, bleak whiteness for Moscow, and shades of sand for Saudi. So unnatural, as only games from a graphically bygone era now appear, next to new generation titles. The worse thing was, although the game has you "globe-trotting" to various destinations, in truth, you're really just running through one maze after the other.

You know, in plenty of games, like Modern Warfare 2, you get those training galleys at the start of the game? Ones where you run through and shoot at pop up cardboard terrorists? Even Alpha Protocol has one. Well, ALL of Alpha Protocol feels that way, generic bad guys pop out from random spawn points, there to slow your continual grind forward but ultimately to be disposed of mindlessly.


The animations are even worse; in the new generation where the heroes of video games can be counted on to look decent, Sam Fisher, Batman, Ezio, John Marston, heck even Shepard, Michael Thorton looked like he stepped out from a mannequin shop and got confused for an international super spy. His arms and legs move like robots, and his face is a wall, but I guess that works when you're trying to be a cold hard agent.

There are a whole slew of other bugs; clipping, seeing through walls, skipping dialogue and the worst, retarded AI. I hate retarded AI because it further removes whatever little illusion there is left that you aren't just playing a poor game. When I throw a grenade, the enemies look at it as if a beautiful rare butterfly had just landed at their feet. They get curious, turn their backs on me and get blown up. If not, they'll be running into walls.

It was horrific beyond words. Undoubtedly, people are going to compare this game to Mass Effect or Dragon Age, as will I. But as far as graphics are concerned, I don't really care if Alpha Protocol doesn't look as brilliant as those two titles, but at least decent enough to portray the world of espionage. What did get produced however felt soulless, like the tech people just gave up trying to make it look half-decent.

By now, you'd be wondering, why on earth would I keep playing if it's that bad? And it's true, I'm the kinda' guy, if a game hasn't hooked me on any level in the first thirty minutes then I'm gone. I was very much on the verge of uninstalling it, but then something strange happened.


The game just clicked. Maybe I got used to the graphics after awhile. But I also soon found myself smiling at something a character said, or giggling at my dialogue choice. And that's where I saw the flash of brilliance that this game could be.

You see, underneath the technical failure, AP is a game about the characters. Sure, they don't match the level of characterization that games like Uncharted 2 reach, but some were interesting in their own ways, whether its Heck's psychotic comical nature, or Scarlett's allure, or Mina's no-nonsense professionalism; they do grow on you. When you say the wrong thing and they disapprove, you do feel a twinge of guilt. And that can really only come with emotional investment.

Which means the dialogue is decent. It's not mind-blowing, but at times, it can be witty and at others, quite tense. Michael Thorton as a character, despite animating like a mannequin is surprisingly tolerable. He is like a blank robot at the start, but after spending a good while with him, he does seem to have a personality of his own. As a super spy, he's damn awesome. Professional, gets the job done, and doesn't mince his words. He can even pull the trigger to kill someone when push comes to shove. He doesn't make annoying wisecracks and thus is cooler than Nathan Drake, can be a great guy with the ladies, and is a hero in the most traditional sense. Against surmounting odds, he still cares about his country and saving the world. That's admirable.

Sure, I was the one choosing his dialogue options and thus shaping his character, but even so, that's got to be a plus point in Obsidian's favor. I was half-intrigued by the non-combat parts of the game, powering through the insipid action bits so I can get to more talky parts. Also, sex is done very tastefully. It's more akin to how it's presented in most films, Thorton romances the girl, starts making out with her and then fade to black. Unlike Mass Effect 2 which is totally fail with the whole strip-club gyrating bit in your room before the animalistic copulation thing. Brrr, scary.


Voice acting is fine. I can't say it's outstanding, but kudos to the voice actors for getting their characters across decently. Music is alright, grating sometimes with all the techno, but mostly it does build tension quite well.

The story is weak though. An agent betrayed by his own organisation, resolves to uncover a web of conspiracies, travels the far reaches of the world to bring the bad guys to justice. There isn't really much more to it. The mission structure is static, reminds me of Assassin's Creed. In each country, you collect intel, beat bad guys up, meet informants, collect more intel and then it's on to the final "explosive" mission that ends with the obligatory boss fight. But that's alright, it wasn't too boring thanks to the conversations. Oh, and emails. Those are rather entertainingly written, and unlike Mass Effect 2's, which are read-only, you can even reply to these ones.

A lot of other people thought the shooting mechanics rubbish, but that's cause after they've played Mass Effect 2, they expect all shooting in RPG to be as spot on as that game. But they forget that ME2 is a hybrid shooter/RPG whereas Obsidian clearly placed AP smack middle of RPG. Spend points in your weapons and you'll see them improve dramatically. In fact, they've made the game too easy at the latter stages because once you've maxed out toughness and assault rifles, you're Terminator from 1984. It's very hard to die. This is where the game will divide in opinion; there will inevitably be those who say if the gameplay is boringly easy, then there's no fun. For me, I really couldn't care less about being challenged by it, I just wanted to get to the talky bits, so if that meant I could power through the shooting easily, then so be it. In fact, to make it a little more fun for myself, I maxed out martial arts too, so I spent most of my time sprinting up to an enemy and mashing E to roundhouse kick them dead. I was cooler than Chuck Norris for sure.


Don't expect to be able to customize your look beyond different hair/beard styles and eyewear, cause you only have the one Michael Thorton-look. But you can customize your loadouts, from the two weapons you carry, to the armor and equipment you'll use in the field. Everything is stats-laden, so it definitely feels very RPG-ish. Weapon purchases are done via computer, and the buying/selling system could be better streamlined but then I remembered things need to be simplified for the console crowd. They don't have the benefit of a mouse.

The worst part of gameplay that had me tearing my hair out in chunks was the security mini-games. The lock picking and rewiring games are fine, but the one comprising of hunt-for-the-code in a sea of flashing numbers is hell. You have to find two codes simultaneously, that changes positions after a certain time. For instance, you could see the code and move your cursor towards it, but thanks to this being a console port, your cursor moves like a friggin' turtle. Then it'll be too late, at which point, the code has changed position again. On top of that, if you fail to unlock the code within a time limit, alarms are triggered bringing bad guys running to your position. It's like whoever designed the mini-game must hate the world.

Choice. I think this was the only thing Alpha Protocol certainly got right. Dragon Age (not Mass Effect 2) had the best implemented choice/dialogue options I'd seen prior to AP; morally gray, ambiguous as to the extent you didn't know which was the right choice to make half the time.

In Alpha Protocol, it wasn't so much a case of being morally gray, more like because your options were just one of four "styles" i.e. professional, suave, flirtatious, dismissive, instead of spelling out "I think we should get on with the task at hand" or "maybe you should come over to MY place to check MY package", it was harder to calculate the "right" approach, thus making it seem more like a real interaction. Some people preferred you taking a more aggressive tone with them (like the Russian machine-gun toting woman) or if you were more respectful, less misogynistic (like with Scarlett).


Whatever the case, unlike Mass Effect 2, where it was clearly consciously choosing (alliteration win!) the right option every time to earn points with various crew members, AP's winning-points-with-people were better hidden under the surface. The time limit on choosing dialogue options also made conversations more natural-flowing, tense, and you had to be on your toes all the time. You couldn't just sit back and enjoy a cutscene (there wasn't much to enjoy from them anyway).

I also liked that relationships were built from the ground up in AP. Michael Thorton had to work his mouth off to impress people, whereas in Mass Effect 2, the reason why some gamers loved it so much was because everyone was in love with Shephard/you from the beginning. A few wrong things said wasn't going to change the fact that they were already on your side. In AP, you could lose potential allies if you said or did the wrong thing, and that's the way relationships should roll.

Choice also comes in a different form. At several points in the game, you'll be made to choose between two ways a mission can unfold. For instance, save the girl or stop the bomb thereby saving more people. The consequences for choosing one or the other is pretty serious, and I don't want to spoil anything, but after I made one utilitarian choice, the game was very smart to pile on the guilt.

After I made my choice, I thought that was that, and I could put the horrible decision I made behind me. But no, the game wouldn't let me off that easy. One of the characters said to me, "You may have made the right choice, but when you're alone, what will you think of? Will you think of what you have done?" I admittedly felt uneasy, and I realized that death is not taken lightly in this game. I learned my lesson. It's the first time in awhile, when I felt in the truest sense, guilt.


Also, you'll come to learn that in this game, there is no such thing as clear cut good or evil. Most of the villains have very good motives for acting the way they do, and it makes you stop and think whether you'd want to execute them. It's tense. If you let them live, they may come back and backstab you, but if you kill them, you may be killing off a potential ally, losing the chance to learn something of use. And when you do decide to execute a person, the weight of your action can really be felt. What Obsidian wants to say, is that it's not easy to take a life, which is fine, although a little contradictory seeing as we can dispense of the faceless goons with such ease.

Another thing AP did well was to employ flashbacks, or in this case, flash forwards effectively. These flash forwards have a meta purpose. Before you begin each new mission, you'll have a flash forward to the last part of the game where you're talking to the evil head honcho of the organization you are supposed to destroy. He recounts the mission (before you actually do it), and the people you encountered. It puts a lot of interesting thoughts and suspicions in your head, subconsciously affecting how you decide to carry out the mission. And once a mission has been accomplished, you'll return to the flash forward discussing the actions that you've taken. It's like a form of feedback, you get to see the repercussions of your actions; it was where the game made me feel guilty about some choices I've made, and understand the implications of others. It felt like my choices were really shaping the world, more so than even in Mass Effect 2.

At one point, there is a very subtle breaking of the fourth wall, when the evil head honcho asks Thorton, and through him, the player, "Most people think they know what to do in the situations you have been in, but you have had the chance to act on it. How does it feel?" It feels pretty exciting to be honest, and it was a glimmer of the great game Alpha Protocol could've been, if only they'd done more to improve the design and technical side of it.

Overall, the game is ... tolerable. After you get over the jaw-dropping disbelief at how shite it is, and wonder how it could even get released in this day and age, you'll find something or other to smile at. But as it stands, I cannot recommend it. This is not a game you buy at full price. Wait till it drops in a bargain bin (which I can imagine won't be long), then check it out to see how the game uses conversations and choice in a very dynamic and mature manner.