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Write-Up:
Well it’s time for another pretty controversial review. See, nearly all of the big-name reviewers out there have given Sega and Obsidian Entertainment’s latest Espionage Role Playing Game Alpha Protocol, not just bad, but TERRIBLE reviews. I’ve got to say, my opinion on the game is COMPLETELY different from what seems like everyone else’s. While there are some flaws and the graphics are a little dated, the concepts and execution of the way that you control the story is just amazing and to me completely makes up for the things that have been highly criticized. I loved playing through this game and it’s a shame that I don’t have time to play through it again, but I’ll get into that shortly. Released this past week for the Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC, here’s Alpha Protocol.
Essentially, you play as rookie agent Michael Thorton, the newest member of the U.S. Government’s secret agency Alpha Protocol. This is the name given to an organization of agents that act on their own in the best interests of the United States, while not holding the country responsible for their actions. A U.S. passenger plane is shot down with a new high-tech missile over American ground and you’ve got to investigate who the hell shot it down and where they got these missiles.
You’re sent to Saudi Arabia on a lead to get more information and to find the motives of the attackers. Something goes wrong and you’re forced to go rogue and follow some leads to Rome, Moscow and Taipei with only the assistance of another team member which actually reminded me a lot of the T.V. show 24 where Chloe is helping Jack Bauer remotely.
Really, the story is wonderful. You’re dealing with multiple corrupt governments and the private corporations that influence them, and you have to deal with a multitude of James Bond-like situations that you truly are in control of and events and even levels unfold differently based on how you choose to play through the game. You’ll even get a shot at a little office romance, and if you’re as pimp as me; a little side-action as well.
The full game on normal difficulty took me about 15 hours to complete. The thing is, I only witnessed one of the game’s multiple dramatically different endings. See, all of your actions completely influence how the game’s story unfolds for you. Unlike other decision-based games like Mass Effect, there aren’t perks for going completely renegade or paragon; you can truly play however you like and be good to some people and bad to those that you don’t like. There are many many different ways to handle every situation, and this is reflected through both your dialog, and even how you take down enemies. You might use tranquilizer darts and non-lethal hand to hand combat to take down some foes as to not draw as much attention from the media, or you can go in guns-a-blazin and kill everything in site to ensure that everyone knows who you are. You can also interact with key players and be Suave, Professional or Aggressive to build different rapport with each.
The game is single player and there is only a campaign mode. There are no additional game-play modes to unlock, but I think that’s just fine considering you’ve got 15 hours per play-through and so many different endings; you’re going to get your monies worth.
While there are many elements of an RPG, a Third Person Shooter and a Stealth Assassin game, the most important game-play mechanic to me was how you can truly affect the outcome of the story via your dialog choices and combat actions. If you want to be a suave womanizer, you have that ability, though it may not work in your liking with all characters. Some react more in your favor if you are professional, and some enjoy you being honest and angry with them.
There is a limited character customization screen where you can modify your appearance at any time in the game in between levels. In the beginning you will select an initial class that will give you points in specialized areas of focus, like pistols, assault rifles, stealth and gadget usage. What you choose really doesn’t matter though because as you gain levels you can assign points into any category you want, allowing you really deep character customization. After your first operation, you’ll also choose a specialization which opens up additional skill-sets for you to max out.
This is not an open world game as missions are started and ended from your safe-house in each city. As you interrogate individuals, read emails and watch the news, new missions will unlock for you, and not all of them will always be available. The order in which you choose to play the levels will also affect the remaining missions, as your actions in one, may or may not affect later levels. From your safe-house you’ll be able to purchase additional equipment from the black market, assuming you’ve made proper contacts with criminals in the area, and you can upgrade and customize all weapons and armor to suit your liking.
Finally you’re going to run into a TON of mini-games which can get kind of repetitious early on, including hacking computers, picking locks and overriding security systems. So you’ve got a wide variety of game-play mechanics, but you’ve also got to remember that this is an RPG at heart, which means the combat isn’t going to feel like a true shooter or stealth assassin game, and if you keep that in mind, you should have a pretty damn good time!
I think likely that the presentation is one of the weaker aspects of the game. While the voice acting is pretty decent, the sound effects are rather mediocre and the graphics look a bit dated. You are presented with a wide variety of environments to traverse and some look significantly better than others, but lots of the time, you’re simply going to be looking at boring and dull structures. If graphics are more important to you than game-play, this likely will be a title that you’ll want to look past. In addition, there is a lot of bad texture popping, frame-rate issues and glitches.
My first thoughts of the game were that it reminded me a lot of Prison Break with the third person approach and lots of hacking and lock picking mini-games. There are a few glitches here and there and overall the graphics are rather bland; and while the AI is sometimes pretty retarded, the game-play can still be rather challenging. You’re going to have a lot of mechanics to give you a wide variety of things to do, but the most important aspect and certainly the most entertaining to me was the way that your actions and dialog affect the outcome of the story, and the way that the events unfold for you. You could really play this game many times and have a completely different story every time, which is something more developers should look into. The story is really interesting and it’s cool to feel like a real spy, but I’d likely say this is a title that you should rent first before buying. While I thought Alpha Protocol was a great game, it seems the general consensus of the community of reviewers at least is that it’s shit. Check it out; let me know what you think of it. Was IGN right, or do you agree with me? Leave your questions and comments below!
I thought the game was awesome. The presentation sucked monkey balls, but RPG gameplay was what I consider flawless. If they had not fucked up on the presentation, this would be my game of the year.