Let’s get the first issue cleared up and out of the way. Alpha Protocol is not a 3rd person shooter. It is Obsidians newest entry in the RPG world, with previous titles including the majorly popular Knights of the Old Republic and the Neverwinter games. The best way to describe the shooter elements of the game would be to compare it to the original Deus Ex, in that the player has to wait for crosshairs to align in order to take a perfect shot. With that out of the way, let’s delve into the world of super suave agent Mike Thornton and Alpha Protocol.
Alpha Protocol bills itself as the first modern day spy RPG, “choice is your weapon” the tagline reads, and the level of choice in this game is quite impressive. Firstly, you can decide the order in which you would like to tackle your missions, though this seems like a simple concept, it keeps well with the overall feeling that you have control. At times you will have the ability to decide the fate of certain key characters in the game. This has an impact on conversations you have with characters, how your allies will view you, and can at times have a negative or positive effect on what may happen in the next mission. Aside from these choices, players engage in conversations with various NPCs, which range from the members of Alpha Protocol, objects of romance, villains and your handler.
The conversations appear in a Mass Effect style with three, sometimes four, choices for conversation or action. The player can choose to be flirty and suave, straight down the line professional or aggressive. The player has to work out which character will respond to a particular style of questioning, which can have its own set of rewards like information, guns becoming available to buy or turning an enemy into an ally. The remarkable thing about the choice system in this game is when previous actions are noted upon by another NPC. It feels like your actions are having a direct impact on the events of the story and this is extremely gratifying.
In the world of Alpha Protocol, a spy needs to be able to engage enemies and neutralise them with speed, accuracy and in some cases, subtlety. Unfortunately, this is where the game falls from grace. Combat can be extremely frustrating for several reasons. Firstly, the cover system is extremely shoddy. There are an abundance of occasions when it seems like you might be able to make a leap from one piece of cover to the next, but more often than not, Mr Thorton falls short and usually hits the wall, leaving you open to attacks. Secondly, hand to hand combat does not work as well as we would have been led to believe, as it begins with nothing more than button bashing until your martial art skills have been upgraded. More often than not the player will find themselves blind firing their guns at point blank to counter enemy attacks. Finally, the AI is none too bright at the best of times and at the worst of times they can be exceptionally brutal, charging with shotguns, dodging left to right to avoid your bullets or throwing explosives like they were confetti. That being said I played the game on the hard difficulty and the enemy is, on most occasions, dangerously accurate, and since ‘boss battles’ can be lengthy to the point of irritation, it seemed like a chore rather than progress.
The RPG elements of the game are dealt with as simplistically as possible. When selecting or buying guns, gadgets, armour and upgrades, the screen shows the difference in stats quite clearly so it is easy to make an informed decision. The player shouldn’t feel that selecting weaponry should be a tough choice.
Skills are upgraded by earning AP, ability points, which are gained at each level up. Almost every action within the game, from defeating an enemy in combat, completing an objective or simply picking a lock, will earn you experience points used for levelling up. Once AP is available to the player they can decide what skills they would like to upgrade, including shotguns, pistols, martial arts, sabotage and stealth. I found that there was very little difference with each level until very late on in the game which means that making a balanced character can be awkward. Having gone with the recruit background, of which there are others, I started with no extra abilities or upgrades and had to build my character from the ground up. Though the player can specialise in three specific areas, this serves only to unlock further upgrades rather than enhancing the skill. Weapon specific skills can be unlocked and upgraded to boost your combat ability. For example the pistol has a chain shot which slows time down and allows the player to mark targets, much like the mark and execute ability from Splinter Cell Conviction.
Alpha Protocol does nothing to help itself when it comes to the visuals. They can look last generation at times and rendering can be painfully slow. The animation of NPCs is atrocious and collision detection between NPCs and the environment is so bad that it can lead to your enemies getting stuck in the scenery and climbing up and down ladders for no particular reason, humerous but not exactly what could be described as polished.
The audio in the game can be extremely dire at times. Considering that a good portion of the game is spent in conversation, you would think the developers would have pushed their voice actors a little better, or perhaps written a more cliché free script. The only character that seems to have any charisma is the lead and thankfully he can be extremely entertaining thanks to his wry grin, sarcastic demeanour (if you play that way) and comments on the world around him. The soundtrack is none to impressive either and it feels like they threw the Bourne and Bond movie scores together and let a computer chew it up. Not the best way to immerse the player in a conspiracy laden world.
Though I enjoyed playing the game my way, and it most definitely felt like I was controlling the storyline to a certain extent, I felt that the major issues detracted heavily from the enjoyment I could have had. Had the developers kept this one inside a little longer and worked on the look of the game, tightened up the dialogue/script and thought a little more carefully about the combat, this could have been a great game. Instead it is a mediocre game with entertaining moments.
VideogameUK verdict: 6/10
