Alpha Protocol Review

6.5

Review Score:

Obsidian Entertainment are renowned for creating sequels to innovative and successful RPG’s with Knights of the Old Republic II and Neverwinter Nights 2 behind them and Fallout: New Vegas on the way. However with Alpha Protocol, Obsidian have created the game from the ground up without any gameplay mechanics or plotlines to be maintained.  For this reason, I was extremely interested to see what Obsidian could produce on their own. Much to my disappointment, it seems it wasn’t worth the wait. There are some great ideas but the game is just too inconsistent and for each thing it gets right, it seems to get three things wrong.

One thing that Alpha Protocol does do well is story; the game has a wide range of settings and some fairly believable characters. It’s a spy thriller with evil terrorist organisations, corrupt governments and all played out through flashbacks. It’s enough to give Jason Bourne a run for his money. Protagonist Michael Thorton is an agent and the newest member of “Alpha Protocol” a secret service designed for use on covert operations that can have no links back to the US government. Thorton is initially assigned to take care of the leader of Al-Samaad, a terrorist organisation. Upon capturing Shaheed, he informs you that he was sold the missiles by a defence contractor, but after receiving this information a missile strike is deployed on your location and Thorton is presumed dead. A member of Alpha Protocol later contacts you to inform you that the group has been infiltrated by members of Halbech and they want Thorton dead and plan to start a new cold war. This is where you come into play, you have to save the world, woo over some girls and generally kick ass.

What separated the story in Alpha Protocol from other RPG’s was the realism, the real-world environments and believable settings really created a world you could relate to. You weren’t fighting dragons but terrorists; you were shooting with a pistol rather than a plasma rifle. Dialog is performed in a similar style to that of Mass Effect and allows the player to choose how Thorton responds; professionally, suavely, or aggressively. But most importantly, these dialog options actually have an impact on the progression of the story and develop your character’s personality which really gives you a sense of being in control of the game which is something Obsidian should be praised for. If you come across a character that you don’t seem to like for some reason, you can respond aggressively to them, often leading to a fight. Alternatively, if you’re faced with by a member of the opposite sex, then why not win her over with some flirtatious quips? There’s a phrase that is often loosely thrown around when it comes to RPG’s: “Every playthrough is different based upon choices you make” however with Alpha Protocol relationships with characters can change completely based upon the choices you make. You’re constantly faced with choice and that is the main focus of the game, deciding who lives and who dies. When selecting your response in dialog, you are given a timer before it is chosen for you which in some regards can be a pain but it genuinely creates a feeling of tension and having to think fast since your response could cause the death of that character. However, as strong as the choice in dialog is in the game, something that holds it back is the lack of interesting personalities in characters, most characters are fairly predictable and meet the standard stereotypes whether it’s the flirtatious girl, the “no messing” agent or the arrogant spy. Fortunately, the character of Michael Thorton himself is slightly more interesting than the rest of the cast and his responses can often bring some life to dull and monotonous conversations and characters will often refer to choices you have made in previous missions during dialog which adds a sense of development within the story and your character.

The customization options offered in the game are fairly wide and you can upgrade and extend all your weapons and gadgets as well as customizing the look of your character at any point from your safe house. A typical RPG level up and skill point system allows you to place points into specific abilities and raise your characters skills, this gives you the choice of how to play and whether you want to use larger guns or a silenced pistol.

Unfortunately the game loses most of its appeal during combat, the cover system is unreliable and you’ll end up popping in and out of cover all the time while dealing very minimal damage to the enemy’s armour and health. I found myself often overwhelmed by enemies and often sprinting back to find additional health and enemies will often take you down in one quick shot. The AI as a whole is incredibly stupid and I often found them unloading clips of bullets into a nearby wall or completely ignoring me and walking straight past me and during combat they will generally sit behind cover popping out from the same direction to take a shot – most of the time they wouldn’t even move when I tossed a grenade over the wall! The worst bit about the combat is it’s all the same, after you’ve completed a few missions you’ll soon start seeing the same setup of enemies and weapons repeated over and over which adds a real monotony to the game. There’s a fair variation in weapons and equipment however which can help spruce combat up a little bit and each weapon has its own special ability adding an element of strategy to taking down you foes but you’ll soon find something overpowered and be able to pretty much kill everything in sight with the press of a button. I invested most of my points into the stealth skills and by upgrading my Shadow Operative skill I could sneak around taking down enemy after enemy without even a hint at being detected. On the opposite end of the scale, however, is the boss fights. Bosses are often extremely overpowered and will run around the map incredibly fast delivering fatal melee attacks if you get to close to them giving you a very small window in which you can attack them. Sure, these boss battles are challenging but there’s no fun in the challenge – it’s just frustrating and often leads to you trying to rush them and getting yourself killed. There are various mini-games similar to that of other RPG’s for hacking computers, picking locks etc. but these are nothing we haven’t seen before and the lock picking system is very similar to that of Oblivion, there’s nothing wrong with this but it’s nothing new.

Visually Alpha Protocol doesn’t particularly excel, character models and textures look rather outdated and I found while playing on the Xbox 360 that visuals were often choppy and inconsistent. Environments are all fairly dull and character animation is pretty poor and the rag doll effects are a little over the top which is apparent when Thorton dies and his body bounces around the ground as if on a trampoline. The voice acting in the game is fairly solid and doesn’t leave much to be desired and fortunately there are no horrendous foreign accents unlike most games.

Alpha Protocol features some innovative ideas that work really well and the “power of choice” is apparent throughout the whole game and the ability to decide the fate of the majority of the game’s characters is a really nice touch and gives a real sense of immersion and importance to the player. The whole game is fairly customizable in terms of your character and you can choose whether to be a stealthy agent or a trigger happy gunman. On paper, the game seems like a winning formula for a great RPG experience but the shoddy combat mechanics and a less than interesting cast really hold the game back from greatness. I recommend skipping Alpha Protocol unless you can pick it up cheaply or rent the game.

NXT Score: 6.5/10

Pros

• Choices have a huge impact upon the story
• Level up and skill system allows for variation in gameplay
• Voice acting is fairly solid

Cons

• Very dull and flawed combat system
• Sub-par dated visuals
• Stereotypical and dull characters

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