Alpha Protocol is an ambitious game. Like many developed these days it doesn’t fit a single genre classification. It’s a fusion, mixing RPG elements, third person shooter action, and stealth gameplay. Set in the modern world of secret government agencies it foregoes all the fantastical elements of elves and aliens, instead enrobing the player in espionage and intrigue as an international spy. It’s a game with high aspirations and great potential. Unfortunately it doesn’t quiet reach them.
We’ll start with the RPG elements, which was really the games strongest points. Like and RPG the game has a well written story, in this case following the recruitment of the player into a secret agencies intent on stopping a group of middle eastern terrorist. The game uses an interesting conversation system to move the story along. During cutscenes the player is occasionally given a few seconds to choose one of four responses, each of these events is timed which gives a great deal more urgency to it as well as keeping the flow of the dialogue going. Depending on your responses characters will like you or even fall in love with you thereby giving bonus, or potentially hate you enough that will try to get you killed. Your choices will also affect how they react to you in future conversations and how others may react as your reputation often proceeds you.
Along with the excellent conversation system your character’s stats and abilities are broken down into a simple skill tree. The game doesn’t have classes perse, but at the start of the game you have a choice of several templates for your character. Three are tailored toward one of the games three gameplay types, be it stealth, run and gun, or a gadget based character. A forth option lets you build your own template, and then for those who want a challenge you can play a rookie who starts with no skills at all. A veteran template with some extras is unlockable after completion as a recruit. As you progress you earn ability points that can be used to buy various skills. You get a limited number of points requiring you to think about your choices and tailor your character to your style, you’ll also have to choose a specialization about half-way through which tailors your character even more and unlocks more skills in three selected paths. The abilities are a mix of passive bonuses and active short term powers. The starting power gives the players an awareness of all enemies within a small radius regardless of line of sight, excellent for planning attacks or evading detection. Others include short term invisibility, a bullet time type effect, or removing the requirement to reload for a short period of time.
Once you’ve picked your template you’ll watch a few cutscenes and then your dropped on to a medical gurney in an undisclosed location. The games tutorial essentially has your using many of the basic abilities as you try to figure out where you are and escape. It’s here that some of the first flaws in the stealth gameplay show up. Enemies are able to detect you based on sound and line of sight. However the AI is often flaky. Sometimes they seem to be able to spot your from across a room, sometimes you can be right in front of them without a peep. It is possible with lots of planning and patience to stealth through most of the game effectively.
On the other side of the coin is the combat oriented approach. The game gives the player a number of guns to choose. However with a buggy cover system, which effects the stealth aspects as well, and again a very odd enemy AI you can sometimes find both comical and tragic events. Discovering which cover will actually protect you can sometimes take a great deal of trial and error, and getting away from cover when you want to move sometimes takes far more work than necessary. Add to this the fact that the enemy seems to switch between getting in nice lines in front of you, hiding behind cover to toss an infinite number of grenades your way, or madly charges your location with fists swinging and the combat is often just a little surreal.
In between these two styles of play you have all the gadgets, really you can’t play just a gadget man, but the various tools do help. Plenty of remote mines, grenades, and traps exist for those you like set up ambushes for the hapless enemy. Tools to remotely deactivate alarms, shut down security panels, and help with hacking computer terminals exist for the stealth experts. There are also the obligatory first aid kits and various upgrades to the gadgets to increase range and potency.
As you progress you will also face various obstacles in the form of time limited minigames. A lock picking game that relies on pressure sensitive nature of the trigger buttons I find alot of fun, it takes some practice but becomes second nature once you’ve done a few. A electronic bypass game has you tracing circuits to break connections, and then you have the hacking game which can be very frustrating at first but becomes easier with practice. It consists of two codes that you have to match up on a large grid of ever changing digits.
Graphically the game is built on the Unreal engine and looks a bit dated. They aren’t bad graphics by any stretch, the game looks great, but it doesn’t quiet stand up to other new releases. The game spent a long time in development limbo and it shows. It would have been top of the line two years ago, but today it doesn’t quite stand up. All the cutscenes are in engine and overall well done, but in some cases the characters seem to lack any emotion, however the voice acting is top notch which helps to offset this. Dialogue for the most part is well written and the actors put alot of effort into making it all sound natural. Sound quality throughout is very nice, although the music can at times get a little repetitive.
Of final note the game uses a checkpoint system as you move through missions, essentially breaking them up into separate challenges. As with any game of this type save often. the game does auto save at checkpoints but once it’s done that you can’t go back unless you saved a separate file. I much prefer the freedom to save anywhere in my games but that’s a minor quibble. Also of note is that it’s a short game, at least for an RPG. It’s quite easy to complete a play through in twelve or so hours. In one way it’s nice since with a shorter game you’re more likely to go back and play it again going down a different path, but it does cut down on overall value a little.
Alpha Protocol isn’t a bad game, but it’s not a great game either. It doesn’t have any game killing bugs that I could find but a buggy AI and cover system in a game that’s all about stealth and gunplay is a hindrance. The game aimed high and fell short, it just couldn’t live up to its hype or its potential. I however really enjoyed it. If I gave number scores it would likely be a six or a seven. A slightly above average endeavor. I do recommend a play though or two, but you might want to look rental versus buying the game. It’s hard to justify the sixty dollar price tag on this one.