Alpha Protocol, an Action RPG by Obsidian Entertainment putting you in the shoes of Mike Thorton, newly recruited agent to a highly secretive United States intelligence agency, Alpha Protocol. Off the books & off the record, this agency is all about covert operations & getting results as such they have near unlimited resources with which to do so. Of course, the high price for such freedoms means any failure will have the agency disbanded, erased, completely removed from what little records they have & you left out to fend for yourself, branded as a traitor. Good luck agent.
Our fresh & new agent Mike Thorton starts off his day dazed & confused & unknown to him, in a high stakes training mission. This is a neat way to both teach you the ropes & show that no matter what kind of background Thorton comes from, Alpha Protocol is a whole different game. Coincidentally, you do get the choice of picking said background/class ranging from a common Soldier to Tech Specialist to Recruit. These affect your starting skills & more importantly how other characters react to you, dialogue choices, etc. Believe me, there are plenty of choices to make & most affect something even if by a little bit. For example, being nice to a certain character will grant you a discount when buying some weapons & equipment but once you are out of his sight he can make your next mission harder by tipping off your enemy & in turn having them show up better equipped to take you out. Life isn’t fair.
When it comes to dialogue, sarcastic, positive & negative will be your stances & you will be under pressure to pick a choice as there is a timer counting down & may make or break your carefully crafted deals & characters will remember. On the flip side, when words don’t suffice you’ve got your choice of various weaponry & gadgets to get the job done. A pistol, assault rifle, shotgun & a submachine gun along with various explosives, other fancy spy things & your manly fists will compliment your silver tongue. One thing that is highly suggested when making your character is taking the pistol skill along with your primary weapon of choice & for good reason, as Alpha Protocol is more on the RPG side rather than the action. A rather appropriate example being Mass Effect 1 vs. Mass Effect 2/3 meaning rather than your weapon shots going where you aim a circle will show you weapons’ “area of effect”, this honestly did not bother me because of previous experience with Mass Effect & the game does offer some ways to mitigate the “issue”, the pistol being overpowered in that regard as its skill allow you to do multiple laser accurate shots. Speaking of skills, much like Mass Effect skills run on an individual cool down. Stealth is another aspect of play & sadly, it is questionable at best & you will end up alerting enemies at some point during missions so relying solely on it is futile. Ultimately, once again, the choice is up to you on how best to deal with anything & everything, most ways of play are viable, except for the aforementioned straight stealth play. Do you want to take it slow & pick off enemies from a distance & be all friendly with others or do you want to be a lumberjack bearded shotgun tottin’ fist crackin’ sarcastic badass? Yeah, I though so.
The story is full of action, intrigue & even some comedy typical of campy spy movies. It will have you go to Rome, China, Saudi Arabia & Russia, each area being its own hub with its sets of missions which you can tackle however you see fit. Each plot joining fitting together to reveal more & more of the bigger mystery. Perhaps not out of this world but enjoyable, with a diverse cast of characters, one or two being on the tropey side but nonetheless enjoyable. Voice acting is pretty top-notch & some of the sarcastic lines delivered by Thorton gave me a chuckle. Music & sound were serviceable, music not entirely memorable. Graphically, again, serviceable. It was a console game first & PC second & as such it lacks options sadly. Performance suffers a bit as it has some bugs, though for the most part rare, having played it to death on Xbox 360 & once more on PC, the only major bug that I recall being one in which a Stealth skill that marks enemies on the HUD would at some random point not reset its cooldown at which point you are either forced to ignore it or master it to make it a passive skill & thus remove the cooldown limitation. A weird bug brought about by an oversight in how the game gives you the skill in the tutorial. Slightly annoying but livable.
All in all Alpha Protocol is a pretty damned good game by Obsidian, though I clearly have a bias for it & a definite cult-following game that you either love it or hate it. At this point in this it is cheap enough to warrant a playthrough or 10. It can be cheesy, serious, badass & everything in between without being annoying & g’damn do I wish for it to get a sequel at some point. Besides where else can you go fist to fist with a coked up crazed Russian with a taste for tacky American 80’s decor while ‘Turn Up the Radio‘ by The Autographs blares out.
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