Alpha Protocol: When Role-Playing Games Should Just Be A Role-Playing Game
They never did finish this one...
I picked up Alpha Protocol on Steam (a week before the massive summer sale, which makes me furious) much to the dismay of my friends and against the multitude of reviews bashing the game. I've been waiting for this game since Obsidian announced it forever ago. I was ready to see what they could do on their own without Bioware's legacy backing them up. In conclusion, Alpha Protocol was a pretty awesome ride.
Okay, so I lied, it wasn't awesome. It was actually mediocre in practice. However, the overall experience isn't a slow plodding treadmill of mediocrity. It's the logical conclusion from the two extremes. It's like Obisidian knew what they were good at (traditional CRPG sequels) and then they saw Mass Effect and decide "Oh noes, look what our big brother is doing, we can do that too!" In effect, they took their same buggy, unfinished approach and make something even more lackluster of an engine than the depressing experience that is Neverwinter Nights 2. Every single weapon except from assault rifles are depressing in their purest state. However, a lot reviews discredited pistols as useless when all the pistol abilities are disgusting good. Chain Shot and aiming criticals out of cover are almost broken good. I'm digressing from the overall experience though.
The first thing you need to do is play the game as a spy. The game likes to suggest at times, that you can be some sort of super Rambo agent. Don't do it. You will just be frustrated in the beginning and laughing at the foolishness by the end (in a, this makes no sense, sort of fashion). Alpha Protocol rewards stealth and takedowns almost religiously. Only one part of the game literally forced me to fight. When I say it forced me, I mean, I engaged by overpowered instant stealth power and my attackers still saw me and began to beat the living snot out of me. Shame on me for paying in to a broken system and never leveling my hand to hand skills. I wish I had recorded that fight, I barely survived and abused the poor a.i. Now that I think about it, I only survived the Taiwan boss fight due to abusable A.I. pathfinding while my broken stealth skill recharged. Man, I want to complain about the poor a.i. but there are times when I feel like they left it in the game because of how broken some of the fights can be if you're not specialized in killing things. Again, shame on me for maximizing stealth.
So I say play the game as a spy but I complain about the game severely punishing me for it. Well, outside of staged battles, most of the game is stupid easy (as I played on hard mode as the recruit class) if you invest in stealth. Being able to turn invisible at a moments notice is stupid good for stabbing multiple people in the face without so much as chime on the alarms. Man, Alpha Protocol is such a broken and horribly executed game that I can't believed I enjoyed it so much.
The game likes to make you pick locks and hack keypads. I didn't level the skill to make any of this easier. Honestly, they get stupid hard about halfway through without skill in sabotage. So hard, I couldn't actually pass them with the Xbox controller. I had to switch the controls to keyboard and mouse (you can't use both at the same time for some reason) and use the extra speed and precision from the mouse to key the job done. By the way, did I mention that the game is nearly unplayable with a keyboard and mouse? The mouse smoothing makes the stiff WASD movement horrendous. I found myself sitting out of cover and running the wrong way in to cameras and guards far too often for the super spy I like to play. Plug in a X360 controller and it's smooth sailing...of course until you need to crack a safe or bypass a door, which is pretty often actually...
All the reviews are true, the game has bad (often laughable) combat, depressingly poor a.i., and nearly last generation graphical presentation. So what is there to love? Well if you really like role-playing games, you're going to love Alpha Protocol's story. People say it's good but they're used to Mass Effects crap about killer robots from deep space that jump through a lot of hoops to destroy lifeforms instead of just firing a giant laser beam. Modern entertainment magazine don't even recognize greatness these days. Let's forgive them for ripping the Burn Notice style introduction, the character interactions and story depth truly shines in this game. In fact, it's been the best story experience since The Witcher. Scratch that, in many ways, it's more enjoyable than The Witcher. The shining points are the dossier and the relationship on characters. Actively finding intel on characters will affect available decisions and story options. Building relationships with them will also affect how the missions play out. For what the story lacks in depth and scope it makes up for in its dynamic nature. Honestly, Obsidian should just fire all their programmers and project managers since they can't code for crap and fail to release games in a timely fashion but give all the writers a nice Christmas bonus along with contracts to work for CD Projekt and add some dynamic nature to The Witcher 2 (which may be taken care of if the press info I'm reading is any indication; don't even begin to talk about the simple forks, that often break the quest mind you, from the first game count as dynamic storytelling). Or maybe, Obsidian should send them to BioWare and...wait nevermind BioWare is owned by EA and doomed to make trash for the rest of its existence (ME2 showed the signs of being a generic mainstream title, I can't imagine what horrors are in store for Dragon Age 2 or any new IP assuming EA lets them take a break from making ME15 over their lifetime).
Ugh, I'm burned out with hatred and frustration now. If you like story (which you know, is the reason people play RPGs) then Alpha Protocol is the game for you. If you want something to tide you over until ME3 drops this fall/winter, then pass over Alpha Protocol. In fact, you should probably run far away from anyone with a copy. If you look at it with mainstream shades, the game is a horrid piece of trash. But if you can ignore all that, then by all means -- enjoy the story of espionage and betrayal that leads to lasting homicidal friendships. Not nearly worth the fifty bones I dropped on it but definitely an easy purchase at $30 or less (did I mention how much I hate Steam and their sales at times?!).
NOTE: My reviews are highly subjective and never based on pure rational thought. Trust my opinion, it's often fueled by Haterade and to be taken with a heavy amount of salt.
