Alpha Protocol

I played the first two 'Operations' of this game today. It reminds me a bit of Troika, in that it is well thought out and potentially great, but was apparently rushed out the door to be buggy and broken in various places. It also makes the same mistake of suckering you into the intense boss fights, even if you're not a combat character (looking at you BMC/Void and the second half of Bloodlines).

 

Can't say that I had actually heard of the game until now. Don't think I'll buy it though, I really can't justify spending lots of money these days on mediocre games (looking at you dragon age 2). To me, when a game is released with lots of bugs all I read is rushed to make a quick buck. Shame because a lot of games could probably make 4 times as much if they spend that extra month on polish.

 

I liked parts of the game, but the combat was extremely boring and seemed to only have one way of doing it.

 

The game was lauded by most as being mediocre, so you can get it for $10.00 off of Steam. Which is good AND bad, really. On the one hand, it's not an issue for your pocketbook. On the other hand, the storyline was decent enough that I would have liked to have seen a sequel, hopefully with better gameplay (like what happened with the Hitman series).

They spent a fortune advertising it on television here in North America, though. Unsuccessfully, I might add, since the commercial made me think it was a stale FPS, and I didn't even look at it until somebody suggested the game.

I agree with Mandible that there weren't a lot of choices in combat. I usually just hid behind things or ran away from bosses (with one notable exception being a boss at the very end, where I actually made a concerted effort to run TOWARDS it using my stealth powers) in the hopes that I could get a potshot in. Not all of the weapons are made equal, either. It is far and away better to max out your pistol skill, to get the six chain-shot attack (similar to the Dead-Eye in Red Dead Redemption, but it recharges every 30-45 seconds) than it is to max SMGs and get unlimited bullets for a few seconds. I didn't generally find it to be boring except for some of the more protracted scenes.

Also, the AI is stupid. Near the end, I hid in an alcove in the wall and used my sound generator to convince enemies to look at the bare, flat, empty wall opposite. Then I used stealth kills on them. One by one. In one way, I felt like a badass. In another way, I wondered why I ever thought these mooks were a threat to begin with.

The gadgets were a strong point, but there weren't enough of them, and the only one with creative uses to it (of the few I carried with me) was the sound generator. Usually I just threw flashbangs and shock traps at people, and then buffed myself up with the first aid kit when I was injured.

The strong point really was the storyline. There are countless directions the story can go, depending on what you did over the course of the game. A friend of mine who had already done one playthrough and seen an entire ending had a different experience than I did, even being shocked at the revelations in some of my cutscenes.

Overall, having finished this one off, I'd give a 3/5.

I should note that in 'Recruit' mode, you are still a badass ninja who karate chops people in the neck when doing non-lethal kills.

 

I never felt the need to use any gadgets, though they looked kind of fun. It was too easy without, though I don't remember the difficulty I played on.

Yes, the story and the choices you can make is the only thing worth playing about it, but it was enough that I wanted to continue. I just had to return it to the store and didn't get a chance to finish it.

 

I've actually roleplayed it through twice with a Professional and Suave Thorton respectively.

Totally different experiences.