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Alpha Protocol
Release Date: June 1, 2010
Reviewed On: Xbox 360 (Also available on PlayStation 3 & PC)
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: SEGA
ESRB Rating: Mature (Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language)
If the Road to Perdition is paved with good intentions, then Obsidian must have been laying the gravel down for centuries. It seems like whenever they are handed a successful engine or franchise, the fan backlash is enormous. KOTOR II has been the subject of great debate for years now, and Neverwinter Nights 2 didn't exactly do much to excite fans after its lauded first outing. So when Alpha Protocol was announced in 2006, my interest was genuinely piqued. A modern-day James Bond meets Mass Effect adventure? Sign me up! The idea, while not exactly novel, seemed like one of those genius designs for a video game that just didn't take off yet. Could it be that Obsidian just needed to work on THEIR ideas and not those of another developer? Could a studio best known for making lackluster sequels to brilliant games finally step into the spotlight?
Sadly, no. At least not in the way Obsidian intended anyway.
Anyone that knows me knows that I value a game that can tell a story. I relish a tale that pulls me in and spits me out. Alan Wake comes to mind, along with Dragon Age and Mass Effect. These are games that have a very strong narrative with compelling gameplay to match. Alpha Protocol seems to nail the narrative aspect to the wall, but the unbearable, almost painful gameplay could stop anyone in their tracks enough to turn their console off.
Road House...
Story:
Alpha Protocol starts off simply enough with you taking on the role of agent Michael Thorton on his entrance exam with the secret government authority "Alpha Protocol." After a botched first mission, you're disavowed from AP and trying to bring down an evil corporation who may or may not be selling weapons to the bad guys. You have the regular roster of James Bond and Jason Bourne type affiliates there to help you: A news reporter, an Asian handler on the inside, a black market arms dealer, and the usual Russian Dominatrix.
Wait, what? Oh yeah, the Russian Dominatrix, she's there. The dominatrix is quite a bit of fun to have dialogue choices with as well.
AP seems to dive into this campy sort of vibe with the game, never really making it too realistic for you to feel too affected by what is going on. Sure, you are routinely the Point Man in missions where you interrogate weapons dealers and negotiate the lives of dozens of people, but there is no gravitas behind it. Obsidian must have spent countless hours figuring out various scenarios and outcomes based on your actions, but unfortunately none of them hold much weight. That being said, I was very interested to see how different conversation choices would affect what happened to Thorton in the game.
Choose to take the suave approach with a cheeky villain and you may actually be rewarded. Alternatively, choose to be a complete tool and insult your target, and you can throw them off their game long enough so you can take a worthy kill shot. AP is no sprawling epic in the vein of Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but it does weave a very interesting, but fluff filled tale, of fun espionage.
Thorton is making sure Disco stays dead
Gameplay:
When I first started playing AP, I outfitted Thorton to be a sort of Jason Bourne type rogue. I basically dropped all of my ability points into Stealth and Martial Arts. You have the option of making your agent more adept at firearms, disabling tech equipment, and better with grenades, etc. but Stealth just seemed like the way to go. This may have led to an unfair advantage as when I started my first mission I felt like I was cheating. I was plowing through enemies and receiving perfect scores on missions even after skipping the tutorial.
I went back and refitted myself to be Jack Bauer, brutally trained with weapons and deadly with an assault rifle. To my surprise, I plowed through the first mission even faster, laying waste to whatever soldier was in my way. That is when I realized the problem: I am NOT the world's most amazing gamer, AP just has some horrendous A.I., and is host to a wide array of glitches and technical disparagements.
Getting clipped in the environment made me scared to even try to go into cover, but being able to fire through some solid surfaces would make me feel better. Sometimes Mike would be firing his weapon in one direction, but the gun remained stationary on his person. Sure I'd be hitting my targets, but my avatar was doing something else entirely.
Shooting from cover would be great, if the clipping didn't get in the way
The actual gameplay, whenever you're not doing anything story related like navigating dialogue options, is thoroughly unpleasing. To be blunt, it just isn't any fun. Only a few missions out of the game's 15+ were even bearable to go on with. Most of the game's boss battles were dealt with by my using the glitches and bugs to my advantage, and that was only because I was so eager to get to the next enticing story tidbit.
As strange as it may sound, the dialogue choices are easily the most intriguing part of the game. Here is one thing Obsidian did very right. Instead of having all day long to decide on your conversational reply (a la Mass Effect) you are given a maximum of 5-7 seconds which makes you think on your feet and go with your gut 100% of the time. You almost always have three routes you can go in any conversation: suave, professional, or dickish. How you talk to EVERYONE factors in how they see you, what they hear about you, and how you're treated. Some contacts want a suave secret agent while others prefer a professional super spy. Then there's the Russian Dominatrix, she's just…difficult. But I'll let you figure her out for yourself.
The conversation system is a step forward for all RPG's in general, and is the big redeeming factor for AP's poor gunplay/mission design. Before anyway asks, yes, you are able to romance several people in the story. I found the romance system to be weak and flawed however, as I actually romanced all four women in the game and it didn't seem to affect anything or make a difference to any character at all.
Boom
Graphics:
Alpha Protocol employs a very simplistic art style that probably sounded good in theory but is lackluster in execution. Between bland textures, very regular looking arenas, overused mission settings, and vanilla guns and equipment, the visuals never dazzled or drew me into the experience. The character models, while stereotypical and rather plain, actually allow for a good amount of expression and do a lot for progressing the game's story in a believable way. Other than that though, the game looks like a bargain bin of design settings drawn with the same crayons over and over again.
It's a pity that a game with such a fun story couldn't deliver the goods in the arts department. It isn't that the game looks horrible; it is that with such an extravagant storyline there should be equal visuals to back it up.
Audio:
The audio in Alpha Protocol is yet another disappointment.
For a game echoing fragments of James Bond and Jason Bourne, the soundtrack does little to make your adrenaline spike. I can't recall much of the forgettable tracks, but then again I know that they reused the same audio samples again and again to the point where I wished custom soundtracks were a part of the package.
It was, to put it bluntly, completely forgettable.
Pop quiz, hot shot, you have 5 seconds to make your choice, what do you do? What. Do. You. Do?
It may sound odd, but the voice acting is the rare highlight in the audio department. Perhaps it is because the rest of the game is a dearth of quality, but the voice acting really stood out. Thorton's voice, in particular, conveyed great variety across the multiple choices given to you throughout the course of the game. A small respite for a game riddled with repetitive music and bland audio, but the voice acting went a long way in making the story seem more interesting.
Summary:
I think a lot of people really wanted to like Alpha Protocol. Who wouldn't? A game that combines 007 with a Mass Effect-esque gameplay style just sounds like a winning formula. Too many rough edges will inevitably condemn the game to the bargain bin in the near future. My time with Alpha Protocol wasn't completely unhappy though, Michael Thorton's tale of espionage and intrigue was fun while it lasted (12 or so hours) but the trouble was that I became thoroughly disengaged whenever I wasn't in a dialogue with another character. Call it a flawed masterpiece or a sad disaster, Alpha Protocol clearly has some great ideas but they were hindered by poor mission design and was full of glitches and technical problems that plagued the game from the start.
So where should they go from here? I dare not say that Obsidian should completely abandon their own IP. Alpha Protocol is the type of game where people can play it multiple times just to see what is different about every approach and for that, some players will cherish it. I think a sequel, possibly developed by another studio could flourish into something really great. It is unfortunate then that a game that was postponed and delayed so many times still shows signs of a game early in its development cycle.
~Written for Total Gaming Network by ChristianInTheWired
Release Date: June 1, 2010
Reviewed On: Xbox 360 (Also available on PlayStation 3 & PC)
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: SEGA
ESRB Rating: Mature (Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language)
If the Road to Perdition is paved with good intentions, then Obsidian must have been laying the gravel down for centuries. It seems like whenever they are handed a successful engine or franchise, the fan backlash is enormous. KOTOR II has been the subject of great debate for years now, and Neverwinter Nights 2 didn't exactly do much to excite fans after its lauded first outing. So when Alpha Protocol was announced in 2006, my interest was genuinely piqued. A modern-day James Bond meets Mass Effect adventure? Sign me up! The idea, while not exactly novel, seemed like one of those genius designs for a video game that just didn't take off yet. Could it be that Obsidian just needed to work on THEIR ideas and not those of another developer? Could a studio best known for making lackluster sequels to brilliant games finally step into the spotlight?
Sadly, no. At least not in the way Obsidian intended anyway.
Anyone that knows me knows that I value a game that can tell a story. I relish a tale that pulls me in and spits me out. Alan Wake comes to mind, along with Dragon Age and Mass Effect. These are games that have a very strong narrative with compelling gameplay to match. Alpha Protocol seems to nail the narrative aspect to the wall, but the unbearable, almost painful gameplay could stop anyone in their tracks enough to turn their console off.
Road House...
Story:
Alpha Protocol starts off simply enough with you taking on the role of agent Michael Thorton on his entrance exam with the secret government authority "Alpha Protocol." After a botched first mission, you're disavowed from AP and trying to bring down an evil corporation who may or may not be selling weapons to the bad guys. You have the regular roster of James Bond and Jason Bourne type affiliates there to help you: A news reporter, an Asian handler on the inside, a black market arms dealer, and the usual Russian Dominatrix.
Wait, what? Oh yeah, the Russian Dominatrix, she's there. The dominatrix is quite a bit of fun to have dialogue choices with as well.
AP seems to dive into this campy sort of vibe with the game, never really making it too realistic for you to feel too affected by what is going on. Sure, you are routinely the Point Man in missions where you interrogate weapons dealers and negotiate the lives of dozens of people, but there is no gravitas behind it. Obsidian must have spent countless hours figuring out various scenarios and outcomes based on your actions, but unfortunately none of them hold much weight. That being said, I was very interested to see how different conversation choices would affect what happened to Thorton in the game.
Choose to take the suave approach with a cheeky villain and you may actually be rewarded. Alternatively, choose to be a complete tool and insult your target, and you can throw them off their game long enough so you can take a worthy kill shot. AP is no sprawling epic in the vein of Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but it does weave a very interesting, but fluff filled tale, of fun espionage.
Thorton is making sure Disco stays dead
Gameplay:
When I first started playing AP, I outfitted Thorton to be a sort of Jason Bourne type rogue. I basically dropped all of my ability points into Stealth and Martial Arts. You have the option of making your agent more adept at firearms, disabling tech equipment, and better with grenades, etc. but Stealth just seemed like the way to go. This may have led to an unfair advantage as when I started my first mission I felt like I was cheating. I was plowing through enemies and receiving perfect scores on missions even after skipping the tutorial.
I went back and refitted myself to be Jack Bauer, brutally trained with weapons and deadly with an assault rifle. To my surprise, I plowed through the first mission even faster, laying waste to whatever soldier was in my way. That is when I realized the problem: I am NOT the world's most amazing gamer, AP just has some horrendous A.I., and is host to a wide array of glitches and technical disparagements.
Getting clipped in the environment made me scared to even try to go into cover, but being able to fire through some solid surfaces would make me feel better. Sometimes Mike would be firing his weapon in one direction, but the gun remained stationary on his person. Sure I'd be hitting my targets, but my avatar was doing something else entirely.
Shooting from cover would be great, if the clipping didn't get in the way
The actual gameplay, whenever you're not doing anything story related like navigating dialogue options, is thoroughly unpleasing. To be blunt, it just isn't any fun. Only a few missions out of the game's 15+ were even bearable to go on with. Most of the game's boss battles were dealt with by my using the glitches and bugs to my advantage, and that was only because I was so eager to get to the next enticing story tidbit.
As strange as it may sound, the dialogue choices are easily the most intriguing part of the game. Here is one thing Obsidian did very right. Instead of having all day long to decide on your conversational reply (a la Mass Effect) you are given a maximum of 5-7 seconds which makes you think on your feet and go with your gut 100% of the time. You almost always have three routes you can go in any conversation: suave, professional, or dickish. How you talk to EVERYONE factors in how they see you, what they hear about you, and how you're treated. Some contacts want a suave secret agent while others prefer a professional super spy. Then there's the Russian Dominatrix, she's just…difficult. But I'll let you figure her out for yourself.
The conversation system is a step forward for all RPG's in general, and is the big redeeming factor for AP's poor gunplay/mission design. Before anyway asks, yes, you are able to romance several people in the story. I found the romance system to be weak and flawed however, as I actually romanced all four women in the game and it didn't seem to affect anything or make a difference to any character at all.
Boom
Graphics:
Alpha Protocol employs a very simplistic art style that probably sounded good in theory but is lackluster in execution. Between bland textures, very regular looking arenas, overused mission settings, and vanilla guns and equipment, the visuals never dazzled or drew me into the experience. The character models, while stereotypical and rather plain, actually allow for a good amount of expression and do a lot for progressing the game's story in a believable way. Other than that though, the game looks like a bargain bin of design settings drawn with the same crayons over and over again.
It's a pity that a game with such a fun story couldn't deliver the goods in the arts department. It isn't that the game looks horrible; it is that with such an extravagant storyline there should be equal visuals to back it up.
Audio:
The audio in Alpha Protocol is yet another disappointment.
For a game echoing fragments of James Bond and Jason Bourne, the soundtrack does little to make your adrenaline spike. I can't recall much of the forgettable tracks, but then again I know that they reused the same audio samples again and again to the point where I wished custom soundtracks were a part of the package.
It was, to put it bluntly, completely forgettable.
Pop quiz, hot shot, you have 5 seconds to make your choice, what do you do? What. Do. You. Do?
It may sound odd, but the voice acting is the rare highlight in the audio department. Perhaps it is because the rest of the game is a dearth of quality, but the voice acting really stood out. Thorton's voice, in particular, conveyed great variety across the multiple choices given to you throughout the course of the game. A small respite for a game riddled with repetitive music and bland audio, but the voice acting went a long way in making the story seem more interesting.
Summary:
I think a lot of people really wanted to like Alpha Protocol. Who wouldn't? A game that combines 007 with a Mass Effect-esque gameplay style just sounds like a winning formula. Too many rough edges will inevitably condemn the game to the bargain bin in the near future. My time with Alpha Protocol wasn't completely unhappy though, Michael Thorton's tale of espionage and intrigue was fun while it lasted (12 or so hours) but the trouble was that I became thoroughly disengaged whenever I wasn't in a dialogue with another character. Call it a flawed masterpiece or a sad disaster, Alpha Protocol clearly has some great ideas but they were hindered by poor mission design and was full of glitches and technical problems that plagued the game from the start.
So where should they go from here? I dare not say that Obsidian should completely abandon their own IP. Alpha Protocol is the type of game where people can play it multiple times just to see what is different about every approach and for that, some players will cherish it. I think a sequel, possibly developed by another studio could flourish into something really great. It is unfortunate then that a game that was postponed and delayed so many times still shows signs of a game early in its development cycle.
Story: 7/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Graphics: 5/10
Audio: 6/10
Total Gaming Network Rating: 5.5/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Graphics: 5/10
Audio: 6/10
Total Gaming Network Rating: 5.5/10
~Written for Total Gaming Network by ChristianInTheWired
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