Alpha Protocol
The review
Honestly? During the time I played the game, I must have said one thing a few times. In between fits of rage and frustration that is. The thing I said was: I really hope someone got fired because of this.
Now, is the game really that bad? … Yes. Yes it is.
So, yeah, Alpha Protocol. It’s a third person shooter role playing game created by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Seeeeeeeeeegaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Much to my surprise, I found out that this game had been pushed back for months. And if this is the result for those extra months of development time … Yeesh.
The game revolves around Captain Bland himself: Michael Thorton. And he isn’t bland because of his character, no, it’s the voice actor that does it. The character himself is how you chose him to be.
The game utilizes a system where you get to chose between three or more conversation options in a limited amount of time. Pressing the square button will usually result in a James Bond like response, the circle button will result in a Jason Bourne like response and last but certainly not least, the triangle button will make you go Jack Bauer on someone’s ass. Unlike other games that utilize this feature, Alpha Protocol’s entire story can chance depending on which answer you chose. Choose badly and people might not like you that much. Choose well and your standing with them will improve. Meaning you can get things done or can’t get things done. I’m not going in to more detail here, but let’s just say that THIS is the ONLY good things about this game. It’s the only reason you’ll drudge through this shite. Trust me on that one.
This also extends to e-mails because you get to choose the manner of how you respond and to whom you might send something to.
Well, maybe I lied, the banter over the e-mails is also a good thing.
And now on to the bad …
The story is standard fair spy stuff that really can’t keep your attention for very long. It’s the personal stories with other characters that are the most interesting. Like Steven Heck. That guy has to be the best character in the game by far. But, for the rest, nothing much to say other than they rushed certain events. Like at one point a character dies and you get informed on it by an image on a computer screen that you could have missed by walking passed it. And it was a major character too. At least in LOST or 24 character’s die where you don’t go: That’s it? Sure, they die a lot in those shows, but never like a quick cut to them dead after not having seen them for an hour.
The in game store is a joke. I had the same gun I used since the first time I used the store in mission 2. Guns, sorry. And when there finally was an upgrade, it basically added +1 to every stat which is NOTHING. The only thing you really need to buy is information and that’s it.
Customizing Thorton is as much a joke as the story. You barely get an option and there’s two or three interesting ones. The rest just looks ugly.
Then there’s the action. MY GOD THE ACTION. Shooting is nigh impossible because you need to keep the trigger button pressed to FOCUS your crosshair so you don’t miss. Seriously, if you don’t focus, you’re screwed. And good luck focusing your shot if you are in a hurry and are being shot at from all over the place.
Because this is an RPG, you can upgrade your character’s stats via a talent tree of sorts. You really need to specialize here because if you don’t, you’re as good as dead. Specializing in, let’s say pistols, will allow you to actually shoot people without missing.
Because you are basically screwed when you go in guns blazing, you’re better off choosing stealth. When you spend enough points in Stealth, you become invisible. You can go through the levels without even batting an eye. That is, if the cheating as all hell A.I. doesn’t fuck you over.
The A.I. in this game is laughably bad. Some enemies will zerg rush you for a quick slap in the face that depletes your stamina in one go. During their rush, you can not hit them. It’s impossible. Even if you are dead sure you can’t miss, like with a shotgun, you will miss them. It’s like they are invincible during that time. Seems to be the case when they are dodging your shots. Even when they back out and dodge your shots, you will not be able to hit them until they stand still.
Then there are the guys that stand back and shoot at you whilst hiding like a little bitch. Last but not least there are the guys that KNOW YOU ARE COMING EVEN IF YOU ARE BEHIND A WALL OR IF YOU’RE USING AN INVISIBILITY TALENT.
There are several minigames present that all suck balls eventually. Hacking minigames. There are basically three types:
Picking a lock: Press hard on the trigger, the lock goes all the way up. Press halfway down on the trigger, the lock goes to the middle. And you need to line up the lock to the pick. Easy huh? Well, line up the first lock and confirm doesn’t always get you to the prize. Confirm outside of the designated area and you will flash red and lose time. Out of time? Alarm goes off! You can cancel your picking but that won’t always work. Sometimes the alarm goes off even if you do that. This minigame sucks because even if you line it up perfectly, you’ll still get red flagged for no reason other than the game is flawed.
Hacking a keypad: It’s a get out of the maze game where you need to follow the path to the button and press the buttons from number 1 to the last. UNFORTUNATELY, you also have a time limit. Now, this is the best minigame out of the bunch. IF, they don’t sack ten buttons on you because that just means you’re screwed. Flipping between buttons is so sluggish that you’ll be out of time before you can even get to number 6.
Hacking a computer: field of numbers that changes to other numbers every nanosecond save for two series. These two series are shown on the top and you need to line them up with their counterpart in the field of numbers. Easy peasy, but difficult to spot sometimes.
You have an EMP to take care of these minigames (Even the lock picking one. What the fuck?) but you really need to save them for when you get screwed over by the game.
SPOILER ALERT:
The boss before the main boss is a sniper that chucks grenades and has a lot of goons. Nigh impossible. Picture perfect aim with the sniper, throws grenades like bread crumbs, goons are all over the place. BUT, there is a door you can use to get up a tower. The door is locked. You need to open the lock. But you are being shot at by the sniper and the goons without relent. You’re screwed. Because you NEED to get in that tower to win. There’s just no other way. So without an EMP …
Oh and then comes the last boss who took me five seconds to beat. Tons of goons and he has a rail gun. HAHAHAHA, you start off behind a pillar and he can’t shoot you from there and the goons can’t see you. Just pop out your machine gun, focus your aim and shoot the fucker in the face till he drops dead. The goons don’t even come to attack you. WHAT.A.JOKE.
/SPOILER
In the end, this game is bad. Really, really bad. The programming is so faulted. It had me wishing that the game would end soon so I could write this review. It’s that bad. The dialog system is NOT worth it. Neither is boinking three chicks in this game. Yes, I boinked all three chicks.
3/10
A five out of ten is an average score, so three out of ten means that it’s just bad. So bad. Don’t buy it.
The game revolves around Captain Bland himself: Michael Thorton. And he isn’t bland because of his character, no, it’s the voice actor that does it. The character himself is how you chose him to be.
The game utilizes a system where you get to chose between three or more conversation options in a limited amount of time. Pressing the square button will usually result in a James Bond like response, the circle button will result in a Jason Bourne like response and last but certainly not least, the triangle button will make you go Jack Bauer on someone’s ass. Unlike other games that utilize this feature, Alpha Protocol’s entire story can chance depending on which answer you chose. Choose badly and people might not like you that much. Choose well and your standing with them will improve. Meaning you can get things done or can’t get things done. I’m not going in to more detail here, but let’s just say that THIS is the ONLY good things about this game. It’s the only reason you’ll drudge through this shite. Trust me on that one.
This also extends to e-mails because you get to choose the manner of how you respond and to whom you might send something to.
Well, maybe I lied, the banter over the e-mails is also a good thing.
And now on to the bad …
The story is standard fair spy stuff that really can’t keep your attention for very long. It’s the personal stories with other characters that are the most interesting. Like Steven Heck. That guy has to be the best character in the game by far. But, for the rest, nothing much to say other than they rushed certain events. Like at one point a character dies and you get informed on it by an image on a computer screen that you could have missed by walking passed it. And it was a major character too. At least in LOST or 24 character’s die where you don’t go: That’s it? Sure, they die a lot in those shows, but never like a quick cut to them dead after not having seen them for an hour.
The in game store is a joke. I had the same gun I used since the first time I used the store in mission 2. Guns, sorry. And when there finally was an upgrade, it basically added +1 to every stat which is NOTHING. The only thing you really need to buy is information and that’s it.
Customizing Thorton is as much a joke as the story. You barely get an option and there’s two or three interesting ones. The rest just looks ugly.
Then there’s the action. MY GOD THE ACTION. Shooting is nigh impossible because you need to keep the trigger button pressed to FOCUS your crosshair so you don’t miss. Seriously, if you don’t focus, you’re screwed. And good luck focusing your shot if you are in a hurry and are being shot at from all over the place.
Because this is an RPG, you can upgrade your character’s stats via a talent tree of sorts. You really need to specialize here because if you don’t, you’re as good as dead. Specializing in, let’s say pistols, will allow you to actually shoot people without missing.
Because you are basically screwed when you go in guns blazing, you’re better off choosing stealth. When you spend enough points in Stealth, you become invisible. You can go through the levels without even batting an eye. That is, if the cheating as all hell A.I. doesn’t fuck you over.
The A.I. in this game is laughably bad. Some enemies will zerg rush you for a quick slap in the face that depletes your stamina in one go. During their rush, you can not hit them. It’s impossible. Even if you are dead sure you can’t miss, like with a shotgun, you will miss them. It’s like they are invincible during that time. Seems to be the case when they are dodging your shots. Even when they back out and dodge your shots, you will not be able to hit them until they stand still.
Then there are the guys that stand back and shoot at you whilst hiding like a little bitch. Last but not least there are the guys that KNOW YOU ARE COMING EVEN IF YOU ARE BEHIND A WALL OR IF YOU’RE USING AN INVISIBILITY TALENT.
There are several minigames present that all suck balls eventually. Hacking minigames. There are basically three types:
Picking a lock: Press hard on the trigger, the lock goes all the way up. Press halfway down on the trigger, the lock goes to the middle. And you need to line up the lock to the pick. Easy huh? Well, line up the first lock and confirm doesn’t always get you to the prize. Confirm outside of the designated area and you will flash red and lose time. Out of time? Alarm goes off! You can cancel your picking but that won’t always work. Sometimes the alarm goes off even if you do that. This minigame sucks because even if you line it up perfectly, you’ll still get red flagged for no reason other than the game is flawed.
Hacking a keypad: It’s a get out of the maze game where you need to follow the path to the button and press the buttons from number 1 to the last. UNFORTUNATELY, you also have a time limit. Now, this is the best minigame out of the bunch. IF, they don’t sack ten buttons on you because that just means you’re screwed. Flipping between buttons is so sluggish that you’ll be out of time before you can even get to number 6.
Hacking a computer: field of numbers that changes to other numbers every nanosecond save for two series. These two series are shown on the top and you need to line them up with their counterpart in the field of numbers. Easy peasy, but difficult to spot sometimes.
You have an EMP to take care of these minigames (Even the lock picking one. What the fuck?) but you really need to save them for when you get screwed over by the game.
SPOILER ALERT:
The boss before the main boss is a sniper that chucks grenades and has a lot of goons. Nigh impossible. Picture perfect aim with the sniper, throws grenades like bread crumbs, goons are all over the place. BUT, there is a door you can use to get up a tower. The door is locked. You need to open the lock. But you are being shot at by the sniper and the goons without relent. You’re screwed. Because you NEED to get in that tower to win. There’s just no other way. So without an EMP …
Oh and then comes the last boss who took me five seconds to beat. Tons of goons and he has a rail gun. HAHAHAHA, you start off behind a pillar and he can’t shoot you from there and the goons can’t see you. Just pop out your machine gun, focus your aim and shoot the fucker in the face till he drops dead. The goons don’t even come to attack you. WHAT.A.JOKE.
/SPOILER
In the end, this game is bad. Really, really bad. The programming is so faulted. It had me wishing that the game would end soon so I could write this review. It’s that bad. The dialog system is NOT worth it. Neither is boinking three chicks in this game. Yes, I boinked all three chicks.
3/10
A five out of ten is an average score, so three out of ten means that it’s just bad. So bad. Don’t buy it.
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