Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol is the first non-sequel game by Obsidian Entertainment I have played thus far. It is interesting in that regard because it came out while Obsidian was still continuing to make sequels to existing franchises. I wonder if was the developer or the publisher, Sega, who was behind the idea to create the game.

3rd person Deus Ex

At first look, Alpha Protocol can appear very similar to Mass Effect -- a third person cover-based shooter RPG. (It even uses the same engine.) However, it is not a science fiction but a spy game that draws influence from the Bond and Bourne movies, as well as the 24 TV series. And while the shooting is similar to ME, stealth aspect makes AP more akin to Deus Ex.

Plot themes are somewhat similar to DX as well. You play as Michael Thorton, a new recruit of a secret US government agency called Alpha Protocol. You visit few locations around the globe, and unveil conspiracies and other secret organizations.

I actually wonder how much of an influence AP was to DX: Human Revolution. There is certain familiarity in how you affect people's opinions of you via the dialogue system. And it would be quite a coincidence if Fedorova had not been inspired by this game's Sis, who, too, happens to be a mute female character dual-wielding guns.

Real-time dialogue system

I thought the choices with time limit in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings were pretty cool. This game might have gone bit overboard with them, though, as every single dialogue choice has to be made within a few seconds. It creates tension and is sometimes even stressful. You always have to be paying attention to not miss a thing.

The options are listed as the tone of the responses (usually suave, aggressive, and professional) and not what exactly Thorton will reply. I would say that knowing the tones is enough -- and they always are in the same place in the dialogue wheel -- but it is hard to guess what kind of attitude a character you just met appreciates with such little time to consider. At least you usually get to know what they definitely do not like if you end up picking a wrong option.

Choices that matter, probably

Well, I suppose there are no wrong decisions, only results. At least that is what you get told early on into the game. But it certainly bothered me at times to have a conversation going to an unwanted direction. And your choices do affect events in the game. It is hard to tell if they do as much as people claim without playing the game through a second time, but I did definitely notice some clear causations.

While I would not say that Alpha Protocol exactly falls apart towards the end, it does not really come together to a proper climax either. The game does not manage to weave together the stupid number of character arcs it has. I had so many allies ready to help me during the final mission. I even contacted them all but only the one you choose as your handler shows up, and the rest... do not, I guess.

Weird as well was how Westridge, Parker, and Darcy -- the Alpha Protocol personnel you meet during the initiation -- only show up again during the last mission. Actually, I am fairly sure I did not even see Westridge. What kind of boss is one that disappears when his working place is getting "sanitized"?

Also, Scarlet's little, out-of-the-blue revelation during the final hours was really odd. The game is about to end, what does it matter anymore? I do not think she even told who she had been working for. Apparently you can kill her at that point if you want. You can be quite the vigilante over the course of the game, indeed. But I guess that comes with being a rogue agent.

Basic shooter/stealth mechanics

Alpha Protocol has a circle reticle but it also has a dot in the middle to help you aim exactly what you are pointing at. However, shooting before you get additional critical hit crosshairs closed completely is not recommended as the shot can spread anywhere within the circle, at least with pistols I focused on. Even with full mastery, the crosshairs closing takes 1.5 seconds, making combat a bit clumsy. Maybe the other guns are better suited against enemies that are aware of you.

But for stealthy playstyle the pistol is perfect. It is the only one that has a silencer (the assault rifle has silent but costly subsonic rounds) and the chain shot ability allows you to take out up to six enemies without them ever noticing you.

To save ammo, you can can also sneak next to enemies for a takedown. You have options for lethal and non-lethal but it did not usually seem to matter. Sometimes you are asked not to kill anyone and dead civilians are probably never recommended. Staying undetected is very rarely acknowledged either, which is a shame as I again took my sweet time completing missions nigh perfectly. (Beating the game took me 7 hours more than the average completionist time at howlongtobeat.com)

The stealth skill gives you access to shadow operative ability that makes you invisible for a duration. There is no technology or space magic to explain it. It just happens. There is also a similar passive ability that kicks in for few seconds (every 5 minutes) if you are unintentionally detected while sneaking. The sabotage skill grants a similar passive against cameras and turrets. While the latter does not get triggered as often (due to cameras and turrets being easier to avoid), they are both useful at reducing reloading.

Checkpoint saves once again

And if you have to reload, you will start from the last checkpoint. Because once again, developers decided that a stealth game does not need a proper fucking saving system. It would nice to be able to quick save not only because of being detected by enemies but because there are also mini-games that sound the alarm when failed. The lock-picking and circuit breaking ones are quite all right but the hacking mini-game can be a real challenge. One person on the Steam forums even said he quit the game for good during the tutorial already when he got to the hacking part.

It certainly took some tries for me too to figure out the mini-game. Your eyes and brains need a bit training to learn to find the not-changing hexadecimals. And even then you might encounter problems as the second line of numbers is moved with your mouse instead of WASD keys like the first. (Unless you are playing with a controller of course.) And that can be pretty awkward. The mini-game is actually bit like the meant-for-co-op puzzles in Dead Space 3.

The game being obviously aimed for a gamepad also shows in how it does not take the advantage of keyboard's multiple buttons. Obsidian lazily copied the gamepad control scheme instead of creating a new interface where abilities could be bound to separate keys, instead of having to select an active ability/gadget from a radial menu first. The number row would have been perfect as its keys were left completely underutilized.

Handful of bugs

Alpha Protocol would not be an Obsidian game if it did not have bugs. Reloading gives you sometimes a black screen (requiring a game restart) and other times not spawning enemies. Hell, sometimes enemies even despawn when you move to a slightly different area. It is probably due to some optimization but it can be rather immersion breaking as the stealth skill gives you passive that shows markers for all enemies. Markers that thus suddenly disappear -- and appear out of nowhere when moving past a spawn trigger.

An optimization issue might be the disappearing bodies as well. Since you cannot move them, at times you just have to hope an enemy does not spot a corpse before it has gone away. It is a bit like in Deus Ex: The Fall but in AP the bodies only disappear when you are not looking at them.

Then there were the inventory/intel screens that sometimes had a bright background instead of dark, making them very difficult to read. I tried to fix those by disabling anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering I had enabled in the Nvidia control panel (due to the game not having options for them) but it did not help. In general AP has a very basic graphics options menu. You can alter and enable a lot of stuff in its .ini files, however, thanks to having been made on the Unreal Engine 3.

Amusingly enough, I also encountered the same PhysX problem I had with Velvet Assassin. This time I followed the link on PC gaming wiki and installed the files via the Nvidia installer that hopefully gets you every version of the physics engine at once.