Okay Geek Farm
PS3 Review - Alpha Protocol
Alex Tretrop
Obsidian is a developer that I always keep my eye on. Why? Well, they created some pretty interesting sequels, like Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2, which were all excellent but plagued with technical issues and bugs due to sped up development schedules. With this being their first original title, along with the interesting premise of an “Espionage RPG,” it seemed like this would be a great title from an underrated company. Unfortunately, this is not the case, since it’s chalk full of technical issues, bad controls, and an incomprehensible story, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg on this travesty of an experience.
Story
Alpha Protocol follows Michael Thorton who, other than having a pretty sweet name, has just been accepted into a super secret spy organization that calls itself Alpha Protocol. Things don’t go so well for him on his first mission however, as he discovers a little too much about some missiles that were fired by a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia, as well as acquiring some confidential information on Alpha Protocol itself. Thorton promptly goes rogue and tries to prove that Alpha Protocol and those missiles are related somehow to a terrorist attack on various civilian planes around the globe.
The story is fairly interesting up to this point but the problem comes in when it introduces too many people too fast, and most of them aren’t even seen again until the end of the game. Considering all the characters you come across right off the bat, you’ll quickly forget who’s who fairly quickly.
But that’s not to say that the story is terrible, because it’s actually the best thing that this game has going for it. The dialog system takes a page out of the Mass Effect play book and messes around with the idea of conversational options, with the only different here being that it doesn’t contain preset good or bad choices, but rather personality choices such as aggressive, flirty, professional, and so on, which, when combined with a time limit, keeps the dialog flowing naturally. The only problem to this is that the timer will start while people are still talking, which at times didn’t give me enough information to make a proper choice, especially if when they said something important toward the end of their sentences.
Another cool edition to the story is the fact that, unlike the illusions of games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, the story really can play out very differently depending on your choices. If you decide to go on one mission before another it might have implications further down the line and characters may even mention previous missions that you attempted. It feels like you really can replay these games and get some very different story structure and missions, which doesn’t happen often in most other RPGs made by companies like Bioware or Bethesda. Although on second thought, you probably won’t want to after your hear about how horrible the gameplay is!
Gameplay
I was hopeful that Obsidian had finally crafted a well tuned gaming experience, but oh how wrong I was! Let’s start with the heart of the problem, the thing that will probably make many of players scream out in annoyance, and that’s the combat. Whenever you use a weapon in this game, just like in many others, it has a reticle that shows you the general area of where your shot will go. Nothing bad there, until we come across the fact that the reticles are huge, and after every consecutive shot they just get bigger! And when you get to the heavier weapons like shotguns and assault rifles, let’s just say that you can be shooting someone at point blank range and still not hit him because the cross hairs are so enormous that you won’t ever hit him! It’s almost hilarious at how horrible this can become!
After discovering this hideous offense, I decided to put my skill points, which you get as you level up throughout the course of the game, into stealth hoping to avoid engagements involving guns as much as possible. But let’s not forget that being rational is not one of this game’s stronger points because if you get noticed by a group of enemies, which is very easy to do accidentally, you’re basically screwed because even though you’re a trained super spy you can never, ever, fire across the map with any type of weapon with any kind of accuracy, while a nameless bodyguard can hit you with his pistol across an entire courtyard! Put this alongside the fact that you will die and die often, and you’re just setting yourself up for some extremely frustrating moments.
The fact that Alpha Protocol forces you to choose a class from the gun heavy soldier to a sneakier character presents another problem in that many of the classes feel redundant in many situations. I played a sneakier, stealth oriented class so I could avoid the gunplay but when certain battles force you into situations where the enemies know where you are from the get go, it seems almost pointless not to put your skills into an all weapons soldier, which at least has a better chance of hitting someone with a gun. There are many situations like this where there is no proper stealthy way out of a situation, and if you’ve spent a ton of your points into that skill and not into, let’s say, health, then you’re basically backed against a wall.
Visuals / Audio
Before I even begin we have to remember that this is an Obsidian developed game and that means there are going to be bugs everywhere, so let’s talk about the good stuff first. Oh wait… there’s hardly any! Let me try at least, right? The character models are, at least to me, what really appeared good about this game and that isn’t saying very much. Thorton looks fairly well and he animates alright along with the other characters since they do use some movement during conversation. And uhhh…. yeah, there’s not a lot of good I can say about how this game presents itself. The entire feel of the game screams out generic, and that’s exactly what you’re looking at throughout the entire adventure. But I’m really digging deep to find something good here, because there are a metric ton of issues. Probably the most noticeable is an issue that plagued games like the original Mass Effect and Borderlands, namely texture pop in’s. I couldn’t count the amount of times I had loaded an area to see that all of it was blurry and none of the textures had loaded in properly.
I wish all the bugs ended there but since this game is made by Obsidian, we all know that isn’t true. I remember when I had walked into a room but no textures whatsoever had loaded in. I could see my enemies through the “walls,” above me and under me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly leave the room with the door not existing. Oh, and I kept running into walls when I was looking for the door because they also didn’t exist. Wonderful! On the bright side you do go into a nice variety of locations, although they all start to look alike after a while. You probably won’t remember anything from each of the locales you visit though because each isn’t done very well, which makes it a good thing that they switch it up every once in a while, not keeping you in the same place for too long.
Audio is serviceable, with the only standout being Thorton and how skillfully he can change his voice depending on the mood you choose during dialogue. The music is all okay, nothing spectacular as well, although most of it won’t really stick with you after you stop playing the game which is a little disappointing but what do you expect?
Final Thoughts
It’s sad that this game could have been great and it just makes me so angry that the title is such a complete mess from start to finish, with problems appearing all over the place. From buggy and bland graphics, horrendous gameplay, and a lame and forgettable story, problems arise from each and every corner of this game. I was really hoping that with an original setting Obsidian could pull something off that was just as good or as creative as KOTOR 2 or Neverwinter Nights 2 without all the bugs that have plagued their games since the company’s inception. Alas, this isn’t the case, making this a game for only the most stalwart of gamers.
We all know why SEGA delayed the release of Alpha Protocol (to avoid colliding with Mass Effect 2) and while they told us it was for “extra development time” it’s apparent that that wasn’t the reason at all. I really hope, for all our sakes, that Obsidian gets their act together for their next title, the Bethesda published Fallout: New Vegas or else I, and many other gamers, will be a lot more than just angry - I can guarantee you that!
