I was following this title with some interest for awhile and I have to say I think it’s gotten some bad reviews. The game has some flaws, but it’s more engrossing than reviewers give it credit for.
You play as Michael Thorton, a field agent for a top secret American intelligence agency who’s framed early on for a failed mission that wasn’t his fault. From that point on you find yourself trying to navigate some seriously labyrinthine plots among different factions in an effort to get to the bottom of what actually happened. You’re balancing loyalties between your country and your desire to see the truth unveiled. (Is the Saudi businessman cum terrorist you’ve apprehended telling the truth about his involvement with the defense contractor, or is he manipulating you for his own ends?)
The gameplay has some serious issues, mostly along the lines of the “I just emptied a full clip from this Assault Rifle into a thug at point blank range and he’s still standing” variety. Your effectiveness with given weapons and gadgets depends on how many points you’ve spent in them, damn the context. It can get frustrating for a character who specializes in stealth when he’s forced into a gunfight. I virtually walked through the game up to the point in Moscow when I had to fight Sis and she kept ripping me apart with her SMG’s, it took a fair amount of luck and strategy to defeat her.
I’ve played through Saudi and Russia, and I’m in Taipei right now investigating the president’s assassination attempt. So far though, the story is keeping me interested and engaged.
Any thoughts or questions? I think the game is better than the reviews it’s been getting.
I’m definitely loving it - already played through it once as a Recruit, playing it again as a Veteran. The story is well told, although maze-like, but what I love most about it is how it incorporates your choices into game-changing twists. (I supported SIE and beat up Grigori in the first run-through, leading to an armed USMC presence in the american embassy, a few of which died which made the US permanently pissed at me.)
Yes, there are weaknesses - but you can get around them. Although, I’m suprised Sis gave you problems - I beat her easily (Pistol - Chain Shot when she’s reloading). Brayko on the other hand, kicked my ass continuously.
Played it to the end over the last few days, and I can get why it’s gotten such mixed reviews. The story’s nice enough (if a little bit on the cliché side of spy fics), but damn is the actual gameplay clunky, and the protagonist annoying.
On the gameplay side, there’s the utmost imbalance of abilities. Supposedly, the game’s a spiritual successor to Deus Ex, Vampire Bloodlines and so forth, all those action RPGs where dungeons and missions are mostly secondary to storytelling. That’s fine. The other aspect of those games was that, since the gameplay aspect of them was almost secondary to the experience, the devs made sure you could complete the game(s) just fine using any of the main archetypes (i.e. Face-basher, sneaky fucker, locksmith hacker) and no matter what skill choices you made. That’s not true in Alpha Protocol : if you do specialize in any of those archetypes, I guarantee there’s at least one mission where you’re going to get stumped and fail over, and over, and over again - then Brayko will fuck you up. I mean it.
Add to that the overpowered/useless abilities : putting points in rifles lets your rifle auto-track targets in a fight, which is… nice, I guess… except enemies rarely move much in firefights, they just hide behind their chest high walls and take blind pot shots just like you do. On the other hand, stealth gives you a permanent enemy radar and lets you become invisible for 30 seconds at a time, during which time you can instakill enemies in plain views of their friends without raising the slightest eyebrow. Oh, and with pistols you can pretty much instakill bosses before they even get to spout a cheesy line, or kill entire rooms ten times faster than a shotgun would - silently, too.
In short, the basic premise of the gameplay is broken, because not all paths are equally worth it. Realistic, perhaps, but since you don’t know which path isn’t worthless when you start the game, and choosing a bad path to spec in can wreck your enjoyment later on (not to mention, you get to spec rather early in the game, so before you’ve had time to really get to know each skillset and it’s an irreversible decision…), that’s rather bad design.
And then we come to the speechifying, the game’s meat and potatoes. Like Dragon Age, Alpha Protocol is a game in love with its own plot, and they actually poured a lot of resources into it - characters reference past events, have little tells to inform the player how they’re likely to respond or what their secrets are, even your choice of gear ; not to mention the whole mechanic where it doesn’t matter whether people love you or hate your stinking guts, it helps you if you can leverage it… all of that is fine, great even. Playing through, I found the game was a bit too obvious about its characters in terms of what would likely make them like me or hate me (e.g. : guy in suit with strict demeanor probably likes Professional, mercenary girl carrying a big fuck off gun at all times likes aggressive, etc…) but other than that I really have no complains. The speechifying is solid.
What I do have complains about is the protagonist. Supposedly his three possible attitudes (Professional, Aggressive, Suave) are based on Jason Bourne, Jack Bauer and James Bond respectively, only that’s not true. At all.
If you select Professional, Thorton is a damn robot. He doesn’t understand that whole “joke” concept. Or gets pissed. Or involved. He’s pretty much autistic. “Tell me about my mission. I’ve got a mission. I do my mission. I did my mission, what’s my next mission ?”. Strong characterization, there…
Aggressive is supposed to be more on the challenging side, keeping people off balance and all that, only you come off as a berserk monster and, frankly, an asshole - telling everyone to fuck right off, even when they’re being friendly. Following this line of gameplay will likely end with you killing every single plot important character and, predictably, alienating each and every single ally you could have had save the psychos. Hint : psychos get you killed.
And finally we’ve got Suave, which is all but. In a way, it’s kind of a James Bond deconstruction rather than a Bond playthrough : you get to spout the most inane Bond one liners, in that smug jerkass tone of yours, and everyone reacts pretty much the way people *would *react to James Bond in real life : by not being amused in the slightest and thinking you’re an imbecile. Which is very funny, of course, but it also gets aggravating when you *do *want to be seductive for real and Thorton goes something like “hey, those tits real ? We should totally fuck, hon, if you know what I mean winkwink”.
For all its flaws though, I’m still liking it - there are lots of possibles paths to take, lots of meaningful choices to make, I really like the mission interconnection system (where what you did in mission A affects mission B in a meaningful way down the line, and the order you do the missions in is also important) and the NPCs are very endearing (even smug snake Leland - oh, how satisfying was it to sneak a remote mine under his suit…). I’m even playing through it again as we speak, only this time on Hard, as a Recruit, and without any Stealth skill because seriously, it’s overpowered as all hell. It’s not a game that’s likely to become a classic like Fallout or Deus Ex, but it’s good enough.
Yeah, Sis gave fits for awhile. Brayko was a friggin’ nightmare. Though Deng was easier than I expected.
I’m stuck on Marburg right now. The chain shot is a potent ability but I keep getting mauled between his goons and him rushing me while I’m waiting for chain shot to recharge. I usually only get off 2 or 3 good volleys before he finally kills me. I only have 1 first aid kit and the emergency kit on the wall for replenishing my health at this point, but I’ve come close to finishing him off a couple of times and I think if I had another kit or two I could finish the deal. I’m currently equipped with the advanced stealth armor which only allows for a few of each gadget type and I’m thinking about redoing the level with one of the utility armors just so I can carry some more first aid kits into this fight.
I have to say, I specialized in stealth early on and have high levels in the stealth ability and the pistol, and that combined with a few radio mimics and EMP grenades has allowed me to get through most levels with minimal difficulty, but the boss fights are like hitting brick walls.
I still like the game though. I’m not backpedaling on my OP.
And… I just finally defeated Marburg! It turns out when you leave one of his goons alive he doesn’t rush you. That made this fight infinitely easier. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that sooner.
Just finished my first playthrough this evening. A few random thoughts…
Repeating what I said earlier… The boss fights seem far more difficult than the rest of the game, which can lead to some frustration issues. Sis was a wake up call for me and I think Brayko will gain a reputation as a ‘That One Boss’ among people who play this game.
Upon finishing the story I get the strong impression that the plot has a lot of alternate paths in it. Kobal2 mentions slipping a mine onto Leland but I never got that option. (Was this a dialogue option, or something you did during the final confrontation?) You have the option of rescuing Mina during the final mission, but I wasn’t able to find her, and I spared Scarlet and got Marburg to turn on Leland after I slapped him in the face with his complete dossier.
I expected to see Sis again after Moscow, but I never did, I think because I let Albatross die. And during the credits I realized I never actually encountered SIE at all. Considering she was all over the pre release hype and on the cover of the box itself that sticks out like a sore thumb. I killed Dacy, but I also never saw Westridge or Parker again either after leaving Saudi.
I’m definitely going to have to go through this again.
Well Sega has announced no sequel for AP. B.S. This is very annoying to me because I’m enjoying this game alot.
Anyway I have done most of the Moscow missions but switched over to Taipei. I’m liking Taipei better because it seems a little more sneak and espionage orientated which fits my character better. I’m trying to do a minimal kill playthrough and it’s surprisingly fun. Really feels like I’m playing a hitman game.
Downside is that it doesn’t seem balanced very well and far too many triggered scenes that force you into a fight that you should be able to figure a way to sneak around.
There’s not that many alternate endings, but yeah there definitely are many ways to skin a cat, and many different conversations to be had along each path depending on the order you do things in, which NPCs you ingragiate yourself with or alienate etc… Basically, the situations you’re in don’t change much from one playthrough to another, but the details do vary a lot.
It’s really cool that they went through so much effort to weave the player’s actions into the narrative - when you think about it, from a design perspective that would be “wasted” work since most players will only run through the game once and not see like 40% of all dialogue, cutscenes etc… they recorded for the game.
Dialogue option. Basically, I buttered him up throughout the game during those interrogation sequences, agreed to join him during the final mission, then betrayed his stupid ass in the end. Yeah, like I’m going to be your Darth Vader, idiot. Can’t believe you fell for that one, you insufferable prick. I’m my own stooge.
You *might *also have to have a high Sabotage skill to get this specific scene, more in-your-face characters probably just shoot him, I dunno.
Quite fittingly, she’s held in her own shooting gallery.
She appears again during the finale if you have at least +8 relationship with her (I’d assume -8 works too, but with +8 she also sex you up, right there on the medical bay table), and your Moscow actions relative to her impact Marburg’s dialogue in Italy : if you irritated her or let her die, he’ll be pleased.
The inverse is true, BTW : if you manage to outright kill Marburg at the end of the Italy node before tackling on Moscow, SIE will be pleased as punch.
ETA : here I read Sie instead of Sis in your post. But heh, I answered that bit later, no biggie :).
Heh. Yeah, there’s one or two specific paths where you never actually meet her in person. You don’t miss much, though, she’s not all that interesting a character, IMO. Then again, I suppose anything’s better than whatsherface, the oblivious secretary from Italy
Speaking of Albatross, I’m kinda miffed about the whole G22 plot line, actually. You can tell there’s a lot about G22, Sis and him that just didn’t make the final cut. It’s heavily implied in their dossier that they’re a kind of rogue, earlier incarnation of Alpha Protocol, but that’s as far down that particular rabbit hole as you can go. I’m not even sure *why *they have such a hard-on for Halbech at all.
Same about Sis : if you spare her, say the right things and so forth, you can gain influence with her… which doesn’t go anywhere. You can only meet her again once if you pick Albatross as your handler for the final mission (which will happen whether she likes you or not), and you never get to figure out what the heck the deal is between her and Albatross. Damn shame, she’s probably one of my favorite character concepts.
Westridge shows up as the final boss if you’ve chosen to side with Leland - basically, he becomes pissed at you for betraying your original goals and your country. Yes, even if you just pretended to.
Parker, I’m not sure what would cause him not to show up, for me he always was the very first boss on the base. Then again, I know there is a path where you unlock all of that girl in Italy’s dossier, which tells you she’s his estranged daughter, and if Marburg ends up killing her and you tell Parker, he gets pissed and tries to take a shot at Marburg which makes that fight easier - but I guess if you’ve flipped Marburg, he never gets the opportunity to, since you don’t fight Marburg at all. That’s probably what happened to you.
Yeah, that’s a glaring problem I have with the game, which I touched upon in my first post. Basically, the game will throw missions heavily weighted in favour of each of the three basic player archetypes at you, and if you’ve specialized too heavily one way or another, well, too bad. Enjoy your hell levels. Sure, I suppose you can skip some of them (you only need to follow two available plot leads in any node to open the home stretch), but why would you ? That’s cutting yourself from so many XP, dollars, bits of dossiers and influence opportunities…
In fact, that’s even true on a wider point of view : IMO, Moscow is the fighty node, Taipei the tech node and Italy the sneaky node. Make like a Batman and come prepared, or don’t come at all.
That’s a damn shame, as I enjoyed the hell out of this game. I did like the “with RPGs you have got to be in the late 80s” quote though… I’ve certainly played games in other genres that are as flawed as this one but were successful.
I was perhaps lucky in my character choice (I went with stealth/pistol/assault rifle) in that I breezed through most of the game whereas someone who chose different skills might have been screwed. But I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a game in this genre where a pure no-combat character has been a viable choice on anything but the easiest difficulty level, so I’m not going to hold that against it too much. That said, was there really any point to the majority of the gadgets?
I loved the depth that went into the dialogue and plot (although I would have preferred to see more endings). Avellone is doing Fallout : New Vegas next and I hope the same level of detail is applied there.
Finished it now. What a flawed gem. I’ve already started my veteran playthrough and went through the intro level. You have to love his reaction. “Oh I’ve been drugged. Where’s my gear?” Like it happens to him every day. Also all of the veteran dialogue choices are downright snotty.
One thing that annoyed me was you can stealth kill a few bosses (the Triad ones) but none of the others. It really got my hopes up for some hilarious boss battles where I just pop Stealth and take them down but it doesn’t seem to work on any of the others. I guess they were just beefed up normal characters. Boss battles in general were tedious. Their armor regenerates much too quickly I think.
I guess I’ll spoiler this but the Brayko fight can be made easyAfter I did some Taipei missions and met Heck I went back to Russia and had an option to poison Brayko’s drugs. He pretty much killed himself while I ran around knocking out his guards. I did one chain shot in the beginning of the fight on him and that was it. While I was waiting for chain shot to cool down he died. This was on normal difficulty. I really think the designers meant you to switch between the hubs instead of just focus on one until it is completed. Made the game much more varied and interesting when I started switching back and forth. Also had some knock on effects like the above spoiler
I found upgraded and Overloaded flashbangs to be just as cheesy as Chain Shot in most boss fights - you can also clear entire rooms with just a flashbang and melee takedowns. Incendiaries are nice for boss fights too, they strip armour quite nicely (and combo cruelly with flashbangs ). Adrenaline shots are pretty much mandatory if you want to use kung-fu as your primary mean of attack. Finally, EMP is a godsend on Hard difficulty if you’re not dumping lots of points in Sabotage & using hacking mods in your armor : the minigames can get really brutal.
The rest, yeah, didn’t find much use - if you can safely reach a spot along a given guard’s patrol path, why blow hundreds of dollars on a trap ? JUDO CHOP !
