Mr Agent Michael Thorton – Alpha Protocol Review

“I might as well ask you if all those vodka martinis ever silence the screams of all the men you’ve killed… or if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for all the dead ones you failed to protect.”  Goldeneye

Those words echoed throughout my head throughout my playthrough of Alpha Protocol. Though Martini’s were sadly scarce, willing women were not, and there was at least one I failed to protect. A villain made me choose between saving her and disarming his bombs, I did my duty, but an innocent woman paid for it. Through it all one thought resonated through my mind.

I am so James Bond.

Alpha Protocol is an unusual beast, an RPG clearly sharing heritage with Mass Effect, yet set in a Splinter Cell like world of espionage spies, with more than a little debt to the legendary Deus Ex in it’s conspiracy laden narrative and emphasis on choice in gameplay. Notable is that it emphasises talking, lying and manipulating as much as sneaking and killing, making for a much more rounded picture of international espionage than most games. The conversation system borrows a little from Mass Effect, with players generally choosing from a few simple options, usually suave, professional or aggressive, with the addition of a timer to put pressure on your decisions.

What really makes Alpha Protocol stand out though, is that it’s a game which actually delivers as much choice as it promises. Most games that claim that promote choice will merely send you down a linear path while allowing you to make different choices along the way. Alpha Protocol however takes this philosophy a step further; the storyline changes and reconfigures itself dynamically as you go along with characters and plot points dropping in and out depending on your decisions.

Take Sie, for example, the machine gun toting ex Stasi agent featured prominently in the game trailers. If you run into her early and earn her favour and she’ll be a constant ally, offering assistance and encouragement throughout the game, even becoming a romance option if you play your cards right. However ally with another faction before encountering her and it’s entirely possible you’ll play through the entire game without meeting her in person. This isn’t the only example either, gather enough intelligence and you can find out the coldly efficient analyst Alan Parker’s big secret, changing his allegiances. Make the right decision in conversation and the villain’s enforcer might have a change of heart and step out of the fray. Make certain decisions in Moscow and you may never really uncover who works for who. These options add up to a truly versatile narrative, making Alpha Protocol a game that does not merely benefit from a second playthough, but demands one.

All this would be clever, but ultimately disappointing if the story itself wasn’t up to scratch, but thankfully writing has long been Obsidian’s forte, and Alpha Protocol’s tale of espionage, conspiracy and corporate greed is more than enough to keep players fascinated. Alpha Protocol’s narrative is one that is clearly playing to the strengths of it’s genre, it portrays a murky, secretive world where many of the characters are enigmatic cyphers, unknowable and menacing.

If the narrative has an issue it is tone, in trying to encompass all aspects of spy fiction it can seem somewhat incongruous. The mysterious and manipulative Albatross seems to belong to realistic spy fiction, bearing more than a passing resemblance to John Le Carre’s George Smiley. The aforementioned Sie, however, is a fountain of double entendres and and over the top voicework that would seem to belong more in a Bond move (indeed comparisons to Goldeneye’s Xenia Onnatop are inevitable). While the mute teenage punk bodyguard Sis appears to have taken a wrong turn from a cyberpunk novel. Agent Thorton himself even suffers from this, rapidly switching between suave, professional and aggressive stances can make him seem almost bipolar at times. These are however, fairly minor issues, and the changeable and enigmatic nature of the plot is more than enough to hold interest.

You might notice that I haven’t yet touched on the game’s mechanics, that’s because, although it is by no means bad, it is largely overshadowed by the complexity of the narrative. On a simple level the game works much the same as the Splinter Cell series, with with a simple third person cover system and an emphasis on line of sight for sneaking. The RPG elements are represented largely through increased powers that you invest your xp in, a pistol expert can fire a few shots in bullet time to take down multiple enemies, a stealth expert can breifly go invisible, and so on. While fun enough it suffers from some balance issues. High level powers render you near invincible, and stealth and pistol usage is clearly the most fun and characterful path to take, louder weaponry turning the game into a rather bland third person shooter.

It also suffers with it’s bizarre insistence on offering boss fights at several points throughout the game, with major characters who are inexplicable ten times tougher than regular guards and immune to instant kill sneak attacks. These fights rapidly become chores, and eventually the player tries his best to end them as quickly as possible. The minigames may also put some off, hacking in particular is very confusing at first, and while I eventually got the hang of it, others found it a perpetual annoyance.

Another real shame is that Alpha Protocol is clearly a game that was developed for console first and ported to PC. The mouse control is decidedly shoddy, often flipping you about face in the middle of a firefight, I personally switched to a controller after the first few missions, and the improvement was immeasurable. There’s also a lack of graphical options, even some of those listed in the menu options don’t work, forcing players to hack them in, producing it’s own problems. I personally was happy to play through the game without anti-aliasing, but if this kind of graphical tweaking is a deal breaker for you, I would suggest you pass up on this game.

In the end however, the fascinating and flexible nature of the narrative overrides all of the game’s flaws. Those who embrace it will find themselves playing the game through two, three or more times and still marvelling at new thing discovered. Not since Deus Ex have I played a game in which the accounts of other players differed so wildly from my own. Alpha Protocol is a truly unique experience, and I urge you all to play it. Preferably twice.