Alpha Protocol – Review

In Alpha Protocol, the player is a spy, and the primary weapon is choice. Throughout the game, a variety of decisions have to be made — which mission to undertake next, how to interact with various factions, how to treat assets, and more — and each choice carries a real consequence. Angering the leader of a faction like GR-22, for instance, makes future missions involving that group noticeably harder; staying on good terms means help when it’s needed. Even the order in which locations are visited has consequences, and one particular boss fight becomes brutally punishing for anyone who hasn’t leveled up properly beforehand, while a well-prepared approach makes the same fight manageable.

The story in Alpha Protocol is enjoyable, if not especially original — familiar territory for anyone who has seen similar plots in other games or movies. The difference here is the ability to actually influence what happens, rather than watching a fixed narrative unfold, and that’s one of the most satisfying aspects of the game.

Where the story succeeds, the gameplay struggles. Alpha Protocol was delayed multiple times before release, and after playing it, a longer delay to iron out the bugs seems like it would have helped. The controls are too clunky, the shooting mechanic feels broken, and even basic movement has issues. For a game built around espionage and stealth, precise controls matter, and Alpha Protocol doesn’t have them: releasing the analog stick doesn’t always stop the character from walking, and correcting course by pulling back on the stick can cause an unwanted about-face. On a ladder, the same problem can send the character climbing back down instead of stopping in place, making it hard to get a clear read on the situation.

The shooting mechanic requires holding a reticule on a target for five to ten seconds to land a solid hit — assuming cover can even be found, since some walls allow taking cover and others don’t, with no visible way to tell the difference, leading to unnecessary deaths. In a game about playing a spy, being able to take cover behind virtually anything would make more sense; limiting characters to static cover points is a questionable design choice. There’s also a noticeable delay after taking cover before a shot can be fired, so popping out quickly for a snap shot generally just reveals a position to nearby patrolling guards, who then swarm it. That mechanic might be tolerable against a single enemy, but larger firefights make the long aim time a serious liability — either the shot never lands in time, or the target flees and the standoff starts over. Melee attacks, fortunately, work well and stand out as the most reliable offensive option, often useful for sneaking up on unaware enemies and taking them out quickly and quietly.

Inventory management is similarly unintuitive: buying ten medical kits from a dealer doesn’t mean all ten can be carried into a mission, since the game only allows a handful to be brought along regardless of how many are owned — leaving a player who runs out of kits mid-mission out of luck despite having plenty in reserve.

The artificial intelligence has its own share of problems. In one instance, two enemies were caught talking, seemingly oblivious to being observed; taking one out with a melee attack left the other standing motionless for several minutes without ever noticing, despite being just a few feet away.

Visually, Alpha Protocol is a decent-looking game without being spectacular, and like every other part of the game, it’s not free of bugs. Graphical glitches show up throughout — sunglasses on the main character would flicker in and out during cutscenes, as if the game couldn’t decide whether to render them — along with occasional bad graphical pop-in. Loading times aren’t too bad overall, but load hitches occasionally interrupt missions in a way that breaks immersion.

There’s a lot to like about Alpha Protocol on the strength of its story and the genuine consequences tied to player choices. Skipping a check-in with contacts in a city can make things harder later, while making contact first can turn a potential enemy into a valuable ally — one character in particular expressed gratitude for being approached first, since he otherwise would have attacked. That alone makes multiple playthroughs tempting, in search of story branches missed the first time around, though the broken gameplay makes it unlikely that many players will bother. Control issues do become somewhat easier to compensate for with time, but that they need compensating for at all reflects a real shortfall on the part of Obsidian and Sega. A sequel with the bugs properly ironed out could turn this into a great series if given the right attention from both publisher and developer, but as it stands, a purchase can’t really be recommended — waiting for a price drop, or renting it first, is the safer bet.

Rating: 6/10