Alpha Protocol
Reviewed by Welshwelder

It's hard to make something original these days out of the secret agent theme, when Jason Bourne, 24, and other realistic spy thrillers have so much in common. Still it isn't something overused in games, that's why Obsidian Entertainment has chosen this style for their action RPG.

Training Day

The hero of this spy thriller is Michael Thorton, a rookie secret agent, who wakes up drugged in a secret base. A young woman helps him escape, He has to go through a few guards, but soon he will realize that it was only part of the usual training. You soon learn the basics of the dialogue system, as well as the shooting and gadget controls.
Early in the game it's obvious that Alpha Protocol is very similar to other bestsellers of BioWare like Mass Effect, but now we have spies in a modern, actual world. It's not a bad thing in itself, since Mass Effect was an awesome game. For example, in the dialogues we can choose a variety of different answers: sarcastic, professional, suave, etc. However, it's somehow annoying, that contrary to those games you have limited time for the answer - I prefer thinking over each choice without being rushed.
I did like thought, how each answer really affects our relationship with the characters and seriously affect story. There's no right or wrong answer: only your choice matters.

Hard Target

On the battlefield Michael has different kind's of weapons at his disposal and there's a distinct difference between them. You can buy a ton of gadgets for those weapons from the black market: laser sight, silencer, ammo types, Grip's, Frame work etc. You might think that it's kind of useless to spend hard cash for weapons, since we can get them everywhere in the missions, but it's not the case.
The weapons aren't easy to get either: you must spend a fortune just to buy a good rifle or gun. By the way, you won't get any founds from our boss (only occasionally), so you must loot cash wherever you can onthe missions.
As in other stealth games, we're better off fighting in the dark, kill silently and move on, but it’s pretty hard to operate this way here, since it's an RPG and Thorton has such a low spy level at the beginning. Also the AI sometimes can hear and see almost everything you do, and when you are spotted the whole base is alerted.
So occasionally i have the impression that we are controlling the most inept Sam Fisher in the world. Fortunately, fist-fighting is always an option. Thorton is pretty good in close combat and a silent attack on an enemy is almost always successful provided you level up in that particular field and invest in one of the meny armour types (sneaking suites and full assault armour can be bought and upgraded with attachments).

The Spy Who bugged me

Besides rather enjoyable gunfights and stealth action, there are a _lot_ maddening bugs and bad design flaws. The AI is either super intelligent or super dumb: sometimes they try to corner us, sometimes they take cover immediately, or they just stand there waiting to get killed.
But the bugs are not the only maddening failures in this game.
There are some dodgey mini game's adding to the pain in that when you miss a try, the alarm system goes off, and if you want to shut it down you must take part in another annoying code-breaking mini game. Besides bugs, the game looks really outdated, and plain fugly sometimes. Even if the design of the game took so much time, they should have still done something with the graphics. PS2 quality don't cut it these days especially for the entry price.

Body of Lies

Still, there are some saving graces in this game: the role-playing and storyline are both excellent. you can level up our spy the way you want, just like in Mass Effect, or other good RPGs. There’s a huge amount of specializations and special skills to develop and it’s really fun to use on the later missions.
The story is top-notch, with well-drawn characters, exciting missions, double crossings, back stabbings, and many other surprises as well.
So should you buy Alpha Protocol? Well, if you are itching for a good spy thriller with tons of customizations and a cool story, and if you can pass by its glaring design faults, then this game could offer some quality entertainment. But despite all this it's worth a rent just to see the story but with all these heavy hitter's around at the moment can you fit in another 30 hours?

Verdict:

I'm giving this a 6.5 rubber chickens out of 10.

Overall SPT Rating: 6.5 out of 10 Rubber Chickens