Alpha Protocol

The game makes you feel like a real spy, complete with all the research-based legwork. In those respects, there are few games like it. Whether or not you like Alpha Protocol is probably going to depend on your proclivity for spy lore itself. But if you've ever wanted to be a secret agent, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Alpha Protocol succeeds at being on of the first spy-gaming RPG ever. It's not easy to love because of its poor graphics and clumsy control scheme, but as awkward as some elements feel, it's hard to not get engaged with it in just a few hours.

The way the story and relationships change depending on your choices will keep you hooked, and warrants at least two play-throughs to see what might have been. However, just be aware that you'll have to put up with some problems.

The tragedy of Alpha Protocol is that, hidden behind the mass of technical failings is a superb action RPG bristling with choice and driven by some inspired storytelling.

What Obsidian has crafted is a decent first attempt that shamelessly borrows elements from some heavy-hitting titles in an attempt to make them its own. While we refrain from using the term 'unique' in any capacity, somehow the result feels fresh enough to warrant at least a single playthrough.

The game disappoints on many levels although the story and the characters show plenty of depth. The game isn't great and should not be bought at full price.

Flawed in its conception, impoverished in its design, and thoroughly inept in its execution, Alpha Protocol is an unmitigated disaster

The most critically underrated game of all time. Complex story, great skill upgrades, unique characters, awesome weapon customization, tons of perks, choices matter greatly, fun gadgets, decent voices, etc. Only negative is slightly imperfect gameplay and a lot of menu surfing. If your a dues ex, stealth, or rpg fan its a must-buy. If you think call of duty is the greatest game of all time just because of high production value and spiffy gameplay/graphics you might be someone who won't like the game because it is not some simple run and gun shootfest and requires intelligence, reading skills, and a decent memory to be successful at it.

The obvious flaws been discussed at great length regarding Alpha Protocol. Whether it's the glitchy mechanics, broken enemy AI's, or underwhelming graphics. However despite all these things this game delivers on it's promises. It creates a intricate spy world Robert Ludlum would be proud of. Filled with good voice acting, stellar dialogue and memorable twists and turns. More importantly the choices you make actually matter not only in a immediate sense but effecting the end-game as well. If you tough it out from start to finish you will not only enjoy the journey but be satisfied with the conclusion. In an age where nobody cares about the ending, I think this game does a great job in offering up some variety.

Alpha Protocol is kind of a hard game to review on one hand it's got great rpg elements, and the choices you make really effect the way the game plays out, on the other hand it's clumsy shooting mechanics, and some really bad flaws cripple the experience, graphically it's looks like a game made back in 2006, and the voice acting is hit or miss, the controls are great, as far as conversations plat out you choose one of three stances suave, professional, or aggressive, which doesn't work out that well considering the way to get most people to like you all you have to do is use the professional stance, the story is interesting and has some cool characters, i personally enjoyed this game, all in all if you are a big rpg fan and you can overlook a few flaws you'll find a good game, others may want to avoid.

Hands down, in the bottom three of games I have ever played. I got about halfway through the game and had to stop myself from continuing on not out of frustration, but sheer boredom. The idea of an RPG espionage where you become the quintessential super spy was a brilliant idea. The custom "class" development was a brilliant idea. The gadgets, weapons and overall equipment was a brilliant **** one thing I will give this game total props for is a more immerse dialogue than I have experienced up to date. The conversations were fluid and will run past you if you don't think on your toes and I feel as though the developers created this dynamic dialogue system where it does actually feel like you are interacting with the NPC's. The tragic thing is, this game had a LOT of potential for me. There were a lot of good ideas. Sadly, good ideas did not end up translating to well thought out game mechanics. First, lets start with combat. Or rather, lets start with how bad the combat system is. The huge difficulty I found was poor level design and a horrific gunplay system. More often than not, to hit my target and make it relevant I had to aim at a target for 1-5 seconds at a time depending on my class and make sure my cursor stayed on target. If I drifted off for the slightest second I had to re-aim and wait for the crosshair to once again lock-on. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem...except that during this entire ordeal of landing ONE shot I'm being peppered by bots with ridiculous accuracy. To naturally hit a target you have to basically stand up with a glowing red alarm on your head and broadcast to the world that you would like to be shot. Repeatedly. While the game has a blind-fire **** doesn't really do anything. Enemies aren't really suppressed by it and every once in a while a stray bullet *might* find its target. Next, the abilities. As someone who enjoys using ability based-characters in a game, this was a total letdown. Cool-downs are horrifically long, but your abilities need to be used rather frequently especially if using a sneaky saboteur character (i.e. NOT a shooter). I can't tell you how many hours I spent sitting in front of my television waiting for an ability to recharge simply so I could sneak past the guard next to a door who NEVER moves as I used up all my gadgets sneaking past the other 5 guards who do the same thing. All this waiting will eventually becomes monotonous and outright boring. Also be prepared to never die as many locations are ruined by a poor checkpoint system which has you respawn in front of shotgun buddy who promptly kills you while the color is still returning to your screen....Over and over and over again. Furthermore, a lot of "secondary missions" are mandatory and are rarely obvious. I remember one level in particular with disdain where I spent hours trying to clear a courtyard in a forced gunfight only to be killed over and over again as my character couldn't even manage to hit the nteenth story mansion behind all the bad guys. Come to find out, if you purchased "intel" before the mission you could gain access to a sniper level which makes the mission significantly easier and even somewhat fun. The problem is realizing this and getting to it is so non-intuitive its frustrating beyond belief. I'm sure late game it becomes fun as many character-related problems likely evaporate since cool-downs decrease and guns become usable, but for the first 10 hours of gameplay the whole thing feels like an overly tedious grind session. This game had a lot of potential and I wanted to like it. I really did. But after spending hours upon hours either waiting for abilities to cool-down, running out of ammo/gadgets, or being instantly killed because of a poorly thought out checkpoint system I had to put the game down to retain my sanity. Its a shame, because this game *could* have been great. (+): Great concepts, highly interactive dialogue system, good plot (-): Lackluster graphics, poorly executed gameplay mechanics, horrifically executed abilities, occasional game breaking bugs, too many "forced" shootouts make playing non-shooter characters nearly impossible early on

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]