Alpha Protocol™ Reviews

Hidden Gem.

My favorite bad game.

This is still the most underrated game in history. It's so good, with its multiple outcomes and and story twists, that you decide. It's simple and basic enough for a casual player, but there's enough depth you can really dive into it too. This game needs a remaster and a sequel. Maybe a better PR team so people can hear about it.

Alotta people don't like this game and I can see why, but I freaking love it.

Very unique game. Very interesting story and mechanics. With some extra job, this game could be much much better than it is right now. In any case, its worth playing. Enjoyed very much

Of all the games I've ever played, this is the one I wish would get remade the most. So much of it is dated (or wasn't that great to begin with) but the writing and story and choice & consequences stuff was so excellent.

This game's fantastic, a level by level third person stealth/action fps rpg... thing, with dialogue like mass effects with choices, benefits & consequences. Alarms like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory give you a bad score, and levels often have cases of money to reward those who explore the levels regardless of score. Story has alot of foreshadowing and after ONLY the first chapter (just 4 levels with 2 being repeated BUT with different enemy placements and new entry points) your perspective will be recontextualized. AP points give you choices to upgrade your playstyle and give you unique & useful abilities (like in Deus Ex) PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS if you want the game to function: 1. Turn off protected files in WDefender and perhaps Cloud storage (incase you can't save) 2. Copy PhysXLoader.dll which should be found here C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common and paste it directly into AP's Binaries folder (which is in Documents for some reason) where you will see other integral files (incase the game won't start) One problem that I can't exactly 'fix' is that the hacking & lockpicking minigame both have horrible mouse acceleration and refuse to stay still, for me this isn't an issue because I have a mouse with sensitivity buttons but you don't need that, instead just shortcut your mouse sensitivity to 2 keys on your keyboard and you have a homemade remedy. I am hooked.

Played this way back on the Bill Gates Box 360 and replaying it now. Oh my god is it a blast! If you like the writing of old Bioware, this is almost near that level. Maybe a point or two off for it being a fairly generic spy thriller. However, it is literally one of a kind rpg premise. Espionage games don't really exist outside the action adventure genres and its kinda sad. Alpha Protocol could've been a series of it's own but I feel it ends perfectly enough on it's own. Thinking about it, I'm pretty bummed it was only a one and done. Obsidian, if you read this please consider a reboot or a sequel. (appeal to Gamers please, thank you) There was a lot of potential here that just got left behind and it's sadge. 8/10 Highly recomend it! Pros -Spy thriller Rpg -Graphics are good for a 2010 game -Choices matter -Opinions of supporting characters effect your stats directly -Story isn't spectacular but serves its purpose -Mass effect style conversation wheel Cons -Stealth gameplay is busted even when you upgrade stealth. Certain sections you actually can't sneak through. Enemies know exactly where you are when alarms go off and you can't hide to sake them off. -Shooting is a bit stiff and the cqc is relegated to one button and you don't block (far as i can tell) -Map is a bit janky and you have to jump through two menus to view it. -Customizing main character is really limited (this one may not be that big an issue to you if you care at all)

Inspired by Deus Ex, the balancing how you talk to characters is interesting and means you can be hated by colleagues or liked which is neat. The combat and stealth mechanics are good though you need to balance when to use both to progress. I stopped playing as most missions felt the same after a while go here, collect this, kill them, kill suprise backup.. get criticised or praised, cue sarcastic comment. Rinse and repeat. However despite that I really like the game, its well made and the story is interesting enough that and may come back to it eventually just to see it through,

I really wanted to like this game. The idea of a spy themed RPG a la Mass Effect and by the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas and KOTOR II sounds amazing on paper, and while the game hits similar beats to Mass Effect's companion system, dialog and story telling, other aspects of this game are just abysmally bad. The combat and AI are just flat out terrible. Weapons never once felt accurate in my hands, and the targeting system is very poorly implemented. I found myself abusing the game's lackluster stealth mechanics for most of my playthrough to bypass combat anytime I could. The minigames for hacking and lockpicking are also really badly tuned. Trying to hack a terminal on mouse and keyboard with such a ridiculously small margin for error, that gets even smaller as the game progresses, and with terrible mouse tracking was borderline impossible at times. The in game items to bypass such minigames practically became a necessity towards the end. Maybe I'm just not very bright, but I thought the story was poorly conveyed as well. Unless you're the type who reads Tom Clancy novels and is able to keep track of dozens of factions, intelligence agencies, code phrases and so on, you're probably gonna struggle to keep track of just about anything. I now see why this game was lambasted at release, deservingly so. Edit: I forgot to mention, I played the game on Hard mode, where enemies are deadly accurate while you have barely any accuracy and die very quickly. I ended up blind firing from cover almost more often then actually aiming, because the gun accuracy is really THAT bad to where you'll hit just as many shots in blind fire.