I'll just get on with it quickly, shall I?
First of all, this game is branded as an Espionage RPG. What are the first things we know about Espionage:
1. Working undercover to dig out important information from governments, corporations etc.
2. Do not get detected while trying to infiltrate the building in question.
3. If you have to take someone out, knock them out or use silenced weaponry and dispose of the body.
4. Avoid confrontation.
The main problems with Alpha Protocol, it is nothing of the above.
You are playing a character whoms main objective is to
, now that's really espionage-like.
Not getting detected? There are "forced envounters" at least once on each course! It's not much of an espionage if you're getting caught doing it all the time. "Oops, someone conveniently discovered that you entered the main computer you just hacked.." with two strings of code.
Why shouldn't Mike be able to drag bodies away? If I were a stealth operative I wouldn't litter my way with corpses and let them lying there to show as if I begged for attention.
If a guard would notice a body he should at least warn the entire building that an intruder is inside and force a lockdown, which doesn't happen in Alpha Protocol.
There are a lot of flaws in Alpha Protocol that revolves around the actual combat, as for most times where I have thought to myself: "Even I could shoot better than him."
My Mike was trained in Pistols and Stealth, but in these forced encounters I had to fire my handgun at an enemy from ten yards away, point blank in his torso and I had to empty two clips two down him. (Took my time aiming.)
This game is trying too hard to be Jack Bauer, James Bond and Jason Bourne all at the same time which we can clearly see in the dialogue choices as well as the combat options.
There isn't much love for a James Bond character though in play style, whereas you can't complete a level completely based on stealth alone.
Some of those encounters for example was a certain place, where you had to steal certain information. I managed to sneak past all the guards without a fuss (Recruit, Hard), stole the information and headed back out to escape.
When I reached the exit I immediatly encountered a person with two goonies that wanted a fight and I couldn't run from it.
Why shouldn't a spy just turn and run the other direction for an alternate exit when outnumbered?
During that fight I had to retry thirty-four times, since the only cover I got was a metre wide cupboard which Mike's body barely fit behind.
The enemies had a large gambling table, two other large tables, two wardrobes and while hiding behind them they occasionally threw semtex grenades (a'la MW2 style) at me.
There were another encounter where I had to help defend a VIP from a building, he told me to go off and do a task, when I got back he had gone to the front courtyard by himself.
I left the building in a way that I was on a rooftop overlooking the courtyard, the VIP was trying to pick off eight well-armed soldiers with only a handgun.
His only cover was the short wall of a flowerbed, where he hid on the left side of. He did not hide -behind- the flowerbed, but on the side, so that he was in line of fire 80% of the time.
I gave up after 40 tries with variable approaches.
First of all: Why would he exit through the front door when these soldiers came barging in through there just a couple of minutes ago?
Second: Why shouldn't hide more appropriately?
Third: How am I supposed to defend him against those odds when the soldiers instantly spawn again from three directions?
Alpha Protocol will punish you for trying to play by it's selected genre which is Stealth, if you are playing a stealth-based character then you are going to have a real hard punch in the stomach during these forced encounters.
Summery:
Alpha Protocol is the result of a Project Lead and a Publisher that is too tense on their reins over the developers.
It's really fallen over the "espionage" part since you 'have' to fight at least one large battle royale before escaping and when there is no downside to being discovered.
The boss encounters are really overpowering if you want to play a stealth-based character.
If the Project Lead would concentrate on getting the departments to communicate instead of micromanaging everything this game could've gone so much further. It's such a shame to see so much potential being wasted on bad planning.
The publishers should let the developers do their work as well, there are too many publishers steering the games to the depths of the abyss by trying to control them too much.
-Mountainface
