Obsidian is an interesting developer: their games are ambitious and full of interesting ideas, but they often manage to shoot themselves in the foot with bugs and rushed releases (who could forget the great but truncated Knighs of the Old Republic 2?). Alpha Protocol, their new espionage action/RPG, is getting mixed reviews, but I wanted to give it a try.
I feel the dozens of trailers have already given away too much, so suffice to say the labyrinthine plot involves special agent Michael Thorton traveling to several locations around the world and dealing with a variety of missions and dangerous factions. Dialogues give you the chance to choose between different approaches: suave (like James Bond), professional (like Jason Bourne) and... angry (like Jack Bauer).
Graphics are not great but I found them perfectly functional - they certainly didn't bother me one bit. Enemy AI is... average.
Voice acting is EXCELLENT throughout - not a single weak link.
Story is gripping, characters memorable; Alpha Protocol features difficult choices with branching story lines and relevant in-game consequences (think The Witcher, only more). Allegiances change, people respect you or hate your guts, someone dies and someone lives, multiple endings... impressive.
The game reminds me of a mix between Vampire Bloodlines (remember Troika's swan song? They were just like Obsidian...) and Deus Ex, and I mean this as a compliment. You are given a mission, but how to deal with it is your choice.
Problems? First, Alpha Protocol isn't very long. I'd say the overall length is between 12-18 hours depending on how fast/meticulous you are. However, replay factor is high. Second, different skills and perks are fine *in theory*... but gameplay is unbalanced and easily broken. Just to give an example, at normal difficulty with medium/high martial arts and assault rifles competence you can bulldoze your way through most of the missions without using ANY special ability.
Sure, you can Splinter Cell your way into a building if you like stealth, but it's a self-imposed challenge; you can enjoy trying the various abilities (some of which are really cool) if you are curious, but there's no real NEED to.
The mini-games you face when hacking computers have received criticisms, but you can actually make them ludicrously easy (or skip them altogether) with the right skills/equipment, so no complaints from me here.
And yes, there are bugs. I personally found a couple of them, annoying but not game-breaking.
Overall, an ambitious game worth trying.
7,5/10
I feel the dozens of trailers have already given away too much, so suffice to say the labyrinthine plot involves special agent Michael Thorton traveling to several locations around the world and dealing with a variety of missions and dangerous factions. Dialogues give you the chance to choose between different approaches: suave (like James Bond), professional (like Jason Bourne) and... angry (like Jack Bauer).
Graphics are not great but I found them perfectly functional - they certainly didn't bother me one bit. Enemy AI is... average.
Voice acting is EXCELLENT throughout - not a single weak link.
Story is gripping, characters memorable; Alpha Protocol features difficult choices with branching story lines and relevant in-game consequences (think The Witcher, only more). Allegiances change, people respect you or hate your guts, someone dies and someone lives, multiple endings... impressive.
The game reminds me of a mix between Vampire Bloodlines (remember Troika's swan song? They were just like Obsidian...) and Deus Ex, and I mean this as a compliment. You are given a mission, but how to deal with it is your choice.
Problems? First, Alpha Protocol isn't very long. I'd say the overall length is between 12-18 hours depending on how fast/meticulous you are. However, replay factor is high. Second, different skills and perks are fine *in theory*... but gameplay is unbalanced and easily broken. Just to give an example, at normal difficulty with medium/high martial arts and assault rifles competence you can bulldoze your way through most of the missions without using ANY special ability.
Sure, you can Splinter Cell your way into a building if you like stealth, but it's a self-imposed challenge; you can enjoy trying the various abilities (some of which are really cool) if you are curious, but there's no real NEED to.
The mini-games you face when hacking computers have received criticisms, but you can actually make them ludicrously easy (or skip them altogether) with the right skills/equipment, so no complaints from me here.
And yes, there are bugs. I personally found a couple of them, annoying but not game-breaking.
Overall, an ambitious game worth trying.
7,5/10