I don't necessarily know that I agree with this anymore, so I've removed the rating I originally gave it. Thank you for the recognition, though; this review in particular is why I've stuck around on this website.

Alpha Protocol is one of the worst Stealth games I've played in recent memory. I'll say that it's not the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to stealth games; you can tell that they tried their hardest with what they had. There are a ton of fun options to work around with, including gadgets like a sound emitter and tranquilizer darts for your pistol. But four fundamental pillars always set it back: one, bodies disappear. I'm not of the school of thought that you need to be able to drag bodies in a stealth game, but I've always thought that it's necessary to make sure they don't despawn. Part of the reason I love stealth games so much is that they're tense in a way few games are; small missteps will absolutely set you back. Taking the consequence away from having to take someone out feels cheap and cuts that tension in half. Two, it's overly reliant on checkpoints. Another staple of the stealth genre for me is the ability to quicksave. I know not every game has this, and some games are generally better without it. But when checkpoints are your only option, things get frustrating quickly. What ends up happening is that you get spotted, and because you either aren't well-equipped for combat or just don't want to deal with that noise, you try to reload a save. Only, your last checkpoint was 30 minutes ago, and you have to backtrack aaaaaaaall the way back for a minor misstep. In a game where the main goal is to shoot all of the bad guys, going back 30 minutes isn't too much of an issue. But when you can consistently set yourself back, it gets tiring to deal with. You can technically save your progress from a checkpoint in case you want to pull any of the punches this game asks you to make. But if you're wondering if that actually comes in handy while you're playing the game, its purpose is null. Three, the AI is erratic. Sometimes it will spot you on a dime or even through a wall, while other times, you can take three to four guys out in front of another guy, and he won't flinch. It's both unpredictable and infuriating to deal with. Finally, and most egregious of all, this game is NOT graceful when you get caught. Other games might make the transition from stealth to combat easy on their players, so it's not too much of a hassle to deal with. But in Alpha Protocol, I associated this lack of a transition with that of a jump scare. I might have screamed on multiple occasions; I didn't count. But I screamed a lot.
So then why on earth did I give this four stars?

Here's the thing: in The Walking Dead, the choice of Doug or Carly only affects your experience in a minor way. The game isn't asking you if you want the story to change significantly, but rather which character you want to hang around and how you want to alter one tiny scene later in the game. The way The Walking Dead presents its choices isn't through a sense of fascination, though, but through urgency. Whether or not you go with Doug or Carly, Doug or Carly will die. There's something to be said about how choice in video games is an illusion; the game might tell you telling Lee Everett to be more aggressive will make others more cautious in his presence, but without the game explicitly saying that that's the case, you'd be hard-pressed to notice a change in behavior. The Walking Dead, and those in its stead, are an inconsistent mix of show and tell. They're willing to show you some things, but the only thing they have to offer is lots of telling. In some instances, Alpha Protocol is guilty of the same thing. But what sets Alpha Protocol apart from its contemporaries with one thing: its pacing. There are plenty of Doug or Carly instances in this game, but instead of waiting half the game for that choice to have any meaningful impact, Alpha Protocol is blunt about your choices' outcomes. In a way, it has to be. The most significant factor in how you handle reactivity to player choice in video games comes down to setting. If your game is set within a slowly dying world, where the loss of life might as well turn the sun brown, it almost makes sense for your choices not to have consequences right away. In the case of Alpha Protocol's espionage setting, there isn't a single character in here that's in the right or wrong. If you want to make a case for some of the most despicable members of its cast, you can. Everything is varying shades of grey. If I had to wait half the game to find out that sparing the boss who played loud 80s hair-metal made someone angry, I'm no longer making a case for having saved that character. The illusion of choice is pushed to its absolute limit in Alpha Protocol, and I don't think I've seen another game take its approach in the ten-plus years since its release.

But none of that would be entertaining if the writing sucked. Thankfully, they pulled this one off with flying colors. The first thing that I have to point is that they reuse the same rape joke twice, and it isn't funny either time. But in contrast with the rest of the game, that's the exception. I laughed my ass off multiple times, and it was never at this game's expense. If you have the option to play a conversation straight-faced, you also have the option to do it shit-faced. I'm almost considering doing a playthrough where I'm an asshole to everyone because some of this dialog is genuinely that funny. But I don't know how easy that would be for me, considering how much I adore these characters. Mina, Scarlett, Steven, and Albatross are some of the best this game offers. But even the smaller side characters are entertaining and odd in their own ways. I'm sure that I missed out on one or two of them, which just gives me more incentive to revisit this when I get the sound of that stupid alarm going off out of my head. And I look forward to that day.

If Alpha Protocol had a less troubled development and wasn't rushed to market off the back of a bleeding budget, I think that this could have the potential to be in my top five of all time. But as it stands, it's still really fucking good, even if that hacking mini-game can go knit eggs. With all of the sixth to seventh-generation console games getting remade lately, I'm praying that Alpha Protocol gets the reevaluation it deserves.

Reviewed on Apr 21, 2022


2 Comments


1 year ago

epic review, gonna try alpha protocol again cause of this!

13 hrs ago

To make this clear to a much wider audience, I am currently in the process of reevaluating this.

While I do still enjoy this game on some level, a lot of this review was swayed by recency bias. And there's some content in this game that really hasn't held up. I'm talking sleazy stuff that warrants maybe a half-star less or more. I'm disappointed that I relegated my commentary on that here to maybe one sentence or less.