Alpha Protocol Preview

IGN UK has put together the latest hands-on preview of SEGA and Obsidian’s spy-themed RPG, Alpha Protocol.

Alpha Protocol follows the RPG template to a tee with its tight focus on character progression and customisation, although it makes several interesting detours. There’s no open world as such, with missions instead doled out in a safehouse, a clinically clean dwelling whose every surface seems to be taken up by swathes of high-tech gadgetry. Here it’s possible to fit hero Michael Thorton in a variety of outfits (and given the tongue-in-cheek humour we see in the demo, we expect some outlandish costumes to come into play).

On one level, the RPG mechanics fuel the dialogue, with Alpha Protocol’s world full of smooth-talkers and double-crossers. Indeed, some of the missions are entirely dialogue driven – including one we were witness to, in which Thorton interrogates Grigori, a Russian informant who’s holed up in a Moscow dive.