Alpha Protocol Retrospective

There’s a retrospective piece on Alpha Protocol available for your intake over at GameOnDaily, which may or may not spur you to play through Obisidian Entertainment’s espionage-themed RPG one more time. A little something to get some nostalgia flowing:

Its pretty derivative stuff but it is at least compelling; no doubt helped by the fact that Thornton can choose how he talks to people. Every conversation has a time sensitive choice between 4 different dialogue options, from suave to matter of fact to well ..twattish. Although there is no ‘˜Paragon’ or ‘˜Renegade’ bar to fill, individual characters log plus and minus points towards you during key conversation points, affecting how they treat you and even how characters you are yet to meet respond to you.

This results in a number of different scenarios, endings and it is entirely possible you can play through and not meet main supporting players or have different experiences on multiple play-throughs. The alternative endings are relatively different but obviously variations on a theme. I suppose it would be a a bit much to ask that in one ending Thornton gives birth to a unicorn and flies off to rule Venus, whilst in another he opens up a quaint B&B in a small Cornish fishing village.

In terms of character customization, the game is aesthetically lacking with only one main face/voice/body, four boring haircuts and a series of ridiculous stick on beards which wouldn’t be out of place in a school production of The Pirates of Penzance.

However if you look beyond the basic character appearance, the actual gear customisation is pretty impressive, evoking memories of the original Mass Effect (again). Guns, armour and gadgets can all be upgraded in a number of ways, meaning those with a penchant for tinkering should be more than satisfied. I know how you RPG fans like to tinker…I saw the Molotov cocktails thrown at Bioware HQ after the release of Mass Effect 2.

Thanks, Tomas via RPGWatch.