Alpha Protocol, Or How Video Killed the Radio Star

Alpha Protocol is full of witty one-liners. Every character has a few, and they're never tired of using them. But for me, one witticism stood out above the rest, not because it's so profoundly original, but because it's such a great metaphor for the game - and the industry - as a whole.

"How Video Killed the Radio Star"

Our story began in the 90s, the Golden Age of the story-driven RPG. This was the era of Fallout, of Baldur's Gate, of Final Fantasy 7. And of course, of Planescape: Torment. Obsidian had its start here, though then it was known as Black Isle Studios, a subsidiary of Interplay. This was the time when isometric RPGs were all the rage, when D&D computer games made their first real breakthrough, and choices and consequences became the talk among the RPG elites. This was the decade that sewed the seeds of D&C and NMA, the Black Isle forum community, the Bioware fan base, and the bastard child of all of them, which later became the Codex.

It is an age which, I think it is fair to say, most of us look back upon with nostalgia. Some of this nostalgia is undeserved, and is simply a variation of adults longing for their irretrievable youths. Some of it, however, is well-deserved, and centers around the acute realization that there was a time when RPGs were not about flashy graphics, high production qualities, or ten-hour long "cinematic gameplay." And that it was good.

But what, exactly, was so good about the Golden Age?

Was it the isometric view that prevented you from seeing your party behind buildings?



(This used to be the shit. Take that, Mass Effect 2.)

Was it the 100+ hour campaigns (most of it combat) with AD&D rules that made you reload every time your character failed his "save vs. death" roll?

Was it the thousand pages of wall-of-text dialogue that made your eyes bleed?



(tl;dr)

Or was it the virtually non-existent C&C and skill use?

...

As an old school skeptic, I didn't understand, for a while, why people looked back so fondly upon the age of isometric RPGs, and I agreed with Chris Avellone, one of the gods of the Golden Age(mostly for his work on PST), when he said that the genre needed to move forward. That it needed to forget the age of dialogue trees, just as we have forgotten the age of text-based adventure games, and embrace the next gen.

But what I didn't realize was that video killed the radio star.

"What Can Change the Nature of a Man?"

This is supposed to be a review of Alpha Protocol, but I've now spent almost two pages talking about other games. Since you're still reading, I assume you won't mind if I spend half-a-page more on a game that's brought up each time someone wants to make a "games are art" argument - Planescape: Torment.

Let's be honest, guys. PST was shit.

But-but-but-

You heard me. PST was the best book ever written in RPG form. But as a game, it was shit. It had some of the worst D&D mechanics of the IE era, mind-numbingly retarded combat that consisted of you and Morte auto-attacking zombies and bandits for the first ten hours of the game, and a campaign style that, absent the poor combat, was basically delivery quests.

Oh, sure, the dialogue was excellent. The in-game descriptions were masterful. The world was well-realized. The characters were wonderful. But the balance? The mechanics? The gameplay?

Poor, flawed, non-existent.

PST was an interactive novel.

And yet, we were able to look past all that. Look past the fact that PST was basically a bad (and at the time, buggy) game with a great story and characters. To see it as something more, something that we might compare to "art."

The nature of the industry has changed since then.

"You are operating under Alpha Protocol"

And now, I'm ready to write about Alpha Protocol. Because this is a long post, I will write it in two parts. The first part will focus on the gameplay and the technology behind AP. The second, on the plot, the graphics, the music, the characters, and the overall theme of my post.

Now, before I start, let me point out that I sank more time into this game than I've sank into any other RPG, as of late (hence the length of this post). I played Mass Effect 2 once. I played Dragon Age twice (but never finished the second play through). I didn't finish Storm of Zehir. I played MOTB once. NWN 2 once. ME 1 once.

I played Alpha Protocol three times, with countless reloads to see the different branches. My save files show that I've spent at least 30-40 hours on a 10-hour game. So, either I really like AP, or I'm a masochist. As I will explain, it is a combination of both.

Alpha Protocol is a game of moments. Great moments that make you admire the developers for their ambition. Terrible moments that make you froth in rage-induced furor. Between them, there is the long stretch of derivative gameplay that you might expect from a RPG-FPS hybrid, as AP is and as its engine (the ME 1 engine) was built to support.

"There are conflicts, and then there are wars."

As someone who has played many of the FPS and Stealth games that inspired AP's combat system, I can only say that Obsidian's implementation is ... well, flawed - but still relatively fun. That's right. I didn't hate AP's combat system. It wasn't that bad, despite all the imbalances, frustratingly bad camera angles, and obvious deficiencies (ie the lack of a stealth indicator - HELLO?)

The fact that you were able to tackle scenarios in different ways played in Obsidian's favor, here. AP is no Hit Man, but it's not ME 1, either. Whereas Bioware had gone with the safe-but-boring route of mindless set-piece battles that encouraged brute forcing through everything, Obsidian opted to emulate a style of combat (popularized, perhaps, by Deus Ex) that I consider much more ambitious and interesting. There was good synergy between this approach and the focus on C&C, as the traditional RPG approach of offering two solutions - one based on diplomacy, one based on combat - was supplemented further by the stealth and gadget options, which made the gameplay feel genuinely "player-driven." It was not infrequent for me to pause the game in order to think about how I should approach situation or scenario, given my options, and this is a testimony to good C&C.

"Darling, I do not play games. And apparently, neither do you..."

Since the combat system is tied to the character development system, I'll go ahead and mention this. First, make no mistake about it: AP has no sense of balance. Some abilities are genuinely better than others, and you won't necessarily realize this during your first play through. I'll quote myself on this:

First run-through: Max martial arts & stealth. Everything was easy peezy then I ran into Omen Deng. And then Brayko. I raged.

Second run-through: Max shotguns and assault rifles. Everything was easier peezier. Took down Brayko in what I thought was a pretty cool fight.

Third run-through: Max pistols. All bosses died in 1-2 hits. I was speechless.

Did anybody at Obsidian even bother to test Chain Shot?

Click to expand...

Having said that, some of the abilities in the game were honestly fun. Sure, Chain Shot was overpowered. Shadow Operative was ridiculous (from a realism point of view). Martial Arts was underdeveloped. Focused Aim was mostly useless. But despite all this, AP's character and combat systems felt like they had surprising depth - for a FPS-RPG hybrid - and this is something I didn't expect. I just recently played Bioshock 2 - a series praised for its gameplay, among other things - and I can say that I enjoyed AP's combat scenarios more than I did Bioshock 2's, or Bioshock 1's, for that matter. AP's core gameplay didn't bore me, and I could say this with confidence after three separate play throughs.

Now, what did bore me, over time, were the mini-games, but that's to be expected - when was the last time mini-games didn't becoming boring? At least Obsidian's mini-games were somewhat clever. And you could bypass them with EMP charges with a minor investment in Sabotage. Once I realized this, things became a lot less frustrating.

"You are here because of America's greed"

I liked the equipment system, which was modeled after ME 1's. After seeing how Bioware dumbed down ME 2, I'm glad that Obsidian didn't imitate the Canadians there. It felt good to equip Michael Thorton, because equipment clearly made a difference and I was often forced to control my own power gaming greed for the sake of the greater good at decision points.

Not much complaints here, and I especially liked the fact that characters responded to your choice of gear in dialogues.

"Can't have you showing up on the nightly news"

I will, however, complain about the camera angle. It seems that this is a perennial problem with Obsidian's games. The default camera angle in AP (ala ME, WoW) is not bad, but the game often screws it up when the camera gets occluded by one of the many obstacles you use to hide behind. Worse, sometimes the game flat out glitches and you're unable to face the direction you want to face. This is a serious problem when trying to use martial arts, as martial combat in AP is contact-based and you can't contact the enemy when you're not facing them.

Things like this make you wonder how much Q&A Obsidian really did on the final product. Clearly, not enough.

"So you're an intelligence analyst, huh? Found any? ... Intelligence, I mean."

The last part of this post will be about AI. Many people complained about the AI in AP, and they have good reasons to do so: the AI does some of the stupidest things, and often glitches out during path finding, resulting in hilarious situations where the AI would simply stand there while you took shots at them.

Having said that, I didn't find it to be too big of an issue because there's often enough opponents in any given encounter that their sheer numbers make them a challenge. And it's not like ME's AI was infinitely better. It was simply more polished, a theme that I shall return to.

So where's part 2?

Still writing it.

Ah. Cool review I agree with most of it so far.

Same, keep it coming.

Good review so far,

deleted the rest b/c I realised folks reading up from the bottom wouldn't see the spoiler warnings. Instead, just saying that there IS a non-combat solution for the end-fight, but you need to make the choice much earlier, and it turns massively on rep, what characters know about each other, what you know about characters, prior decisions and you trusting that by making a seemingly evil decision and a big sacrifice you might get an opening to still change things for the better.

Pretty cool review, I find it to be pretty similar to my own experiences with the game. Just one thing though -Bioshock a seires praised for it's gameplay? Not really. Everybody praises the art because they know that the game itself is mediocre at best.

Now waiting for part 2.

Excellent review. Look forward to Part 2.

Good post.

Azrael the cat said:

Good review so far,

deleted the rest b/c I realised folks reading up from the bottom wouldn't see the spoiler warnings. Instead, just saying that there IS a non-combat solution for the end-fight, but you need to make the choice much earlier, and it turns massively on rep, what characters know about each other, what you know about characters, prior decisions and you trusting that by making a seemingly evil decision and a big sacrifice you might get an opening to still change things for the better.

Click to expand...

Which end fight?

Azrael the cat said:

deleted the rest b/c I realised folks reading up from the bottom wouldn't see the spoiler warnings.

Click to expand...

there IS a non-combat solution for the end-fight, but you need to make the choice much earlier, and it turns massively on rep, what characters know about each other, what you know about characters, prior decisions and you trusting that by making a seemingly evil decision and a big sacrifice you might get an opening to still change things for the better.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a lot of very specific conditions; but that actually sounds like a pretty neat way for the plot to unfold.

Good post

One thing:

The fact that you were able to tackle scenarios in different ways played in Obsidian's favor, here

Click to expand...

Imo that's one of the biggest weaknesses of the game, that you CAN'T tackle scenarios (mission maps) in different ways. No multisolution paths. The only thing I remember where you could do something interesting was in the Taipei hotel mission. So where are the different scenarios? Or are you one of those who think being dropped silently on a wall as opposed to bulldozing thu the gates with a tank, while the whole mission stays the same after that, is a DRASTIC change?

This is like those things I was talking about except I didn't pass the Charisma check, apparently.

Repressed resentment aside, 'twas a good read thus far. Round it up!

Just beat Brayko a few minutes ago. Turn Up the Radio happens to be one of the only 80s rock songs I like, so the fight ended up being pretty enjoyable even though it took me three tries.

Oh, and nice review.

Looking forward to skyway's rebuttal of this interesting review.

ScottishMartialArts said:

Just beat Brayko a few minutes ago. Turn Up the Radio happens to be one of the only 80s rock songs I like, so the fight ended up being pretty enjoyable even though it took me three tries.

Oh, and nice review.

Click to expand...

I've been listening to that song daily after that boss fight. T'is damn catchy.

[quote="VentilatorOfDoom"
Imo that's one of the biggest weaknesses of the game, that you CAN'T tackle scenarios (mission maps) in different ways. No multisolution paths.[/quote]

Dunno, I like that you can do almost every mission by stealthing your way through or just making a bee-line for the next objective. The way you take care of enemies are also varied in my book : get past them, takes them down with surprise take-downs, go up and personal with your fist in their face, using a silenced weapon to get rid of them from a distance, using gadgets for traps, just using a good old fashioned gun, etc. Not a lot of side-paths, but there is one for every kind of play-through.

One thing; those old games are loved because they were progenitors of something, a beginning of ... something that didnt go on. Never evolved properly.
They still point forward saying "this is the way" with every feature, every good and bad thing in them.

Nobody thinks they are perfect.
They are great.

hiver said:

One thing; those old games are loved because they were progenitors of something, a beginning of ... something that didnt go on. Never evolved properly.
They still point forward saying "this is the way" with every feature, every good and bad thing in them.

Nobody thinks they are perfect.
They are great.

Click to expand...

I don't necessarily think it's that, either. I think it was simply that they were just really good games. They all had their flaws, and PS:T's combat is easily the most picked on. There was a cohesion to these games, though, that new games don't have (with few exceptions). Basically, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. PS:T had a really great story and really great characters, and while the combat sucked, at least your stats effected the gameplay significantly in dialogue. AP does not have nearly the charm of any of the old guard. And why did he finish it three times? Maybe because the game is only 10 hours long.

"The jacket... Messed up my jacket... Got all this blood on it." "With that color scheme? How can you tell?"

Ahh, graphics, the favorite topic that Codex does not want to talk about, but which is considered the first and most important criteria for a game's success in today's industry. How does AP stack up?

Well, one answer would be, as Mina Tang remarks about SIE's - the forty-year old German mercenary's - physical attraction, "maybe a few decades ago."

But the statement is deceptive, because SIE does not really look her age. And the same might be argued for AP - at least where the environments are concerned.



(It's not Michelangelo, but... Wait a minute.)

Considering that NWN 2 was designed for modding, and KOTOR was basically Bioware's (aged) tilesets, AP is the first real look we have of Obsidian's art team.

And to be honest, I was genuinely impressed - with the art decor in the safe houses, and the Rome environs in particular, but really, all the themes were done relatively well. The art team clearly has a good sense of aesthetics, even if they are not necessarily able to express it fully due to the ME engine. But then, most people do not bitch at WoW for not having "next-gen" graphics, and here I will do the same for AP. Is AP God of War 3? No. Do the graphics get the job done? Yes, and better, I'd argue, than many of Bioware's recent efforts, including Dragon Age, which was literally uninspiring.

Speaking of impressed, I was surprised by how much emotion Obsidian was able to squeeze into the characters by abusing the ME facial animations. The classic example of this is the character Sis, who is a mute in-game and therefore has no lines. Yet, she was very emotive (and very emo, but that's another topic) and you could understand her character through just her facial animations in the two encounters you have with her (on the Yacht and later, with Albatross). Sure, there's some facial exaggerations involved, here (part of that "anime" complaint I've seen thrown around by some), but considering that imitating subtle human emotions is difficult even for state-of-the-art graphics technology, I'd say it's a decent job by Obsidian's art team to make it work with the ME engine.



(Sure to become the Mission Vao of Alpha Protocol... There's already a Sis fan thread on the Obsidian forums; it's 11 pages long and the very first post suggests making her bang-able.)

If only we could've stopped here, I'd have given a thumbs up to AP's graphics. Unfortunately, there is something else to consider: the engine. And here, the verdict is not so good. Part of this is due to ME, but then again, Obsidian has a way of making modifications to engines that make them run worse than they did before. I had no issues with playing ME on relatively high settings. I do have issues playing AP on high settings, and literally had to demote myself to low settings in many key encounters because I wouldn't be able to aim, otherwise.

So, as usual, Obsidian's programming team falls somewhat... Short.

"Turn Up the Radio"

Music-wise, I'm honestly not qualified to comment much about the intricacies of Obsidian's choices, and TBH I was playing with sound turned low most of the times as the constant gun shots and explosions became annoying. I guess the music was never a distraction except in one case when two separate tracks became overlaid (I think it was in Brayko's mansion) and the whole thing became some mish-mash of 80s dance music with modern metal. That was ... Unpleasant.

You'll want to ask someone like nomask or Lyric Suite for a proper critique, preferably when they're not listening to Bach or agonizing about the decline of the white race

We now come to the three most important topics of this review, at least as far as the Codex might be concerned: characters, narrative, and C&C.

"I've read your Dossier"

Throughout its tenure, Obsidian has proven resistant to the criticism that their influence system is a failure, and in AP, their resistance is finally justified.

There are two aspects of AP's influence system that deserves mention. The first is how you gain and lose influence.

Here, Obsidian has done a commendable job. Granted, we already had inklings of how such a system might work in MOTB, where being nice to Gann or conservative to Kaelyn earned you their contempt rather than their loyalty. The same factors are at work in AP, where knowing a character - from reading their Dossier or from conversing with them - is key to manipulating their trust. And such manipulation is critical to getting what you want in AP, as it has real consequences for how characters respond to you and how the plot unfolds.



(Well, obviously no one is going to like you after you headslam them, but there's more to Grigori's trust than that.)

As for the second aspect... Remember Westridge? Remember how he said that getting people to like you is not necessarily a good thing? That sometimes, you want to infuriate people and make them dislike you in order to achieve the ends you desire?

Well, let's just say that it's true. There is at least one loose end in the game that is wrapped up by having a low influence with someone, and which many might desire. Of course, having positive influence with NPCs in AP is still generally the way to go, but it's good to see Obsidian use the influence system for what it's worth: as a way to manipulate people as opposed to just going through the motions to get additional content. And of course, the character system isn't just based on influence. Your previous exploits do factor into how characters respond to you, and there are so many potential combinations here that it makes me think it'll take quite a while before people figure out all the branches of this game.

"We're Kill Bill"



(One of the best characters in the game.)

But enough about the influence system. Let's talk about the characters themselves. First, for all of you who haven't played AP, the game isn't "party-based." You don't have parties in the game, nor do you have companions. Instead, what you have are handlers and contacts. Handlers are people who talk to you through your earphones during a mission, and who offer you advice, small talk, and some bonus stats depending on who they are. Contacts are people who can gain or lose influence with, and who you might interact with throughout the game for various reasons, but who are rarely if ever at your side.

Second, I've heard conflicting reports about who designed the actual characters in AP, so I'll assume that it was a team effort. TBH though, the dialogue has the mark of Chris Avellone all over it, especially if you get away from the idea that Chris Avellone = PST/KOTOR 2 = deep, philosophical writer and go back to his earlier works in Fallout 2, in which one of his trademarks was lots of modern day pop culture references. The same is true in AP: there are a lot of modern day pop culture references and, for a game like this, it fits.

What also fits is the dialogue - with the characterization. This is one of those things that Obsidian has generally been praised for, and rightly so. All the AP characters sound unique and believable, and Obsidian has a solid grasp of showing personalities and accents through dialogue. The voice actors must also be commended for their ability to realize each character, and I felt their portrayals were generally very solid, providing an overall experience that is close to being cinematic. Hell, I got nerd shivers from hearing Marburg speak: certainly one of the more memorable villains from recent RPGs.

As for the character designs, many of them are "bigger than life" caricatures more so than they are "realistic human beings." But that's a stylistic choice and I won't criticize Obsidian for making it - while it would've been nice to see more of Mitsoda's realism, I'm not dissatisfied with the existing corpus of "super spy" characters, since they're presented well and this genre isn't nearly as tired, setting-wise, as fantasy or sci-fi. Meaning that I don't care as much about the fact that there are some definite cliches in this game.

Having said that, not all the characters are developed as much as I would have liked. Mike himself receives plenty of development, but most of the other characters are static. This is a feature of the narrative - because it introduces so many characters in such a short time, and there's no real room for prolonged interaction, and therefore no real room for extended character development. People basically stay the way they were when you meet them, aside from changes in attitude towards the player character based on influence gains (or losses). They don't "develop" in the same way as, say, PST characters do - through epiphanies and self-realizations - and that's a shame but understandable. I will qualify this, however, by saying that most characters in AP are not what they seem, so the process of discovery still exists.

"Leland ... I'm going to kill you."

Narrative. The basis of any RPG that strives to be cinematic, and Alpha Protocol certainly strives to be cinematic. Narrative-wise, Obsidian has opted for a fairly unique approach to presenting the plot - as a series of flashback talks between you and Leland having to do with the events that led you to him. Effectively speaking, it's a way of structuring the story and the player's character growth. Through the talks with Leland, you are reminded of your own travails and the decisions that you made and the impacts that you had. It asks for your intentions, and these intentions affect the endings that you will receive. In general, it's a brilliant device that brings the player closer to his own character and the context of his actions.

But what about the actual plot? Is it anything to write home about?

Well, at a superficial level, no. You have your standard evil corporation manipulating world events, various hubs where said corporation is operating, and a fairly straight-forward story, overall. AP is not a game built on "twists," and though there are numerous twists in the story, the game never really tries to hide them - presuming that you're looking. It's not like Bioshock where the climatic twist stuns you and makes everything more meaningful. At its heart, AP has a cliche plot line.

But one of the things we've debated, off and on, for years on the Codex, is the trade-off between tight-knit plots that pigeonhole players into a particular role, and more open-ended stories that invite C&C. While the sequence of events that makeup AP is not exactly Oscar material, and realistically isn't even close to the back story of a game like PST, there is something to love about how AP builds an interesting world that is morally and experientially "subjective."

AP's narrative shines best when you consider the fact that you can construct a coherent experience for almost every one of the choices that you're capable of making. While you are rail-roaded into going after the missiles, the game does a surprisingly good job of chaining together the events in the actual order that you choose to tackle them, such that doing Moscow first, for example, has repercussions for what happens in Rome, and vice versa.

Which brings me to my next point.

"Your weapon is choice"

It sounds corny, but it's true. Alpha Protocol is about choice, even more so - surprisingly - than MOTB was. In fact, I'd be surprised if you could find a recent RPG that has as much C&C as Alpha Protocol does. Not only can you make choices in Alpha Protocol through specific decision points, but you can also make choices in Alpha Protocol through choosing what gear you wear to a discussion, what order you visit the various hubs (and sub-hubs), what your character's background is, what skills you have, what you tell people about your intentions... Even the smallest decisions can have significant impacts and the possible combinations is mind-boggling, even after so many reloads on my part.



(Choices and consequences... You know, it almost sounds like that game VD was talking about.)

This cannot be understated. There is a general trend in the industry towards giving the player more agency (and therefore having more C&C), but AP is clearly ahead of the curve. If not for an unfortunate fact, which I will describe below, I'd easily give the game a pass on C&C alone, because it is one of those games where, after playing it once, you get the sense that you haven't even seen half the real story. This is where masochism comes in - how many times can you stand going through the game, just so that your curiosity can be satisfied? For me, it was three times, and this was by no means comprehensive. I can probably play the game three more times, and still discover something new.

So what is the problem with C&C in AP? Simple. The dialogue system.



Whoever thought it was a great idea to have ambiguous "words" replace actual responses (read: Bioware) needs to look at AP for the disaster they've inspired. But then you can't place the whole blame on Bioware because Bioware had a dumbed down system whereby there were only three real responses - Paragon, Renegade, and "Neutral" - and you just had to figure out which was which. This was simplified by the fact that the Paragon, Renegade, and "Neutral" responses were usually at the same spots on the dialogue panel.

Not so with AP. In AP, you have a huge number of choices, and almost every one of them makes a difference. But instead of making the choices obvious, Obsidian opted for a system where you played guess-what-this-option-means with the user interface each time you made a choice.

Worse. They time you. And the time limit is such that you barely have enough time to digest what the NPC said before you actually make the decision. In short, not nearly long enough.

The end result: clusterfuck. I could see how a new player, unfamiliar with the game and dialogue systems in general, might make more unintentional choices than intentional ones solely because of this one bad mechanic that failed to get corrected during Q&A. If you're going to to have single-word options, at least have a tutorial or a manual or something that describes exactly what each option means in context. As for timers, while I can see how timers maybe appropriate in certain contexts, they add nothing to the experience most of the time. If it's simply a matter of maintaining cinematic flow, that's as simple as having the PLAYER determine how long he wants to stall the next animation.

But yeah, outside of this one glaring flaw, the game has great C&C. Too bad said glaring flaw actually makes it harder for you to see most of this great C&C.

"It's like the Alpha Alpha Protocol!"



(Steven Heck is one of the possible finale handlers. If you haven't gotten his ending, do it. He has something interesting to say about - well - Alpha Protocol.)

Alpha Protocol is Obsidian's new franchise. Most companies do not make franchises without intending to make at least some expansions, if not several sequels. But, you should never put the cart before the horse, or in this case, the setups for the expansion before the game itself.

What do I mean by this? Well, if you've played through the game, you should have realized that there are glaring loose ends, especially towards the finale. It should be no surprise to anyone now that Obsidian has trouble maintaining the same quality of experience throughout a game, and Alpha Protocol is no exception.

The first hour of the game was brilliant.

The next two hours, awesome.

The next five hours, above average.

The final two hours, lacking.

It is unfortunate, but Alpha Protocol does, indeed, have an anti-climax of sorts. Not because the main plot isn't resolved - it is - but because so many of the subplots go nowhere or aren't resolved to satisfaction, and characters, ideas, and concepts that have all the signs of becoming more than they are... Just don't.

Take Darcy, for example. There's obvious something more to him than meets the eye, and indeed you learn a lot of interesting things from his Dossier. But there is no way to interact with him - except by killing him as a matter of necessity - in the end. The design decision feels hamfisted, as if Obsidian ran out of time and/or funds and had to cut the subplot.

The same is true of Sis and Albatross. There's clearly something interesting going on, and the pendant Sis gives you (presuming you spare her life) almost begs for more development. But none of it is expanded on. Consequently, if you choose Albatross as your handler for the finale, the experience is exceedingly hollow and tacked on. You don't even get to have an extra person on the boat, as you do with SIE, Mina, and Heck.

Then there's Westridge. If you're like most players, you would be wondering WTH happened with Westridge, because he is one of the most important characters in the early parts of the game and yet doesn't show up at all if you've done everything "goody two-shoes" (he does show up, however, in other, alternate paths). But how does this make sense? Why would Westridge hide like a pussy when he's the director of Alpha Protocol? The game never hints at it. Again, there's the feeling that there was something that was supposed to be there but wasn't, and the holes left by its absence hasn't really been addressed.



(It ain't easy being the "wise black mentor figure," especially when you're absent most of the game. But at least he isn't the first to die.)

I said earlier that AP was a game of moments. As a matter of design, the ending moments of a game is the most important part of it, next to the beginning, because it leaves the final impression on the players and is the equivalent of the game's "reward." A good ending does not necessarily have to wrap up all loose-ends, but it should be more than a race to the finish. AP's ending is not as bad as, say, NWN 2's or KOTOR 2's, but it's not nearly as satisfying as PST's or even MOTB's. The emotional and thematic payoffs aren't there, partly because the "big reveal" happened so much earlier and there's nothing more to "show." A better idea might have been to keep at least one critical aspect of the plot - perhaps the fact that Alpha Protocol was Leland's puppet all along - secret until the final act. As it is, everything was completely obvious except for one character you might or might not care about, and so emotionally, the ending felt mediocre, and that's never a good way to promote future titles in the same franchise.

"How Video Killed the Radio Star"

And so we have come full circle. If there is one phrase that I would use to describe Alpha Protocol, and indeed all of Obsidian's games except for MOTB, it would be "unfulfilled potential." Don't get me wrong. AP is better than KOTOR 2 - it doesn't have an unfinished ending and it is a complete game, albeit weaker towards the end. But it still leaves you with the feeling that there was so much more that it could have been. In this respect, it does not fulfill the player's expectations, expectations that have been built up through the course of a strong beginning and an enticing middle, and which are disappointed by a lackluster end.

The same can be said for the game's mechanics. AP's gameplay mechanics are genuinely good, but are flawed by the fact that they are not good enough. Such flaws are painful precisely because they are obvious, and if you compare Obsidian's games with other AAA games on the market, that's precisely where their problems lie.

Most AAA games do not have obvious flaws - they have subtle, but fundamental flaws that have to do with lack of originality, character, and ambition. Obsidian's games, like Troika's, generally have originality, character, and/or ambition, but are marred by the lack of polish. All of their games leave you the impression that they could've used a year or two more in development, that this would've left the game a solid A instead of a B- or C+.

Undoubtedly, part of this has to do with the fact that Obsidian has to answer to its publishers and, given its track record, does not necessarily have the clout to do what Blizzard does (ie delay a game until it's finished). But to be perfectly honest, we can't excuse Obsidian for their role in this, because they've been given ample time to develop Alpha Protocol, so much so that the engine they're using became outdated in the course of development. And to drive my point home, let me show you two videos.

The first is the official trailer from back when Alpha Protocol had a release date of Summer 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBiy5hKt-V8

Now, what don't you recognize from the video? Better question, what do you recognize from the video? All I recognized were some characters. Everything else was different. Pre-rendered different, which meant that it was more of a showcase of what the game might look like than what it actually did look like. This was released in Februrary 2009 on youtube, something like six months before the game was originally set to be released. Why was Sega showing this kind of trailer six months before the game was set to be released?

The second is the official A Man Alone trailer from a year later:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6KQegTUzc

This is the game we recognize. Almost all the scenes in this trailer are, in fact, in the game. But let me ask you this: what does it make you think about the game that we were going to be treated to? In other words, what does this trailer have that the game doesn't have?

If you've followed my arguments so far, then the answer should be obvious.

Let me end this with a story. Back in the 1930s and 40s, there was a time in the US when radio was the dominant medium for entertainment and popular culture. At its height, as much as 82 out of every 100 Americans listened to radio, and its celebrities were some of the most influential in the country. This era was dubbed the golden age of radio.

But then came television, and with it, the visual revolution that would forever change the landscape of entertainment, and which would effectively replace radio as the most dominant medium of mass culture.

Some of the old radio celebrities were able to adjust to this new medium. Others, however, were not so lucky. In 1979, the Buggles produced an album that would forever immortalize this period of change. And they called it:

Why is this written like a gamer magazine article? I can't read it it's like aesthetic colonialism on my brain natives.

I like pretty pictures, and sometimes they fit the theme of the post...

You could make all the pictures disappear, though, by clicking on the quote button.

But if you're talking about the text structure, well, I'm sort of writing for a more console audience, here. Trying to avoid wall-of-text. Also, the paragraphs looked bigger in the text box

I liked reading this, my thanks. Just one issue I'd like to bring up though:

Not so with AP. In AP, you have a huge number of choices, and almost every one of them makes a difference. But instead of making the choices obvious, Obsidian opted for a system where you played guess-what-this-option-means with the user interface each time you made a choice.

Click to expand...

I figured out fairly quickly that regardless of what keywords appeared on screen, the tone would always be suave douchebag/aggressive/professional/action or dossier persuasion. So I really didn't have to think too much about which options I wanted to take. They probably should have been a bit more clear about it for people who aren't as keen in recognizing patterns (adding [Stance]?).