Alpha Protocol

Rating: M

Score: 6.0/10

Video gaming usually involves very direct confrontations; few games have strayed from the well-known paths and into espionage gameplay. Very few games have RPG elements on the side with that espionage sandwich. For some reason, game designers never tried to actually have gamer input in their espionage games. Maybe the game designers are too scared of the results, but we're not talking about any typical game company for Alpha Protocol, we're talking about Sega. Sega, the previously huge company in video game consoles and known for the gaming god that was Sonic The Hedgehog, but had a fall from grace driven by their cockiness. They're crazy enough to try an espionage RPG - they were crazy enough to have a hedgehog find love interest in a 14 (or so) year old in Sonic The Hedgehog (2006 version), and crazy enough to have one of their most popular characters use guns and make the decision to find humanity, so this is only another step closer to the end of a cliff. This game is available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the PC.

The story is quick and simple: You're a mercenary and there's stuff for you to kill/sabotage/hack. There's a little bit more, but the story is dull enough to just become a blur anyways. None of the characters are particularly gripping, besides your own that is, and that's only visually. The story changes to your decision in-dialogue. It almost works, until the sudden realization hits that all its doing is affecting the story, and not your interest in any of the characters.

The story isn't the only thing you customize. You can buy, customize, and use different weapons, equipment, and armor before a mission. Most everything has pros and cons. A grip may offer stability, but may do less damage per bullet, or make your gun louder, or something similar. Equipment can be anything from First Aid Kits to hand grenades to EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) grenades. Considering you can equip most anything, you can enter some...abnormal situations-infiltrating an enemy base in bright travellers outfit wielding nothing but shotguns for instance. Not something most people can picture Spies wearing or using. Try and picture the next James Bond sneaking into the enemy base in a sky-blue Hawaiian T-Shirt and rainbow-colored shorts, his only weapon a rocket launcher. It's just overall an odd picture.

The gameplay is espionage..some of the time. Every now and again, a technical bug will show itself and you'll usually not even know if it's the game breaking or if it's just poorly programmed. Enemies alerted by nothing, enemies that I walked around in a small circle in plain sight, and no one got alerted, enemies gathering around a flaming car waiting for it to explode and kill them all, enemies splitting in half, among other peculiar incidents. On a brighter note, when the game does works the espionage is great.

It's not to say it's a terrible game, but more so incomplete. The game has it's (albeit not extremely impressive) high points, but there's a dozen bugs crawling over the surface. The story isn't terribly interesting in the same sense a normal novel would be, but more so that a make-your-own-adventure would be. Sega has tried some ambitious stuff, especially nowadays since their best video game character is still only riding on "hope of a better tomorrow", but all the ambition in the world doesn't make enough bug spray for this game.