Review:
Alpha Protocol

Spy games fall into two categories. The stealth mechanics either work (Metal Gear Solid) or they fail miserably (any Bond game after GoldenEye). This fusion of RPG-style levelling-up and sneaking around has a lot to offer fans of stealth, but it comes at the cost of having to bear with the game.

Michael Thorton is a new member of elite super-black-ops squad Alpha Protocol, an organisation that carries out missions without the official say-so from the US government. On his debut mission to retrieve missiles from a terrorist organisation in Saudi Arabia, Thorton is the only person on earth shocked to find that he is attacked, screwed over and left for dead by his agency.

Naturally, it then becomes time to go on the run and do conduct similarly illegal operations as a rogue agent in order to bring down the agency and mysterious weapons contractors Halbech. The only real question is; who can you trust?

Alpha Protocol is a game that tries its best to do something new and exciting and so nearly succeeds at it. It’s like a child painting a picture with their food and proudly showing it off – you can’t help but think they were on to something great here but failed in the execution. It’s real shame because it’s such a likeable game.

Essentially, all the missions boil down to the same thing. You attempt to sneak into a facility and, depending on how you want to play the game, stealth your way through or murder everyone who gets in your way. Despite the different mission briefings, they all feels strangely similar.

In between hiding/ gunning, you can do other things, like hack computers (by matching two lines of code on a screen of moving numbers), bypassing keypads (by lighting up wires in order) and lock picking (by gently squeezing the shoulder triggers). You’ll be doing these three things a hell of a lot and, while they’re not very difficult, the only one that requires any real skill is picking locks. Squeezing those triggers under pressure is genuinely unnerving, which makes the other two puzzles seem a little limp by comparison. Fail any of them and the alarm goes off, bringing swarms of guards and guns rushing straight at your face.