When several people from the editorial office of Gamery at the same time sat down at the same time Alpha Protocol , We noticed a curious tendency: whoever starts playing it, the first reaction was almost always deeply disgusted. “Abomptor” is one of the few censorship epithets that awarded the game. Complained about the schedule, about the animation, about the overloaded interface – about all.
But what is surprising: if the same people found the strength to continue passing, then after a few days their attitude towards the game changed, sometimes – on the diametrically opposite. Back on Monday, Maxim Yeremeyev muttered displeasedly under his breath “Some kind of garbage”, and already on Wednesday he walked around all the rooms and told everyone he meets about what a cool game, this Alpha Protocol. About the same at different times, Alexei Moiseev and George Kurgan were engaged at different times. In the following text, we will try to find out how this could happen.
Alfa-Antterror
Just in case, we recall that Alpha Protocol is a spy action movie (the main sources of inspiration – Bondiana Jan Fleming and the book of Robert Ladlam), which works on the engine and mechanics Mass Effect. The plot at first causes easy bewilderment. Secret Agent Michael Thornton, devoted to the US government and his own employer (a wild spy office, which is just called Alpha Protocol), begins his own crusade against the system, trying to confront selfish corporations, terrorists and all intelligence power at once. His work methods look eccentrically even by the standards of James Bond: Thornton, who is declared hunting, calmly flies away from under the nose of intelligence on an ordinary plane, while cute Vorky on board with a famous journalist, using the staff of Alfa Protokol, who is binding with him right from his workplace, and is sitting in the conspiratorial apartments of the very organization that at that moment is looking for him around the world with pitchfork and torches.
Thornton's work style on the ground also raises a number of questions. It seems, based on the specifics of the profession, he is supposed to be quietly sneaking up to enemies, eliminate them without noise and dust, after which, having read a short epitaph, bury them in the nearest container with dirty laundry. But the operative of it, frankly, is bad. Compared to Sam Fisher and a bald agent 047, Michael has nothing to boast. He does not need to shoot bulbs, hang under the ceiling, remove the bodies and change into someone else's clothes, he cannot spy in the keyhole, he does not even have a night vision. Cartridges with a tranquilizer, special devices that allow you to attract enemies with sound or put a false signal about the abolition of anxiety, light -noise and electromagnetic grenades – this is almost the entire set of gadgets. Remember the elegant combinations that we cramped in Hitman , where a bunch of different ways could be approached with the same goal? Forget this in Alpha Protocol. On many (but not all!) there are workarounds, but, as a rule, they are too obvious. To get directly into the enemy’s house or use a sniper rifle in the building opposite, go to a frontal attack or reprogram turrets so that they shoot their owners, quietly bypass the enemy who occupied the easel machine gun and go down his back on the cable – here it is considered the height of ingenuity.
Well, if you decide to go out to enemies with a shotgun at the ready (the benefit of the developers do not object), the problems will begin completely different: getting on someone inhumanly difficult, while enemies behave defiantly inadequately-they may stand as if they are dug, start to rush from the corner in the corner the angle, for some reason, climb onto the stairs or completely disappear after loading the next sow … there are plenty of bugs in Alpha Protocol. The shelter system also works with interruptions, and sometimes it does not work at all.
Finally, in the game, clearly outdated graphics with dirty textures and godly animation (the main character sneaks with the kind, as if a radiculite grabbed it) and an uncomfortable, overloaded interface – even to change the type of cartridges, each time you have to go into the inventory.
Alfa-rays
To get acquainted with these unpleasant features, the very 4-5 -5-year-old Alpha Protocol. But as soon as you understand what is really happening in the game, a wonderful transformation happens. Let Michael Thornton have no opportunity to change clothes as an asserment or use ultraviolet radiation, but he has something more important – freedom of choice and freedom of speech. The hero can penetrate the guarded object, simply having stooped the guards and thereby Richy Fox Casino avoiding unnecessary victims. But these are trifles compared to those global decisions that he has to make every five minutes. We can complete the first secret operation in three different ways: to arrest the Arabian dealer weapon, let him leave in order to then follow him and go to the recipients of missiles, or just shoot it in cold blood. In the latter case, we may lose a trace, but guaranteed to save a hundred or two lives: after all, the death of the merchant will block the supply of weapons to terrorists.
And so at every step. Execute the leader of the terrorists, as the authorities asks, or agree to listen to him, spare him and then even accept help from him? Coldly shoot a lobbying girl who just shot at you, or leave her alive, getting the opportunity to learn more about her? Prevent a terrorist attack in the museum or sacrifice dozens of lives in order to save a familiar girl that you pulled into a spy mess? To freak out and shoot (this option is generally available in almost every dialogue) of a suspicious ice cream, who pulled his hands under the table, or show composure and make sure that he just wanted to offer you Eskimo?
Most of these decisions have to be made rapidly. The latter only at first glance copy Mass Effect. The dialog system in Alpha Protocol is more realistic than the one that BioWare. The choice of any replica is always (and not in chosen places, as in Me 2) given a limited supply of time – it is impossible to guess endlessly here, which is better to say. As in life, decisions should be made on the go, in a couple of seconds, pondering your answer (or rather, the direction of the conversation – as in Mass Effect) before the interlocutor finishes the thought. And there will be no return back: after each fateful dialogue, a checkpoint is made that erases the previous one. That is, the authors deliberately force us not to play, but to live events in the game. And if you re-play any situations, then do it from the very beginning. Each of the dozens (if not hundreds) of the decisions you have taken leads both to local consequences (the saved person can then come to the rescue, and information about your negotiating style will quickly become known to everyone), and global, affecting the final of history.
Against the backdrop of every minute moral dilemmas, at first the seemingly ridiculous plot begins to be perceived in a completely different way: it turns into your personal drama, the history of your elections and your own mistakes. What turns out to be the decision to save President Taiwan, and not to prevent mass riots at rallies? That the agent will throw out the next day, whose dossier you refused to erase. You wait for something all the time, but nothing can be predicted. Dozens of characters are spinning around, whose life and fate depend only on the solutions of the player. Thornton collects a dossier on all, flirts with someone, is blackmailing, he sacrifices someone … And every act, every word forms the attitude of this or that character to him: it can fall to an open hostility or grow into real friendship. The game vigilantly monitors you and on the basis of the decisions made is the psychological portrait of your version of Michael Thornton – most likely it will be very difficult because there are no only true decisions here.
Alfa-male
At some point, the real enlightenment comes-for this it is enough to devote a little time to the role system and well figure it out. As in any normal RPG, Alpha Protocol has a character generation and pumping. Having received a new level, Thornton can develop his skills in ownership of different types of weapons and his own fists, in the ability to use various spy gadgets or, for example, secretly move. At a certain level of development of the branch, active abilities are revealed that can be used in battle: for example, temporary invisibility or the ability to mark two opponents in the Slub mode and shoot them at the same time. All this, in fact, replaces magic from classic fantasy-rpg. In addition, almost every solution and the action of the hero will sooner or later give him a bonus to characteristics (just the same psychological portrait – in Alpha Protocol your moral choice is measured by completely understandable numbers): they inflicted critical damage from the gun 50 times – get +1 to accuracy. , left the life of a terrorist – the return on their beloved weapons will decrease … Even our reputation in various characters is reflected in the development of Thornton. And friendship with an agent girl who helps at tasks will inspire the hero and give him a bonus to armor.
And also, as in any normal RPG, you constantly have to think about money: before each mission in the black market you can buy weapons and equipment, as well as a bunch of modifications for them.
All this allows you to flexibly develop a character, but you still have to choose his specialization – this, relatively speaking, can be a spy that relies on stealth, engineer and gadget affairs, a master or fighter who relies on an open battle. Accordingly, the game allows you to solve the same situations in different ways: you can crawl the entire level on karachi, quietly removing the guards and hacking security systems yourself during complex mini-games, you can arrange a total genocide, shooting from the thigh in full growth, or throw all deafening grenades, and open computers with special gadgets. After some time, you even get used to the dubious system of shelters, and when it is possible to pump the skill on the possession of some kind of small arms to a sufficient level, the character will smell less often and will be able to conduct aimed fire.
The answer to the question that we promised to reveal at the beginning of the article sounds like this: Alpha Protocol is a role -playing game. Its main drawback is that at the first launch, it may seem to you an action or, good, stealth game. This is not true. Both are present in the game in the larval stage, and if the developers replaced the view from the third person with an isometric perspective, no one would have noticed. Of course, the “Mass Effect effect” played a role – the second part of the epic cosague BioWare set new standards in the genre “Role -playing with firearms”, and the Obsidian project, of course, is not a competitor. But if you perceive this game as a classic RPG, it turns out that even a crooked stealth and a hackneyed combat system with shelters is quite enough to enjoy what is happening. Because the pleasure here is not in dressing or shooting, but in looking for a cache with money and new upgrades at the levels of cache, in pumping invisibility and perfectly to remove patrols without noise and gam or, conversely, turn the hero into a terminator with his unique abilities.
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Scolding Alpha Protocol, for some reason everyone forgets who are Obsidian Entertainment. Throughout their lives, these people knew how to make only role-playing games, but they often succeeded in them better than BioWare showmen. Therefore, it is quite logical that, even having received technology in the hands of the similar Mass Effect, Obsidian did not come up with anything better than making another classic role -playing game on their basis. You expected from Alpha Protocol, stealth, spectacular hand -to -hand fighting? Forget, you have to go to other games for this, but here everything is bad. But if from the phrase “The most non -linear role -playing game in the world” your pupils expand and the pulse quickens – you definitely will not be mistaken with the choice.
P.S. Taking this opportunity, we want to remind you that in the latest history of the video game there was already a case similar to Alpha Protocol. This game was called Vampire : The Masquarade – Bloodlines. In 2004, former employees of Black Isle Studio, united Troika Games , released a role-playing game in a modern setting and with action elements (just a mystical coincidence!), which turned out to be chic in everything related to the plot, dialogues and characters, but at the same time cripple people with a disgusting combat system and graphics. The game became cult, but financially failed and pulled to the bottom of the authors Arcanum. We hope that Obsidian Entertainment will be able to avoid such a fate.
Reigracy – Yes
Cool plot – Yes
Originality – Yes
Easy to master – No
Evidence of expectations: 70%
Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 6
Sound and music: 7
Interface and management: 6
Waited? Role-playing game with rudimentary action and stealth elements, which is saved by the prohibitive level of non-linearity of dialogs. However, if you were waiting for a full -fledged spy militant, you clearly came to the wrong.
Mania rating: 7.5
"Fine"
