Alpha Protocol - The Bourne Mission

In an impossible situation, I'm about to betray my government to save its people. Left for dead in Saudi Arabia because I uncovered an evil corporation's plot that would threaten peace everywhere, I went rogue and put my life on the line to stop it. Fortunately, not many people know about my existence. Part of my agency hunts me because I know a secret that would bring a lot of greedy people down. To keep in line with the character persona I chose, I came to the conclusion that it would be best to continue my mission and try to stop the bad guys. This is already starting to feel like a Bourne movie.

It's quite funny, I think, that the game gets better as your character gets stronger. You won't get to use your skills only to bypass the obstacles put in by the level designers, but also against the buggier features of the title. The pistol with its silencer becomes really strong when used by a stealthy operative. As you put ability points in it, you can shoot accurately from behind cover without popping out, making stealth at once a viable option.

Put your money in a stealth-focused armor and you can sneak up effectively on your enemies and take them out without making a sound. I still haven't completed a level without starting an alarm or being detected, but I believe that this will indeed be possible toward the end, as my skills will be better. This is truly an old-school role-playing game

Story-wise, I'm traveling around the world, doing missions and meeting with people who can help. I decided not to do one city at a time, but I wanted to know how missions would influence each other if I did them in no particular order. I can already see two or three replays I'd be interested in doing. Considering that I rarely replay games I've finished, I would count that as a big plus for Alpha Protocol.

What is nice is that I really don't know who to trust, even after reading their file. I want to be the good guy, but it is really hard because of all the moral ambiguity the game surrounds you with, which does imitate quite well the shadowy world of espionage that we usually imagine. I'll be back next week with more about this difficult and very satisfying journey.