Video-gamers know about heartbreak.
You finally get your hands on that game you've been hearing about for years. You dive in and ... well, sure, the beginning's a little slow, but it'll heat up. But as you dig further in, it slowly dawns on you that the more you play, the worse it gets. And in just a few hours, excitement turns to despair -- not just over the $60 you wasted, but also the idea that something so promising could turn out to be so worthless.
Last year, "Brutal Legend" nearly destroyed my faith in everything I thought I liked about games. Earlier this year, my Twitter feed exploded with the howls of angry "Final Fantasy" fans who felt betrayed by the radical changes in that series' latest installment.
The failure of "Alpha Protocol" (Sega, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, $59.99) is nearly as crushing. It combines two of my favorite genres -- role-playing game and spy thriller -- and the developers at Obsidian Entertainment have contributed to some of the best-loved RPGs of the last 20 years.
What could go wrong? Nearly everything.
The titular Alpha Protocol is one of those top-secret government agencies that takes on the jobs that are too hot for anyone else to handle. Its current goal is the assassination of a Middle Eastern terrorist, and the agent on the case is a cocky recruit named Michael Thorton. You can adjust some of Thorton's traits at the start -- you can make him a gunslinger or a tech expert, or give him a beard and glasses -- but he's essentially a charmless creep.
You'd think contemporary spy craft would put a premium on stealth, but most of the missions in "Alpha Protocol" devolve into mindless shooting. That might be tolerable if the shootouts were well-executed; instead, they're bogged down...
Posted: 2010-06-04 15:18:54
