Posted by: Jane Douglas

Around 120 hours of voice acting have been recorded to accompany the many choices, branching storylines and multiple endings of espionage RPG Alpha Protocol.
There are about seven possible endings, we are told. But each ending is made up of a number of portions, making for further variation.

You can choose to kill “almost every character” in the game said the developer demonstrating the game at Gamescom 2009. They can all return in the ending you achieve; “if they’re alive at the end of the game, they’ll be there”, he says.

Moscow missions
We were shown a couple of missions set in snowy Moscow, taking place about a third of the way into the game, kicking off in a hub-type safehouse. Each city visited will have such a safehouse: a place where you can customise your character, check your e-mails, buy and sell gear and weapons.

There are four classes of weapons in the game: pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns and rifles. There are multiple types in each class, plus stat-improving modifications and accessories (scopes, barrels, etc), giving that depth of customisation we expect from role-playing games. 

Besides the weaponry, players can equip different customisable armours for combat or stealth scenarios, and hand-pick their gadget load-out, with options including mines, remote mines, transmitters and a radio mimic (to make guards think the alarm you just set off was a false one).

You can buy intelligence on the black market for info about missions or characters – for advice on how best to talk to another character to get your way, for instance. 

Boat infiltration
In the first mission, we followed the player character, rogue agent Mike Thornton, as he infiltrated a boat to eliminate a target and steal some information. The Mike of the demo had been customised for tech and stealth, leading to a sneaky approach to the level, with a silent lethal takedown of the target character.

Tech abilities make hacking easier (carried out via a BioShock-like minigame) and allows for the unlocking of certain abilities on weapons – such as chain shot, a slow motion ability.

Another ability called overclock increases the range of an explosive. In the boss fight at the end of the boat missions, Mike took down Sis, a punky-looking mute teenager, with such an explosive.

Dialogue system
The player then (attempts to) speaks with Sis and is eventually offered the option to spare or execute the girl, demonstrating the dynamic dialogue system at the heart of the game’s many-branched decision tree. Dialogue options (such as ‘threaten’, ‘investigate’, ‘apologetic’ and ‘headslam’*) are offered up as a conversation progresses.

Choosing to spare the girl, as in our demo, sets up how the next mission – an all-dialogue mission, in effect an interactive cutscene starring Sis’ boss – plays out. Other dialogue options will also offer perks and experience points, as well as forming allies and shaping how other characters perceive you.

The take-away? Alpha Protocol thinks dialogue is pretty important – all 120 hours of it.

*For if you don’t feel chatty, presumably.