Alpha Protocol is a single-player role-playing game focusing on international espionage. In this third-person tactical shooter, players take on the role of Michael Thorton, a character who can be good, bad or just the guy with the gun. As Agent Thorton, players begin by investigating an act of terrorism only to find that the rabbit hole is much deeper than anyone suspected.

However, as a role-playing game, Alpha Protocol stumbles in several key areas. First and foremost, while players can alter Thorton’s appearance by selecting from a few hairstyles, types of glasses and so on, they cannot switch gender, change his name or customize the character in any number of common ways such as height, weight, build, etc.

Second, the developers set the game in a contemporary world, yet the player can only purchase weapons from arms manufacturers such as Rittergruppen, Samael and Hamilton. If those names don’t sound familiar, don’t worry – those manufacturers don’t exist. These two elements, perhaps more than any others, make the world of Alpha Protocol seem implausible and make it difficult for gamers to suspend disbelief.

For the most part, Alpha Protocol plays much like Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 or, to a much lesser extent, Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2. The weapons upgrades, ammunition types and advancing through levels while moving from cover to cover seem very reminiscent of Mass Effect.

Likewise, levels in Alpha Protocol will eventually close off, preventing access to previous stages, much as Mass Effect 2 did. Like Rainbow Six Vegas, players can only carry two weapons at one time and a range of devices to help them in their missions. Players who enjoyed those games might find Alpha Protocol enjoyable despite its flaws, provided it’s a rental or relatively inexpensive. Unlike those games, Alpha Protocol typically has Mike operating alone, although a handful of missions can include support from NPCs.

However, Alpha Protocol presents some significant accessibility challenges.

Accessibility Issues / Concerns

First and foremost, gamers with use of only one hand or with motor function concerns will likely find Alpha Protocol difficult. As one key example, bosses are heavily armored and move rapidly, taking cover and quickly rushing and attacking the player. Some weapon’s abilities allow a limited form of automatic targeting, but it’s brief and not especially effective, meaning that players generally have to manually target enemies who use flanking tactics, throw grenades and take cover. Likewise, upgrades can make weapons more stable, but don’t necessarily offer a significant improvement.

Furthermore, Alpha Protocol emphasizes stealth, which includes controlling the pressure put on the left stick for movement to avoid alerting enemies to a player’s presence and avoiding security cameras. For players, this translates into precise movements to avoid being detected and triggering alarms and quick reactions.

Then there are the mini-games, which are also a concern for gamers with blue-yellow color blindness. There are three separate mini-games – hacking, lockpicking and bypassing security panels.

Hacking requires a player to identify two static, constant character strings in a grid of rapidly shifting characters, then moving an identical block of text over them and pressing either the left or right trigger.

Lockpicking will likely be more challenging – players must hold a trigger down and adjust the pressure on the trigger to move a tumbler up or down. Once the tumbler is within a small range, the player presses the other trigger to set the tumbler and then moves onto the next tumbler. The tumblers are outlined in yellow and successfully set tumblers are displayed in blue. A lock icon turns yellow when the tumbler is within range, potentially presenting another challenge to gamers with a form of color blindness.

Finally, the bypass mini-game involves following a circuit to a number which indicates the order to select the circuits. The circuits twist and wind, and are all yellow.

All of these mini-games are timed, and usually give players 30 seconds or less to solve them. Again, players can purchase items in-game to help them, but these items don’t necessarily offer a significant improvement.

As noted above, gamers with blue-yellow color blindness may experience difficulties. Gamers with red-green color blindness will likely experience difficulties with alarms. When a player trips an alarm, sirens begin to sound, a flashing icon appears in the upper right corner of the screen, and terminals which allow players to disable the alarms turn red. However, when no alarm is active, those terminals are green. Gamers with red-green color blindness should also be aware that item upgrades which yield an improvement display that value in green. Furthermore, if a player has NPC support, those NPCs are shown with a green arrow when an ability called Awareness is active, while enemies who are on alert are shown with a red arrow.

Deaf gamers will likely experience some challenges with Alpha Protocol. While subtitles do not appear to be enabled by default, players can enable subtitles before beginning the game. It is worth noting that, even if subtitles are enabled, some cinematics and cut-scenes do not have subtitles. The most problematic aspect of Alpha Protocol for deaf gamers is the lack of audio cues. Enemies effectively have three modes – unaware of the player’s presence, wary and looking, or on full alert and hostile. In the first case, players may hear some ambient chatter. In the second, enemies may be talking about looking for the player. In the third example, enemies are often shouting for reinforcements and activating alarms. Although there is a flashing indicator for alarms, deaf gamers do not see text making them aware of the alarm. Likewise, enemy dialogue generally isn’t subtitled.

Most dialogue (called stances in this game) is embedded in cinematics. Players will usually press the X, Y or B button to select a stance, although the game occasionally uses the A button. These dialogue options are timed, meaning that if a player does not select a different dialogue option, the game will typically use the most recently selected stance. Cinematics cannot be paused and at some points, the game will make players walk through more than one cinematic at a time.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Alpha Protocol, particularly considering that it’s a role-playing game, is its use of a checkpoint save system. Players can save at any time, but that save will return them to the last checkpoint when resuming a game. In addition, when reloading a checkpoint or resuming a gaming session, it is not uncommon for enemies to respawn, meaning that players may have to retrace their steps and deal with enemies they have already dealt with.

At A Glance

Precision: Recommend rating of 1 out of 10.
Mini-games are timed and must be solved to advance through the game. Players must manually target enemies with very limited target lock. Most enemies seek cover and bosses can be exceptionally difficult to defeat due to rapid movements and targeting. Significant dexterity is required.

Deaf Gamers: Recommend rating of 5 out of 10.
Alarms are not closed-captioned, and enemy dialogue when looking for the player generally isn’t subtitled. It is still possible to play this game, although deaf players will be at a disadvantage.

One-handed: Recommend rating of 1 out of 10.
Mini-games are timed and must be solved to advance through the game. Players must manually target enemies with very limited target lock. Most enemies seek cover and bosses can be exceptionally difficult to defeat due to rapid movements and targeting. Significant dexterity is required.

Subtitled: Recommend rating of 5 out of 10.
Subtitles are in a sans serif font and are fairly easy to read. Alarms are not closed-captioned, and enemy dialogue when looking for the player generally isn’t subtitled. It is still possible to play this game, although deaf players will be at a disadvantage.

Color Blind: Recommend rating of 5 out of 10.
Gamers with blue-yellow color blindness will likely experience challenges with the game. Gamers with red-green color blindness will likely have challenges with alarms, since terminals to disable alarms turn red when an alarm is active and green when no alarm is active. Item upgrade improvements are also displayed in green.

Checkpoint / Save System: Recommend rating of 3 out of 10.
Alpha Protocol uses a checkpoint system. Loading a save game will return players to the last checkpoint saved, regardless of progress.