2011.5: Alpha Protocol

Time took to complete: 15hours (but i think i left it open once when i went downstairs lol...so take a couple hours off, still very good story length)

One of the best option based systems I have ever seen. Actually what am I saying, it's definitely THE best. The game takes on your choices subtly using many calculations so the effect of 'grey area' is created pretty much perfectly. And when I say choices, I just mean how you respond to people in casual interactions. The only time the choice is as obvious as A and B is things like weather to make a deal happen or to execute someone and even in these set choices, you don't know the consequences.
Basically what it comes down to is the game makes you act like you and lets you deal with it.

The story is great as well and so is being an agent of however you want to be (Stealth/ action/ tech) and the only thing letting the game down from "perfection" for me is the design of the game and the gameplay itself. The gameplay is not bad but is what I can only describe as 'stiff' and it does become a bit repetitive.
The design of the game is pretty much established after the first few missions (it doesn't throw anything new at you) and you just do pretty much the exact same things in different environments, so unfortunately that's a huge let-down.
Luckily the story will probably keep you going.

So it's a bit of a weird game this. First paragraph makes it a 9/10 game whilst second paragraph makes it around a 4/10 game.
Combine the two, you get a game where you wish the 2nd paragraph was a bit better so you could have one of the best games this gen but alas, we don't live in a perfect world, so unfortunately:

7/10.

If I was a rich publisher, my money would go into Alpha Protocol 2 and I would give these guys as much elbow room as possible to let them go wild, as they've got the right idea but unfortunately, from what I remember, "the suits" during the production of this game effed it up, although I'm sure it wasn't all their fault.

It's funny as well how you see the game go down in quality later on. I started getting weird subtitles, it would say "checkpoint reached" 3 times in a row in the bottom left (instead of changing the message to "new email" or whatever) and weird things like before going into a cutscene my character would float for a second before the loading begins etc.
Shows you how rushed they were.

Anyway, I'm gonna shut up now it's just I am kinda of annoyed because this is one of the saddest games ever tbh as far as potential being there but not being able to reach it.