Alpha Protocol's rift - A mystery

A few days after Alpha Protocol's release, a lot of us are still shocked about all the bad reviews it got in the good old USA, which forced people like me or these other Spanish guys to hastily defend the game even before we were done with it. The game has been received warmly elsewhere and players all over the world love it, as I showed at the end of my full review, so why all that hate?


Vlad Andrici tries to study this phenomenon in this article, trying to check all the facts and find an explanation, but it still doesn't make any sense. What is going on? Now, I hate to turn too paranoid, but I've come to think that there are some reasons that don't have anything to do with the quality of the game. First, as Andrice points out,


I've noticed for a long time that many magazines/review sites tend to overlook some pretty noticeable problems that certain games coming from big-ass publishers and developers have, while the "not so hyped" games tend to be hammered for the same issues.


That is so true! If a GTA or a Metal Gear Solid game is released, it automatically gets top marks. Yes, it's a completely populist attitude but it's not going to go away soon (most players actually go crazy if they don't get those unrealistic reviews, anyway). But some game must be seen in a negative light so it doesn't look like reviewers love just everything. And it looks like it's Alpha Protocol's turn.


Also, I hate to turn to ideological explanations, which always look crazy no matter how you present them, but I'm really starting to think that American reviewers are not OK with having a company called "Halbach" (a dead ringer for Halliburton) as the bad guys in Alpha Protocol's story, while the head of the effing islamic terrorists is depicted as a man of his word. Blasphemy!

But I don't know what to think. Thankfully, this game was released a bit earlier in Europe, so when bad reviews started to drip from the US, a lot of people already knew that the game was much better than what they were being told. And you can influence someone to not buy a game, as in this case, but it's different if you are already playing the game... and enjoying it.

I hope this whole thing is not disastrous for Obsidian. As far as I'm concerned, they have delivered the goods with their latest game. If my review didn't convince you yet, I'm telling you again: Alpha Protocol has great writing, and decent gameplay, so if you love RPGs, you should definitely try it.

And speaking of good writing, I really enjoyed this in-depth article by Chris Breault about how important writing is, and about the way careless scripting can ruin the whole experience, using Splinter Cell: Conviction as an example of how bad a game can be because of that. You should read it!

BONUS: Someone sent me this article which says that core gamers are male and casual gamers are female. Well, SuperViv, JR and I are both things at once, and we are not hermaphrodites! Or, at least, I wasn't the last time I checked. Let me have a look again...