Delisted from digital storefronts in 2019 due to the expiry of music licensing, Alpha Protocol is being made available again thanks to the work of GOG. It’s now been relisted and available to purchase on their store.
Alpha Protocol was first released in 2010, where it gained a cult following. Reception by the press was less warm, however. Writing for Destructoid at the time, James Stephanie Sterling went as far as giving the game a 2. Ouch. Despite this, I played it, and while it has its issues, I still look back at it fondly.
It definitely has a myriad of problems. Like many of the era’s Obsidian games, it had more bugs than bones. The narrative, while simple at its core, was heavily choice-driven and would branch in all directions. In that way, it was over-ambitious and tied its own noose. A great many people were able to look past these issues and found a game that reaches to extend the era’s hallmarks to more impactful ends. It’s classic Obsidian: painfully broken and deceptively brilliant.
I’ve had some hands-on time with GOG’s build, and I can give you all the details on it. On the whole, it is largely just a re-release of the 2010 PC version. So much so, that it even recognized my old save games from the Steam version, still buried in the cavernous depths of my secondary hard drive, which I should definitely replace before it dies.
However, some of the smaller details have changed. First, GOG did relicense the soundtrack, so none of the music has changed or been removed. They also added standardized gamepad support, so anything from Dualsense to Switch Pro Controllers now function as they should. That’s a good thing because while I like my mouse and keyboard setup for most shooters, Alpha Protocol clearly wasn’t designed for it.
They’ve also gone to work trying to clean up as many bugs as they could before release. That’s not to say that it’s not still a buggy game. It still feels like it could rattle apart at any moment, and like alt+tabbing it might cause a brain hemorrhage. I noticed texture problems and caught a brief glimpse of some T-posing. Hopefully, you won’t run into anything too bad, but all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Alpha Protocol together again.
GOG has also gone to the work of localizing the text for other regions, and added achievements for GOG Galaxy, which were previously only on console.
I was so happy to hear Alpha Protocol was returning, even if I could just boot up my Steam version at any time. Despite what review scores may suggest, it’s definitely a title worth playing. Portions of it are still burned into my memory. Such as the Gelato Man sequence featuring Jim Cummings.
When I played it back closer to release, I went in with the intention of romancing every character I could. Near the end, I chose to let one of the romance options kill another to avoid having an awkward discovery potentially spoil the ending. Using murder-by-proxy to hide my infidelities gave me pause, so I turned to a friend to give me moral guidance.
I asked, “What does that say about me as a person?”
He replied, “That you’re a problem solver.”
Not many games can lead to a magical moment like that.
Alpha Protocol is available now on PC via GOG.
