AP: If you're new to the game, here are useful tips.

[Art Blade]

Updated: 27 September 2010

First of all, there is no "wrong" way of playing ALPHA Protocol. You can do what you like, and whatever you do will unlock stuff and reward you with different perks. Don't be afraid to test stuff.

The game really starts to shine when you immerse yourself in the story which means please do yourself a favour and read dossiers, try to gather as many bits and pieces (intel) as possible. It is most likely that you won't get the full picture in a single playthrough. Try different ways so you'll see, read and hear different things. Also recommendable: Once you've played through, try different professions because some dialogue will refer to your chosen profession (e.g. play as Field Agent even if you don't like the prefab special skills, you can go change them just the same as if choosing freelancer) and to get another different playthrough, first play as rookie (very challenging plus special rookie options) to unlock veteran (much more relaxing plus special veteran options) -- you see, plenty of opportunities for replays :)

As of 27 Sept 2010: I played through around 10 times, including various ways after reloading the same savegame. I strongly recommend you play "nice" (and stealthy if possible) at least once, perhaps the first time through (making friends, avoid kills when possible by using non-lethal means such as martial arts, shock traps and tranquiliser rounds with your pistol) and if possible gather as much intel as possible. The game is so much more rewarding when playing nice, the perks, equipment (weapons, upgrades etc), help from other characters, missions as well as dialogue options are so much better that way.

You should manually save as often as possible though, you know, just in case..  ;)

* * *

1) Controls

First thing: from within menus (including mini games) use the Right Mouse Button to exit / go back one level. That is a lot quicker than anything else.

Menus etc: When you have to select something, like an answer during a conversation or an item at the clearinghouse or what beard you want to wear, everything that has that sort of interface works both with mouse and keyboard. I found out that those menus w@&k best if you navigate up and down with your mousewheel and conversations best with your keyboard. And especially when you're facing a menu where to the left you'll see items to pick and down at the bottom in the middle something like "buy" or "equip" -- click on the bottom (i.e. "buy") rather than on the items themselves, it registers a lot quicker. To move up and down in a list, the mousewheel works nicely and helps prevent confusion: if instead you click on the left sometimes you'll have something else selected, that doesn't happen if you go up/down with the wheel and select with the button down in the middle.

During fights or recon, don't forget to use "V" which will change/toggle your camera angle, placing the camera left or right from your centre, which makes looking or shooting a lot easier when you're hiding close to a wall ("shooting around the corner").


2) Tutorial. When you start the game, you'll have to talk with Mina Tang for the first time over your PDA. If you use the lower left option (suave) for the first few (I believe two) replies, you'll be rewarded with a perk (a message pops up down left of the screen) called "suave" that will reduce cooldown timers for all your abilities (skills) and that might come in rather handy later on in the game. :) If you reply with professional attitude, there will be a different perk.. you see, it already starts.. it's all about choices and decisions :)

After making it out of the medical station you'll be allowed to meet with Westridge. Instead, make sure you do the different orientations (tutorial) because you'll receive several rewards per course if you do them and, they're fun. So don't run to Westridge straight on without having done those. Again, don't miss any of them (I did once, hehe) -- there are three orientation courses:

• Weapons orientation
• Gadgets orientation
• Espionage orientation

Make sure you achieve good results for each one, like "(well) above average" so you'll be rewarded with better guns and a silencer already during orientation (albeit only available after the tutorial), and after doing them well you'll be offered bonus missions. Those will unlock perks which will make the game easier. For example, the Gadgets orientation bonus mission will earn you some extra 20,000 cash (rather than starting with only like 2,500). During weapons orientation, better take your time aiming - the chance of critical hits will score a lot higher than the time you spent for the course. If you want to get a good total stats for the entire game, don't choose to do redo an orientation course (even if you get better results, the stats will add up in your total stats) -- instead reload the last checkpoint. You did manually save then, didn't you? ;)


3) Communication

Especially conversations but also email replies and certain actions (kill or let live) will influence how people treat you. The easiest way to get through the game is if you please everyone (going through phases like neutral, liked, trusted, friend) because they will support you and make your life easier. Just find out how characters respond to a certain stance (aggressive, suave, professional) and stick to that whenever you talk to them. Variations may be good or bad, regarding gaining positive karma points with people.

For instance, Westridge responds very pleased to "aggressive" but he also quite likes "professional."


4) Intel

The clearinghouse (basically your arms dealer and intel broker) offers intel before almost each mission. Buying that intel in general is a good idea.  Always check your emails, even if no new emails are announced there will be new emails sometimes without informing you (which the game usually does).

You should consider buying intel especially when you're being offered intel regarding security. Those security bits may reduce the difficulty level of minigames such as lockpicking, computer hacking and disabling alarms.

Intel on factions is more of tactical use, you'll learn for example what kind of combat and weapons your enemy prefers.

Intel on people may help during conversations, resulting in an extra option (next to aggressive, suave and professional) and that may extend the converstation which may result in certain boni like help for an upcoming mission. Also, a complete dossier on a major character (opponent, like Marburg) will get you an advantage in case you have to fight him/her.

Intel on support can be various things, from fewer and less trained enemies to a sniper rifle prepared and waiting for you to use if you are so inclined.


5) Skills/Abilities

After the orientation and the upcoming Middle East mission, you'll be asked to specialise, meaning three skills of your choice will be upgradeable to level 15, compared to level 10 for all remaining skills.

Even if you can't buy upgrades, click them so you'll be able to read what they're good for in case you're considering upgrading that particular skill branch. Good thing: whatever skills you had spent APs on, when it comes to specialisation, you can undo previously spent APs and re-distribute those on skills you thought would have been better than what you actually had chosen.

Whatever you do, consider upgrading and perhaps specialising the PISTOL branch because that is the only weapon which can be equipped with a silencer and only the pistol can fire tranquiliser rounds (you'll have to play at least two missions where it is recommendable not to kill everybody, the pistol being silent and shooting tranquiliser rounds is the ideal weapon for that, but you could try your luck throwing shock trap gadgets or using martial arts. Martial arts generally incapacitates enemies without killing them unless you purposely use a special kill move).


6) Missions

After the Middle East you can switch between Taipei, Moscow and Rome whenever you like. You don't need to play any of those missions in a specific order.

Each of those towns starts with three missions, one of them will be about meeting someone. There will be more meetings later on, and usually the person you're going to meet for the first time will unlock new items in your clearinghouse (weapons dealer). So it is a good idea to first travel between those towns and meet those people so you'll have a better choice for your loadout.

Some missions will be about gathering intel (like, planting a bug so you'll be able to read secret emails from a listening post). It is a good idea to do those intel missions as soon as possible so you may benefit from new sources before starting any other mission.


7) Clearinghouses

After a mission you'll most likely receive new emails and sometimes new items are available at the clearinghouse. The game saves first and then presents you with those new items, so whatever you do won't be saved (like, when customising weapons and armour or purchasing intel or replying to emails) unless you start a new mission. Well, we know that we can only save a game at checkpoints or clearinghouses. So if you want to save those changes you just made, travel to a different city where you'll automatically end up in a clearinghouse.. and the changes you made get saved :) On top, you'll get to read replies to your own sent emails there right now rather than having to wait to return to a clearinghouse after having played a new mission at the old location :) Then you can either take on a mission at the new location or just travel back to where you came from. That's how you can trick the system.  ;)


8) oops. "8 )" even.  Sniper Rifles and mounted guns

Some missions require you to use a sniper rifle or you may use them optionally, sometimes there are mounted guns for you to use if you like. At least on my PC the mouse speed is insane whenever I use one of those. The simplest way to properly use those weapons is to adjust your mouse speed in windows or, like in my case, hardware: My mouse has buttons to adjust its speed. The game doesn't bug out if you use ALT-TAB to get to your windows desktop if you want to adjust your mouse speed for just those parts of missions and then re-adjust your mouse speed again to what it was before.


9) Collectibles (ammo, intel, money, upgrades)

Due to the linear level design you can't go back and check if you forgot anything. So make sure you take your time and search every room etc before you advance. Some items are hard to spot, especially when they are placed on a shelf between other random stuff. Easiest way to find them is to move along walls keeping an eye out for popup messages that will tell you on screen when you're close enough to pick them up. It's more likely to see that message than the item itself. The location of items will always be the same, but the item itself may be different (random upgrades) so sometimes it might be a good idea to reload a savegame if you want to pick up an item you don't already possess. Careful with checkpoints, avoid them until you've thorougly searched the area, then hit a checkpoint to save your status and items.


10) Rookie and Veteran careers

You need to play through as a rookie first so you can unlock the veteran career. The rookie career may start off a little more difficult than regular careers (no APs to spend, to begin with) but allows you to use rookie-specific conversation options which is fun.

The veteran career starts off with 3 APs in every skill category plus allows you to benefit from the veteran conversation options. Those are cool and may even influence missions (I played one mission that otherwise forces you to decide which way to go, the veteran option opened up both ways in the same mission (kind of double mission). Really cool :) Especially cool: Those 3 APs on every skill branch at the start (worth 180 points, if I'm not mistaken) are at your disposal when it comes to specialise after the Middle East campaign. Now you can re-distribute those to your liking.. whoa! You can catapult your skills through the roof, makes maximising easy. You will enjoy that :)


11) different other professions/careers

If you'd like to play a specific type like Field Agent but don't like the prefab skills, don't worry: Select Field Agent and then.. change the skills to your likings (same as Freelancer). Different professions will result in occasional references to your profession during some conversations, for a change (good if you've played the game through already). Something that does have a more significant effect is the loadout you'll get when starting with different professions, the Field Agent career lets you start out with a rather stealthy armour, other professions have similar effects (different loadouts plus dialogue references). When it comes to specialisation, like "Spy," you cannot change the prefab special skills -- you'll have to select "Operative" if you want to freely choose which skills to specialise in (three skill branches are capped at 15, all other skills at 10 max).


12) use of upgrades and skills before or during a mission

It is recommendable to think about and perhaps change your loadout before you take on a mission. You can't change your weapons, nor gadgets, nor your armour suit during a mission but you are allowed to change upgrades. Simple example: You have a pistol equipped with a noisy "perfected rifling" upgrade and would like to use your "Silencer Mk3" instead. Hit "i" (inventory) and change it :) Same goes for your armour suit's upgrades. Also, you can preselect which skill and gadget you'll have to your immediate disposal ("q" and "e" buttons). That may be useful if you know what's going to happen after the next checkpoint (obviously you'll have to play it first, so this is for your next playthrough or if you decide to play the mission again from an earlier savegame), so choose your quick access gadget and skill before the game saves at the next checkpoint -- this will make your life a lot easier if you have to reload a savegame after that checkpoint. One more thing. Once you've acquired one or two ammo pouches (extends the capacity of how many rounds you can carry) and enter a mission with those equipped, the mission will allow you to keep that amount of ammo even if you replace those pouches with different upgrades after the mission started. Speaking of multiple armour suit upgrades that deal with the same effect, like 2x ammo capacity upgrades, those do add up. Like, if you have multiple upgrades that make you less visible, more than one will make you even less visible and so on. So don't throw old weak gear away, keep it, and stack it :)


13) a few bugs

• The mission "prevent Surkov's escape" (once available, after Brakyo's mansion mission) may disappear if you leave Moscow before taking on that mission. So better do both missions in a row.
• At the beginning of the Endgame, once you've equipped your gear, your endurance may be too low. Just hit "i" (inventory) and close it again -- then you'll get your real (higher) amount of endurance back.
• Although it happens very seldom, if you're stuck for some reason (like, in a wall) try martial arts moves (if available, a jump or by keeping E pressed a roundhouse kick) which may free you, sometimes opening/closing the inventory helps.. try all that stuff and only if that fails, reload.

14) deactivating an alarm panel

• hack it
• use an EMP gadget
• much simpler, cheaper, and quicker: JUST SHOOT IT  (destroy it) ;D

[Art Blade]

I don't know how often I renamed and edited this topic, but now I'm finished with the main post. It is supposed to help you really enjoying the game. Have fun :)

[PZ]

Very nicely done  :-X

[Art Blade]

Thanks :)

In case anyone has anything to add that may help new players, you're most welcome to post your tips here.

[Art Blade]

just added the rookie/veteran career info. The game is so cool  :) :-X I need to add that to the rating.

[Art Blade]

added some more details.. now you should be able to make the best of it  :)

[Art Blade]

The more I read the first post, the more little details spring to my mind which I add, and a few details needed correction (rephrasing some stuff and making it more precise).

I do hope that you'll enjoy the game with those little tips :)

[PZ]

Very nicely detailed  :-X

[Art Blade]

Thank you :)

That's all from my own experience with the game, after many playthroughs and various side-trackings (from savegames). It's about how I prepare my own game and missions and things I do, which makes a difference compared to the first playthrough not knowing about all that.

But I bet your (anybody's) first playthrough will be so challenging (all those impressions and being new to all that) that even if you had read this topic you won't remember all of it (or don't care about it) ;D But I also bet that in case you play through more than once, you'll start to do things mentioned in this topic  ;D

[PZ]

Typically, if a game significantly captures my fancy, I do tend to play it repeatedly - just like I can repeatedly watch the same movie.  ;)

[Art Blade]

you and me both  :)

[Art Blade]

found some more tips (added one to #13) and new: #14 which is just priceless  ^+-+

[Art Blade]

added some more info to the intel gathering and especially to the rookie/veteran option.

Hehe :)

[Art Blade]

Maybe, if you think it's not really grabbing you, I believe it's not the story which I think is great. The choices you can make during conversations and regarding your own actions are almost limitless.

So I'd think it's the difficulty of choosing the right ability/skill branch, gathering AP points to spend on the skills, and last but not least the equipment which is at times extremely expensive.

If you had the skills you like maxed out and the gear available at your disposal, you'd be quite likely enjoying the game a lot more.


That's when cheating money and AP points (modified ini files) come in handy. The game itself won't suffer much from that sort of cheating because you'd still have to make choices, a lot of choices, and get to see quite a bit of the game. You'd still be vulnerable but you'd be in a better position to avoid damage to yourself and to dish out quite a lot to your opponents  :)

[Art Blade]

I'm about to finish my -- what, ninth? -- playthrough, this time being mean and evil and all that. Compared to other playthroughs I can only come to one conclusion: The experience isn't half as good as if playing logically and "nice." If you play nice, gain friends, help, intel, more weapons, more intel, more options, even more missions.. it really pays off and plays best on a friendly basis and avoiding kills (use non-lethal means instead) and so on also rewards you with far better perks.

So, play nice first so you see more and get more out of the game :)

[Art Blade]

Actually I added that ("play nice and stealthy") to the first post. It is a significant difference in gameplay when you at least once play that way.

I can compare it with various different approaches. After that you may want to know the difference and play a bit rougher here and there, but the more violent and ignorant you play, the less rewards and boni you'll get. It also means that you'll deprive yourself of different missions -- they'll simply not be available if you killed or massively annoyed people who'd else have "offered" those missions. And then, about as important, you won't get the best equipment. It was still possible to play through even killing virtually every opponent there was (instead of sparing them) but man, the game became kind of dull. I think it's not far from reality: No friends, no fun.  :)

[PZ]

I'm about to finish my -- what, ninth? -- playthrough, this time being mean and evil and all that...

Wow - 9 plays through is such a short time  :-X

[Art Blade]

yeah, but I played it for hours every day (well, if I wasn't out with friends or in the office) so it might take quite a bit longer if you can't afford to play often and for quite some time non-stop.  :)

[PZ]

That's my problem - these days there is so little time to game (for any length of time) that I sometimes even have forgotten which keys/buttons/sticks to use.  :-()

I haven't played on the console in probably two weeks, with one funny exception.  I fired up AC2 after not playing for a long time, had forgotten my controller functions, and promptly got my a$$ whooped by a large group of brutes as I fumbled with the controls.  :-()

[Art Blade]

 :)

[Art Blade]

I've meant to do this some time earlier, well ;)

Just an info, not really a tip, but still..

When you've just finished the game and the credits start to roll, don't click them away. A few seconds into the credits a news report (audio) will start (the pics shown along with it are always the same).

The news report sums up your entire game, how it influenced the outcome of global and local politics etc. It's a nice touch to the game, really :)

[PZ]

That is a nice touch  :-X