Alpha Protocol/YMMV

""So the other day I was putting Nasri into a human pyramid and one thing lead to another and he let slip some really juicy details about...""
 * Anti-Climax Boss: No matter which ending you get, the Final Boss is always a lot less tough than the previous bosses you faced as both potential opponents are something of a Glass Cannon.
 * Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In a Veteran playthrough, when Mike first speaks to Mina via PDA, the image of her face is briefly replaced by the gelato man.
 * Complete Monster:.
 * Hell, Mike can be a Complete Monster if you want...
 * Crazy Awesome:
 * Steven Heck; he invented his own form of insanity-based martial arts, he's an incoherent conspiracy theorist, and if you quote Timecube lore to him he thinks you're serious. And then there's the subway minigun driveby. It even says in his complete dossier that either he is the greatest CIA spook of all time, or he's a random guy who has turned into one of the best spies in the world through sheer power of crazy. But then there's that CIA mail about a 'rogue' seen in Taipei, and it's clear it's not about you. That leaves only one guy...
 * Brayko too to a lesser, ax crazier degree.
 * Add SIE to the mix, as she's a |Xenia Onatopp Expy.
 * Crosses the Line Twice:
 * Just about everything the Steven Heck does. Including torturing his employee to find out where he left his keys.
 * Intel e-mails you get from "investigators" assigned to Nasri, if you chose to arrest him:

"Mike: Hey, Darcy photoshopped our faces into a still-frame from a buddy-cop movie. That's... yeah."
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: Turn Up the Radio. The original planned music for that boss fight was The Final Countdown. Oh boy, What Could Have Been...
 * Cult Classic: Seems to be on a way towards becoming one.
 * Ear Worm: The Official Music Video.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Sis, SIE, Heck, Brayko... hell, half the cast. Credit where it's due, Alpha Protocol's writers really know how to make memorable characters.
 * Escapist Character: Mike Thorton, government agent, is a complete and utter badass no matter how you play him. He's dangerous regardless the path you take him down or what weapons you train him with, as even the most fragile and stealthy Norton can obliterate most of the game's challenge if built correctly. The game also lets you sleep with lots of attractive women, beat up dangerous criminals, and do it all while wearing a cool pair of shades to boot.
 * Fan-Preferred Couple: Mike/Sis is a very popular pairing. Of course, she's not even an option in the game itself.
 * Fashion Victim Villain:
 * Really, Leland? A yellow tie and yellow shirt with your business suit? Mike can even lampshade it (although not to his face, unfortunately).
 * Brayko and his 'gay cheetah' shirt. In one dialog option, Mike says it wasn't difficult creeping around Brayko's mansion because that jacket of his was so loud it distracted the guards. He doesn't even mind.
 * Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Sis and SIE.
 * Especially SIE, dear god SIE..
 * Foe Yay: A high approval from one of your enemies can lead to this. If you always play Thorton as an icy cold, robotic professional throughout the whole game, will be one of the people who will like and respect you more..
 * Game Breaker:
 * Upgraded flashbangs, especially against bosses. Its possible to take down Brayko in one long barrage of fire if you catch him with a flashbang before he snorts another round of his hyper-knife-killy cocaine. Also maxed out Chain Shot can bring down a boss' HP bar from max to almost zero.
 * Chain Shot is practically an "I Win" button; the basic version will just take out a couple of guys, letting you make kills easily and without being seen or thinning the crowd in a tense firefight. At higher levels, where you get up to six shots and plenty of time to mark them, Chain Shot will clear the room more efficiently and accurately than a rifle or shotgun. Combine with Brilliance, which resets your cooldown timers, and it goes from "bring a boss' HP to almost zero" to "the boss is dead before he fires his first shot."
 * Incendiary grenades are boss breakers. Watch as their auto-regen health tricks DON'T WORK! See them cower as all their life is taken away while you stand behind cover twiddling your thumbs! Observe their now total lack of armour!
 * Just about any of the skills can be this if they get maxed out. Maximum Toughness Mike loaded with the heaviest armor can take hits that would literally destroy tanks and not even slow down - and that's before triggering Iron Will. Maxed-out Martial Arts lets Mike take apart bosses in hand-to-hand without any sweat, up to and including cocaine-boosted Brayko. Maxed-out Stealth allows Mike to trigger Shadow Operative and sprint around for twenty seconds while invisible and allows him to one-shot guards. Even the Sabotage and Technical Aptitude sets offer some rather impressive benefits, ranging from boosting the effectiveness of gadgets to allowing Mike to dramatically improve his weapons, armor and medkits.
 * Not necessary maxed out, even. Level 13 Martial Arts Skill, the Point Blank Shot, while moderately useful in combating Mooks, can be used to end bossfight within seconds, provided that you can get in range for HTH. Against Omen Deng and Marburg it's certified perfect. The trick is, the shot is treated like end of the combo, so it lets you chain several combos together.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: AP predicts Deus Ex Human Revolution in letting you build your character however you like and then kicking your arse with compulsory bosses that you might lack the combat skills to handle.
 * Ho Yay:
 * Thorton and Darcy if you have good rep with him.


 * Also Mike and Heck.
 * There's also Mike and Marburg, if Mike goes out of his way to impress Marburg by acting as a Consummate Professional. It's helped that Marburg's background is Not So Different from Mike's, and the fact Marburg is implied to be Ambiguously Gay by Mike and Madison (since Mike questions the statues of naked men in Marburg's mansion, and Madison affirms that she never saw Marburg "entertaining" any female guests).
 * Magnificent Bastard:
 * , arguably. In one ending he.
 * Combine with Manipulative Bastard when you consider that Mike allowed Madison to die because he'd just found out that she is Alan Parker's daughter - note in the dossier that it specifically tells the player just how Parker would react if something bad happened to her. It's specifically urging the player to make sure Madison dies just so Mike has ammunition against Parker.
 * Memetic Badass: There's one or two theories on the official forum that the true architect of AP's plot is none other than....
 * Moral Event Horizon:
 * Michael never really crosses it but a lot of NPC's do. Most of his less White actions seem to be in the I Did What I Had to Do territory.
 * Nausea Fuel: Two words: Gelato Man. This guy is unsanitary, and his opening scene shows him walking from the freezer and rubbing a gelato stick he was just eating on his head. As much a Deadpan Snarker as Mike is, there's a reason he stated after seeing this: "That is at least seven health code violations right there".
 * His shop, though this is almost certainly just a method of deterring potentially suspicious customers, is awfully unsanitary. When Mike walks in, he states: "I think I got Salmonella by looking at this place." You, if you pay attention, can even notice flys in the background.
 * One-Scene Wonder: Hong Shi, the leader of the White Oak Mountain triad.
 * Paranoia Fuel: Mike can purchase mapping information from an online company called SecuritySift that provides complete layouts of mission areas. It starts to get worrying when it becomes apparent that these guys have maps of everything - they even know where automated machinegun turrets, security locks, and guard patrols are. And their prices are surprisingly cheap, implying that they're not sending agents out to actually scout, but simply have this information on hand. Just how much data does SecuritySift actually have?
 * Player Punch:.
 * Scrappy Mechanic: The hacking minigame, at least on a PC. Described by one GameFAQs poster as "A word hunt on heroin", it features confusing and unmappable controls, a headache-inducing interface, a very tight time limit and best of all triggers an alarm if you screw up. Threads abound across game forums complaining about this one, horrible minigame. The minigame to disable alarms (which you probably set off hacking) is an eyestrainer too, but at least can generally be completed within normal human reaction times.
 * That One Boss:
 * Many of them, but Marburg is one of the nastiest. For an sixty-five year-old man, he can royally kick your ass if you're not properly equipped for him.
 * That helicopter near the end with the one-hit-kill missiles.
 * Konstantine Brayko. If you don't, getting doped up will make him start to run around like a maniac, and stab you with his knife, all the while being Nigh Invulnerable.
 * That One Level: The helicopter at the endgame. Big time.
 * The Woobie:
 * Surprisingly, Deng. His Backstory is touching.
 * And of course, poor Wen... so much abuse laden upon the poor guy by Heck. Then again, Wen might deserve it. Heck did mention that Wen was NOT a stand up guy. Which may translate into: Tried to kill/sell me out.
 * Surprisingly, Deng. His Backstory is touching.
 * And of course, poor Wen... so much abuse laden upon the poor guy by Heck. Then again, Wen might deserve it. Heck did mention that Wen was NOT a stand up guy. Which may translate into: Tried to kill/sell me out.