Alpha Protocol/Awesome

"Mike:"
 * A lot, but what about
 * The entire, in fact, can become one if you side with Albatross in Moscow, as Few games have ever allowed the player to feel like as much of a Magnificent Bastard as you do when you play that sequence right.
 * Especially if you make it seem as if your other allies, i.e. Heck, Hong Shi, SIE, etc. are the ones Thorton thinks will come save him; Leland responds to them with mockery, but he has no idea  Thorton can also
 * Sparing Shaheed then killing him near the end.
 * The entire battle against Brayko. He's almost That One Boss, except that the music playing while fighting him is so freaking awesome.
 * If Thorton has a low approval with Madison, she'll  Watch it here.
 * In the finale, when, Mike's response is so crushing that it stuns him into silence.
 * In the finale, when, Mike's response is so crushing that it stuns him into silence.

"Marburg: I will end you, Thorton."
 * Completing the game on a Pacifist Run, without using lethal force. Think about it. Mike Thorton, alone, with limited support, is betrayed, cut off, and forced to fight police, mercenaries, terrorists, Deus Vult agents, G22 operatives, Triads and Russian gangsters, the Chinese Secret Police, CIA agents, and  all armed to the teeth and willing to kill him. He stops terrorists, brings down arms dealers, puts a halt to assassinations and riots, gets captured and escapes again, and generally wages a one-man war that ends with (potentially) the , the destruction or exposure of  , or  . And he did all of this without killing anyone.
 * Though the game still says  died, even if you shot him with tranquilizer darts.
 * Allergic reaction to the tranquilizer. Not much could be done there.
 * Well given that
 * That, or Darcy might have fallen from inside the top of the tower to the bottom past the stairs, thus breaking his neck.
 * Also, Darcy did keep chucking grenades at Mike so we can assume he's got explosives on hand. An ill timed knockout round could easily lead to Darcy falling out cold and letting go of live explosives....
 * Taken extra further when you are sent on the mission to take out the Triad defectors and you use nonlethal force on them. Despite only knocking all of the Triads out, you're still treated as having succeeded in the mission, apparently because you made the Triads return to Hong's fold by terrifying them with the fact that you could have used lethal force on them but apparently just knocked them all out to prove a point.
 * Mike's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Marburg in Rome. Pull it off correctly, and Marbug's reaction is classic.


 * The "Thorton, Inc." ending. After spending the entire game as the Unwitting Pawn of Alpha Protocol and Halbech, Mike finally turns the tables on them, and it is glorious. Mike then delivers a Bond One-Liner and heads to Leland's luxury yacht, where he (and possibly the Love Interest of the player's choice) rides off into the sunset with Pleasure Club's "Cops and Criminals" playing in the background. All of this is doubly awesome if you were playing the game after giving Mike the Recruit background, since that means Michael Thorton has -- purely by virtue of the player's own skills as a Manipulative Bastard -- gone from a rookie CIA agent fresh out of training to, all in the space of three months.