Alpha Protocol



""The only thing I can say for sure, Mike; this business will change you.""

- Yancy Westridge to Mike Thorton

The year is 2010. Worldwide political tensions are at a breaking point when a commercial airliner is shot down by a U.S. missile over the Middle East, killing all aboard. The U.S. government claims no involvement, and dispatches Agent Michael Thorton to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

As the first modern-day spy role-playing game, Alpha Protocol offers unprecedented control over the development of Thorton's abilities and his interactions with other characters. Upgrade skills such as physical combat, weapons mastery and cutting-edge technology as you grow in experience and complete missions. Also noteworthy for having an immensely branching storyline; pretty much every single choice and many of your conversation options can result in completely different events or endings.

The dominant themes of the game are issues of both deception and betrayal. Treachery is common, as expected in a spy and espionage thriller, and there are lies upon lies and wheels within wheels. Everyone has secrets, and everyone's agenda is suspect. Finding who to trust and who is manipulating the player is a major part of the game's storyline.

One of the more interesting features of the game is its perk system. You get rewarded with perks that boost your stats slightly for your actions during the game... regardless of what those actions are. That's right, you can get perks for doing virtually anything, which means that the game does not overly reward or punish the player for making specific gameplay or plot choices. There's no "good" or "bad", just results.

The game received mixed reviews -- while its innovative story and dialogue systems were widely praised, some found fault with its gameplay, graphics and/or lack of polish. Sales were soft enough that Sega has no plans to release a sequel. However, Obsidian have expressed tentative interest in making a sequel or Spiritual Successor so who knows? Received a jolt of new life in the fall of 2011 after a Steam sale sold the $20 game at a mere $2.

"Marburg: Of all the... What next?"
 * Aborted Arc: never comes up again after Mike shows it to Albatross. Although intentional, in general, G22's objectives are never explained. It's implied that they're, but that doesn't explain what they're doing now, nor why they're doing it, beyond a general "fighting against Halbech" objective.
 * The Locket is a representation of Saint George. In the tale of Saint George and the dragon, a King (Albatross) unwillingly offers his daughter (Sis) to a dragon only for her to be saved by Saint George. Depending on whether he kills or saves Sis, Michael could either be the dragon or the saint.
 * The meeting with Albatross in Moscow hints that they're interested in preserving the status quo, or at very least have a vested interest in preventing.
 * The game never explains the mysteries behind the NSA agent in Rome; he is clueless to the passphrase and rather gullible if you attempt to play your cards right (implying he is an Unwitting Pawn), but later conversations with Marburg and Leland if you kill the agent ("You added an NSA agent to your bodycount in Rome") confirm that he was one (perhaps unwilling, or perhaps the passphrase simply hadn't reached the agent at that time).
 * There is a lot of extra reading you can do in the game with emails you get forwarded from Mina, email systems you can hack in some levels, and dossier intel that is left (presumably intentionally) ambiguous and to try to flesh out the game's realism with the espionage community.
 * Above Good and Evil: A gameplay version of this-- there are no "right" or "wrong" choices to make, so to speak. Play non-lethally, act politely, act like a jerk, get caught a lot, be stealthy, bang every woman you can or abstain-- nearly every action you take has some minor or major gameplay perk that pops up during the course of your game.
 * Acceptable Breaks From Reality:
 * Okay, so technically, a pistol shouldn't be able to do any damage against a Stryker assault vehicle, but there are a finite number of missile launchers on the map during its boss fight, so...
 * That's what the respawning explosive grenades are there for.
 * Action Girl: SIE, Mina Tang, Sis.
 * Affably Evil:
 * Conrad Marburg up to his.
 * Subverted with Omen Deng, in the sense that.
 * Ali Shahed as well. He's so affable, you almost forget that he blew up a passenger plane full of innocents.
 * Sergei Surkov is a remarkably nice guy for an ex-KGB agent who.
 * For all his politeness and friendly demeanor, Hong Shi did.
 * AKA-47: Played straight. For instance, a gun that clearly looks like a Glock is a 5.7mm pistol manufactured by "Rittergruppen". What looks like a FN Five-Seven is a 9mm pistol instead, manufactured by "Samael". And those two are only the beginning.
 * Always Save the Girl:
 * Invoked and brutally deconstructed by.
 * The player himself can leave to die if he so chooses. Goes even further with  who you can even execute yourself.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Conrad Marburg. During the mission where you have to check out his villa, Thorton sees a pair of golden statues of naked (male) Greco-Roman athletes. Thorton is slightly disturbed by the implication. If you bring Madison as your handler, she remarks that she's "never seen Marburg entertain any female guests." The statues are fairly common in Art Deco neo-classicism, but compounded with that comment...
 * And This Is For:.
 * And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: Mike's trophies of his various adventures (many of which are specific to his choices) pop up in his room after missions.
 * Anti-Hero: Michael Thorton can be played as this, as the game offers a lot of choice in character development..
 * Anyone Can Die: Though very very few deaths are plot-mandatory, play your cards right (or wrong, depending on your point of view), and the only people from the character page left alive at the end will be.
 * Arab Oil Sheikh: Ali Shaheed.
 * Arms Dealer: Omar Nasri, responsible for selling stockpiles of Russian weapons to anyone who is willing to pay. The game has several other arms dealers as well, although they're mostly contacted anonymous through an Internet-based sales hub.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Execution, imprisonment, possibly another lecture from Westridge..."
 * Ax Crazy:
 * Konstantin Brayko: crazy, loves his knife, obsessed with 80's American pop-culture, etc.
 * Steven Heck is pretty loopy too. Fortunately, he's somewhat controllable. At one point in Taipei, Mike says "If I do this, we'll have to shoot our way out." At which point the only response is a little burst of crazy laughter from him. Earlier in the same mission, if one tells him not to kill anybody, he looks like he's about to cry for a few seconds.
 * EVERYONE in the active part of VCI. One of the requirements for joining VCI is "dishonorable discharge from army". Special mention goes to SIE, who could best be described as a German, female, middle-aged Duke Nukem.
 * Back Stab: If you sneak up behind an enemy, you can either kill or knock them out instantly with the press of the proper button.
 * Badass: Thorton. So you say you've just started working with and been separated from your agency on a dangerous mission in some Third World country? Well, it seems you'll have to work on your own, and bring all those terrorists down.
 * Badass Adorable: Sis, a small, slender, cute, purple-haired, mute young girl who apparently went to the River Tam School Of Waif Fu.
 * Badass Grandpa: Conrad Marburg was a black ops field agent for 20 years. Now he's chief of operations of a mercenary gang composed of veteran soldiers. To keep himself in shape, he runs ten miles a day. He can punch the crap out of you like nobody else in the game.
 * Badass Longcoat: Omen Deng. Secret Police hardcase extraordinaire, and extremely dapper. He's even smart enough to delicately remove his coat before getting down to some serious violence.
 * Cool Shades: Thorton if you so choose. SIE too who might also fall under Testosterone Poisoning.
 * Bad Boss: Heck may be one for poor Wen.
 * Battle Theme Music: Brayko's favourite 80's anthem. Prepare to hear it many times.
 * Bee-Bee Gun: Steven Heck suggests this as an interrogation technique ("The God Damn Bees").
 * Berserk Button:
 * Do not, under any circumstances, call Steven Heck "Steve".
 * Watch out if he can't find his keys.
 * And he hates sweets.
 * The fastest way to lower Mina Tang's opinion of you is to injure civilians. Or U.S. citizens.
 * Killing Marburg's men. He will literally charge and beat the crap out of you. "My men... YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!"
 * BFG: SIE's personal weapon is a light machine gun, and she has no qualms about shooting it. A lot. Mike, on the other hand, doesn't get anything bigger than an assault rifle, though he can commandeer turret-mounted MGs, rocket launchers and sniper rifles.
 * Big Bad: . At the start of the endgame, he offers Mike a job. Unusually for a videogame, you can accept the offer, and he actually helps you out instead of pulling an obligatory new-betrayal.
 * Bilingual Bonus: The yacht in one of Moscow's missions is named "Pobeda" (victory in Russian) with first two letters dropped out, leaving "Beda" (trouble or disaster in Russian). This is reference to the ship from cult Russian cartoon "Captain Vrungel's adventures".
 * Black and Gray Morality: Halbech are bad guys. Alpha Protocol . None of your allies are saints either, and the only one who isn't using you and doesn't betray you if you play him right is . That said, some characters are less evil than others.
 * Blackmail: When you get data on Halbech's misdeeds, the most profitable use of it is to politely ask a Halbech executive to pay up in exchange for not blowing the evidence wide open.
 * Book Ends: . Also,.
 * Boss Arena Idiocy: Both fights against armored vehicles take place in areas where someone has helpfully left a bunch of shoulder-mounted missiles lying around.
 * Boss Banter: Pretty much all the bosses indulge in this to some extent.
 * Bottomless Magazines: Under normal circumstances, you don't want to waste too many bullets, but the special attack power for the submachineguns is "Bullet Storm", which gives you infinite ammo for a short period of time (and then you have to reload as normal afterwards).
 * Brand X: Trundling Rock magazine on the table near the door in Michael's Rome safehouse.
 * Bullet Time:
 * Played with: the Chain Shot slows down time so you can plan several shots, and Mike executes them, in order, and very quickly, when time goes back to normal. All with flawless accuracy too: this has its perks in certain boss fights, since headshots do lots of damage, and drilling six pistol rounds into someone's head is a very effective way to kill them. All the other weapon skills (Focused Aim, Bullet Storm and Room Sweep) slow down time very slightly.
 * The martial art skill "Fury" is a straight-up Neo-wannabe skill: every enemy is slowed down, you move at regular speed, and you get bonuses to melee ass kicking. In fact, even without it the melee charged attack is in slo-mo, the better for you to enjoy that nice roundhouse to the teeth.
 * Butt Monkey:
 * Poor Wen. First, he gets tortured by Steven Heck who was doing it to get Wen to tell him where his keys were. Then, if you have a positive reputation with Heck after the final mission in Taipei, he.
 * Nasri counts as well, though to a lesser degree. If you decide to arrest him - rather than kill or extort - he becomes subject to an increasingly twisted and painful set of interogation techniques over the course of the game.
 * Camp: Brayko is like a camp take on Tony Montana.
 * Can't Stop the Signal: Several of the endings in the game involve you leaking details of Halbech and 's involvement in various terrorist acts to the press. You can also do this on a smaller scale over the course of the game..
 * Catch Phrase:
 * According to his dossier, Marburg's Catch Phrase is "Deus Vult", though he only utters it only once. But you have to admit, it is the line you are most likely to remember.
 * While Hong Shi hasn't got enough screentime to really call it a catch phrase, he does like saying "a man in my/his position."
 * "Dahling!"
 * Charles Atlas Superpower: Michael can do some really impressive things through experience.
 * Chekhov's Gun: ?
 * Chessmaster:.
 * Chew Bubblegum: One of Brayko's taunts during his bossfight.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Like you wouldn't believe.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: Brayko.
 * Coincidental Broadcast: If your latest mission made enough of a splash to make the news, it will be the first story aired when you get back to your safehouse and turn on the TV.
 * Collapsing Lair: in the Grand Finale.
 * Combat Pragmatist:
 * Michael. In addition to his more exotic hand-to-hand training, he also has the option of incapacitating a downed enemy with a particularly vicious stomp.
 * If you level up his martial arts skills, you also have the option to take out your pistol (or SMGs, or Assault Rifle, or Shotgun...) and shoot your opponent point blank, right after you've punched them in the face. Or, even better, you can shoot opponents while they are down. Both are great ways to tell a person to fuck himself. And you're thinking about Marburg now, right? It's an excellent boss-fighting technique too. Marburg, for example, is stunned by the point-blank shot longer than it takes to execute. Meaning you can kill the son of a bitch without even giving him a chance to breathe.
 * Reading their dossiers reveals that pretty much anyone who is anyone in the game follows this. Both Marburg, Sis and Heck have specific paragraphs outlining they're not above fighting dirty.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
 * Certain bosses and other "major" enemies - the ones that run inhumanly fast like Brayko.
 * With Brayko this may be justified. "I haven't had coke this good since gradeschool."
 * What isn't justified is that while coked up, he will ignore all of your actions. Shot him with a critical shotgun blast, which normally knocks people down? Not Brayko. Hit him with a running strike, which always knocks people down? Not Brayko. Hit him with a overclocked mark 3 shock trap, which can incapacitate everything else in the game for at least three seconds? Not Brayko.
 * It's a shout out at Scarface's ending.
 * Omen Deng can turn invisible and run away at high speed during your encounter with him. Technically, you can turn invisible too, but it never works on enemies who are alerted to your presence, so he's at least bending the rules if not cheating.
 * Deng cheats in numerous ways: he can turn invisible at will, which then immediately triggers his endurance regeneration (almost everyone else has to at least have to wait five seconds, and Mike maxes out at 7 seconds wait). In addition, he frequently engages you in melee combat, and you can have an ability that reduces your opponent's chance of blocking by 75%. That doesn't matter though: if he decides he doesn't want to get hit by your punches and kicks, you will not hit him (e can't dodge incendiary grenades though). Focused Aim also allows you to track him while he's invisible.
 * Even some of the standard enemies will go straight for you, even if you're cloaked, in cover, and have not been spotted in that level at all yet.
 * In short, the bosses in the game are, almost without exception, brutally unfair. Take whatever edge you can find.
 * Confusion Fu: According to Steven Heck himself, his fighting style is based heavily on this. Well, that, and Improvised Weaponry, including decapitation via soccer balls traveling at 400 miles per hour, impaling a target with a ten-speed mountain bike, and assassinating a Vatican official by strangling him with communion wafers. He also excels in a psychosis-based resistance to pain and bullet wounds.
 * Conspiracy Theorist: Steven Heck. Acoustic Kitty is actually Truth in Television.
 * Conspiracy Thriller
 * Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Happens all the time (oddly, in the few instances where Mike is actually working against the clock, Mission Control is suddenly silent; probably because the timers are short enough that no false urgency is required).
 * Contrived Coincidence: Madison St. James is a just a nice person completely removed from the various conspiracies who, by virtue of her boss being involved in said conspiracies, learns of said boss' plans to murder someone. She becomes involved simply because she decides to do what she sees as the right thing and warn him. . Hilariously, Lampshaded if :

"Surkov: "You have a lot of pockets! Have you come to check my internet connection?" Thorton: "Only if you let me plant a bug on it.""
 * Cool Old Guy:
 * Albatross and his disturbingly cyborgish G22 soldiers.
 * Marburg, Parker and Yancy haven't let their age slow them down either.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Leland. He could really only be more obvious by having a big label with 'SLEAZEBAG' on his suit, if that Godawful tie of his doesn't count. It's bad enough he should be shot just for wearing it.
 * Cosmetic Award: Beyond just the X-Box Achievements, your personal room will have trophies in it from Mike's adventures, based off of his choices in the past and who likes or dislikes him. For example, one of your earliest objectives, an arms dealer, gets you his beret if you arrested him rather than letting him go. Mike usually has something snarky to say about his collection pieces when you examine them.
 * Covert Pervert:
 * You can romance a lot of the female characters in the game. There's even an achievement for romancing all of them within the span of one game. With a variety of different personalities and Guide Dang It, you may see some romances well in advance, others, not so much.
 * Also, for the record, no, you cannot romance Sis. Saved you some time, there.
 * Crippling Overspecialization: Pumping too many points into one stat while neglecting all others is a good way make the game unplayable in short order for an inexperienced player, or on the Hard difficulty, or both. Having a few playthroughs under one's belt and thus a better understanding of how the game flows as well as the Veteran background make overspecializing a more viable playstyle.
 * Crosshair Aware: Every potential boss NPC has a visible laser sight on their guns. There's one even on SIE's machine gun.
 * Cute Mute:.
 * Cutscene Incompetence: Mike really enjoys dropping the whole "stealth" thing and loudly announcing his presence while out of cover in cutscenes.
 * Damage Sponge Boss: Several, most notably Omen Deng and Brayko. It doesn't match well with the style of this game to have to fight enemies that just run up to you, ignoring the 2 assault rifle clips to the face you just gave them, and just beat the everliving crap out of you.
 * Damsel in Distress:
 * Madison Saint James.
 * A Date with Rosie Palms: Implied in the last mission's debreifing. If your handler is.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Some of Michael's non-controllable dialogue hints to this being his default personality.
 * Defeat Means Friendship: Pretty much any named character that is introduced as an antagonist can become an ally if you spare his life. There's even an achievement for getting all your enemies to be your friends within one game.
 * Defector From Decadence: It's never outright stated, but it's heavily implied that . It helps that, meaning that.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: And we mean everything. This game ran so rampant with this trope that even Yahtzee commented on it, stating his opinion that the game was "just showing off!".
 * Characters will actually comment on your clothing style, armor and weapons choices, and cutscenes will be completely different depending on sometimes minor choices or even what skills you have points in. For example,.
 * In some cases, the commentary will come several missions later. (i.e. If you're wearing heavy armor while, he'll comment on the armor when you meet him. If you're wearing civilian attire, on the other hand, he'll comment on it later in his office.)
 * In some cases, the commentary will come several missions later. (i.e. If you're wearing heavy armor while, he'll comment on the armor when you meet him. If you're wearing civilian attire, on the other hand, he'll comment on it later in his office.)

"."
 * Omen Deng will comment on your choice of armor in the subway station. For stealth armors, he compliments you on wearing camouflage, but says civilian clothing would have been smarter. For heavy armors, he says "You look like you're prepared for war." And for utility armor, he tells you "You look like you're prepared for anything." He compliments you on blending into the crowd if you choose civilian clothing, even though you're openly carrying two guns.
 * Informants for a particular mission hub will be pleased if you came to them first rather than going to do some other business in their turf. Grigori will show off even more of how much he knows if you happen to have visited places other than Moscow first. "Taipei, out of Rome?" There was no reason the developers needed this level of attention to detail, but they did it!
 * Getting past the door guards at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow requires some careful persuasion.... unless you chose Soldier or Veteran as your background, in which case you pull a Bavarian Fire Drill and walk right inside without any trouble at all.
 * The game keeps track on what stances you use in the opening of the game and gives you a perk for sticking to one of the three stances. Characters will keep referencing your dominant stance, which may not be the one you used mainly during the opening. At the very end, Leland will mention it if you've undergone a shift in dominant stance during the game, describing it as Character Development and ask you if you feel comfortable with your new direction.
 * Some are quite subtle. If you are relaxed and chatty with Grigori, he'll like the fact you're not violent nor businesslike. Later, when you first meet Surkov, he'll have no idea who you are... because Grigori didn't betray you to him.
 * The endgame can go many different ways depending on how you dealt with different characters throughout.
 * Did Not Do the Research: In-game..
 * Some reviewers of major publications who, in their negative reviews, claimed that stealth and pistol were a waste of time. Cue derisive chuckles from those who played the game for more than an hour.
 * Didn't See That Coming: . To elaborate:.
 * Dirty Coward: The boss fight with, where he simply hides up in a guard tower flinging grenades, sending wave-after-wave of minions at you, and taunting you endlessly, and then has the gall to say he's kicking your ass. He'll also complain that you're not playing fair if you go into stealth mode or hide behind cover.
 * Disco Dan: Replace disco with 80's rock music, and you have Brayko.
 * Dissonant Serenity: Steven Heck's a nutcase, but he is remarkably calm and casual most of the time, even in combat. He tends to treat missions where things get blown sky-high as absolutely normal. But God help you if you don't know where his keys are! Poor Wen Shu...
 * It was notable that during the hotel mission he is whistling while in a shootout with the hotel guards.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?:
 * A talented, snarky spy named Michael framed for something he didn't do and forced to go rogue? To be fair, Clear My Name (and Alpha Protocol was started before Burn Notice before languishing in Development Hell), but it is an amusing coincidence.
 * In Alpha Protocol, you can choose to be the suave secret agent who specializes in gadgetry, the stealthy martial arts expert who's coldly professional, and even the aggressive weapons expert who gets things done, no matter who he pisses off. Heck, the developers even lampshaded it with the marketing. The three stances were described multiple times as "the Three J.B.s"!
 * Double Entendre:
 * SIE's possibly favorite trope, next to BFG.
 * The first email you get from Steve Steven Heck, concerning the weapons he sells on the black market, is titled "Buy My Junk". He actually admits it's on purpose. Made even more hilarious with the translation in Poland when it translates to "Grab the barrel of my gun". A perfect example of Woolseyism.
 * Drugs Are Bad: Played with. While fighting Brayko, he can defeat himself by taking doses of cocaine. But that's if you have Steve Steven Heck "fix" it beforehand. If not, then Brayko just goes on cocaine fueled, knife rampage.
 * Easy Exp: You get Perks for everything.
 * El Cid Ploy: It is implied that Fidel Castro is dead and that the Cuban government is covering this up. Ironically, Castro proved that he was still alive a few months after the game was released.
 * Escort Mission: In Russia, one mission ends with you having to protect Surkov from hordes of either G22 or VCI goons, depending on which you chose to ally with (how much damage he takes during the fight determines his attitude toward you afterwards).
 * Every Man Has His Price: As suitable for a spy drama, you get a lot of bribe attempts, be it with money or with information, tossed your way in this game.
 * Bribe Backfire: It's up to you how you want to respond to them, with plenty of opportunities for this. The most clear-cut example comes if you're friends with Steven Heck, however:.
 * Evil Counterpart: Marburg tells Mike.
 * Expy:
 * Al-Samad and its leader bear more than a resemblance to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
 * Halbech, a morally ambiguous defense contractor with government contacts, is an obvious composite of the real-world companies Halliburton and Bechtel.
 * Eye Scream:.
 * Famous Last Words:

". ."
 * A Father to His Men: Marburg, to the point that he flies into an incoherent rage and attacks you if you kill his men.
 * Fighter, Mage, Thief: Combat, tech and stealth skills, along with the Soldier, Tech Specialist and Agent professions. Subverted in that, as the Operative specialization points out, most veteran field agents don't pigeonhole themselves into one method of solving problems.
 * Five-Bad Band:
 * Big Bad: Leland.
 * The Dragon: Marburg.
 * The Evil Genius:.
 * The Brute:.
 * The Dark Chick:.
 * Gambit Pileup:
 * There are so many layers of deception that by the end of the game, you'll find yourself wondering if there is at least one person who is not involved in something, has an agenda or a double agent..
 * And that's only if you don't count the Shrug of God from Chris Avellone.
 * Game Breaking Bug:
 * A few missions, like the Embassy in Moscow, will sometimes credit you with an entirely different approach in the debriefing. A few of these are major enough to completely change the ending like when said mission in Moscow says you . This can be avoided by not ever using the second story "sneaking route" entrance, either leaving or exiting the building. Opening that triggers an event flag that says you sided against the Marines, even when you never fired a shot or were never even seen. And if you, you'll just have to find another way to get up there.
 * Also with the early Saudi missions as part of the railroading. Doorways and the like are one way only. If you find a way to back track, you can fall through the floor and need to reset the game.
 * Gameplay Ally Immortality: With the exception of a brief Escort Mission, whenever an important ally gets into a fight, they are invincible and have deadly aim.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation:
 * See Cutscene Power to the Max above.
 * Most of your abilities are justifiably within the range of human limits, such as concentrating really hard so you can snap off a bunch of precision shots in an instant, but the Stealth skillset full-on lets you become invisible for short periods of time. You can abuse this to punch a a small group of people in the throat right in front of one another to take them all down.
 * "Iron Will" increases the players damage resistance for a short time. It also gives him a blue glow and when he gets hit by bullets, it sounds as though they hit solid metal. "IRON Will" indeed.
 * One character threatens to shoot at the crates Mike is hiding behind. Said crates are completely bullet proof in gameplay. She may have been bluffing.
 * During a Pacifist Run, players will be irritated to see cutscenes portraying Mike as killing people (such as the ending of Marburg's villa mission).
 * Many of the "non-lethal" takedown moves have animations that clearly show Mike snapping his victim's spine.
 * Gatling Good:
 * Gondor Calls for Aid:
 * The more allies you make, the more help you at the end.
 * Enemies too. In the case of.
 * Good Is Not Nice: You can play Thorton as a real jerkass.
 * Government Agency of Fiction: Secretive organization within the United States government also known as Alpha Protocol.
 * Guide Dang It: Trial and error is the only real way to learn how to get the responses you want to your actions. Of course, since the game rewards you for everything, it even has a perk and Achievement for waffling a bunch on what stance you take.
 * Also.
 * Alternate option:.
 * Possibly better:.
 * How to make it so you're not considered to have fired on the Marines at the embassy in Russia. Talk your way through the front door, and never open the door from the second floor to the roof.
 * Guile Hero: Mike Thorton if you want him to be. It is heavily recommended by the game itself.
 * Guns Akimbo:
 * Submachine guns are always dual-wielded. The point of them is not to be accurate, but to empty the clip. Sis is also fond of a pair of revolvers.
 * Brayko and his twin SMGs, when he's not trying to stab you in the face.
 * Guns Do Not Work That Way: If you are familiar with guns, try not to snicker at the in-game descriptions of how the gun upgrades work. Definitely a case of Rule of Cool meets Story and Gameplay Segregation.
 * The Gunslinger: Points in the right skills allow the player to be a downright omnicidal mix of all four types.
 * Hacking Minigame - A decoding minigame, a hotwiring minigame, plus a third one with lockpicks.
 * The Handler: Yancy Westridge, several other characters as well. Your handlers actually give you certain bonuses, depending on whether they like or hate you.
 * Harmless Electrocution: Shock traps may hurt like hell, but they're a non-lethal option for dealing with enemies.
 * Heroic BSOD: What happens to Michael.
 * Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Steven Heck hands down. Just imagine Max from Sam and Max but set in a non-cartoon universe. His introduction is a reference to Jack Bauer Facts.
 * Highly-Visible Ninja:
 * The advanced stealth armors are very shiny...
 * Thorton has the option of skipping stealth altogether and just shooting everyone. Lampshaded by Albatross if you bungle the Embassy mission: "Do you just walk up to every soldier you see and introduce yourself?"
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:
 * By encouraging agents to procure their own source of funding, supplies, and intel, Alpha Protocol ensures that.
 * It is possible to set one of these up against at the endgame by calling on  to attack their facility. Since  is the offshoot of, that means that essentially you're.
 * You can also do this to G22 in Moscow. If you agree to a partnership with Albatross, G22 will sell you all kinds of intel for the mission to get to Surkov at the embassy. If you choose to use SIE as your handler for the mission, however, G22 will storm the embassy, and you will have to fight them off... using the intel (including a strategically placed sniper rifle) that they sold you beforehand.
 * How We Got Here: The game opens with Leland interrogating Thorton..
 * I Can Rule Alone:.
 * I Gave My Word:
 * I Minored in Tropology: In the catacombs of Carsulae, Mina jokingly credits her knowledge of bathhouses to her major in Architecture Ancient Roman Plumbing and a minor in Ancient Roman Plumbing Architecture.
 * Ink Suit Actor: Hong Shi looks pretty much like his voice actor James Hong.
 * Insistent Terminology: Heck is your friend now, that means first name basis buddy pal! Just... don't call him Steve.
 * Instant Sedation: Tranquilizer rounds play around with this trope. A non-critical headshot from one will sedate almost instantly... but will give the target a chance to alert any of his buddies in the area.
 * Intrepid Reporter: Scarlet Lake, a photojournalist who is known for "covering developments in dangerous places." She's also a bit of a Hot Scoop.
 * Ironic Echo: :
 * I Minored in Tropology: In the catacombs of Carsulae, Mina jokingly credits her knowledge of bathhouses to her major in Architecture Ancient Roman Plumbing and a minor in Ancient Roman Plumbing Architecture.
 * Ink Suit Actor: Hong Shi looks pretty much like his voice actor James Hong.
 * Insistent Terminology: Heck is your friend now, that means first name basis buddy pal! Just... don't call him Steve.
 * Instant Sedation: Tranquilizer rounds play around with this trope. A non-critical headshot from one will sedate almost instantly... but will give the target a chance to alert any of his buddies in the area.
 * Intrepid Reporter: Scarlet Lake, a photojournalist who is known for "covering developments in dangerous places." She's also a bit of a Hot Scoop.
 * Ironic Echo: :

"Leland: "I thought I'd underestimated you, but it looks like you're too stupid to figure it out." (Cut to the original event) Mike: "So they underestimated me and they thought I was too stupid to figure it out!""
 * Ironic Echo Cut: :

"Mike:"Guy's pretty sharp with a knife.""
 * I Shall Taunt You: Mike can do this to some enemies just to piss them off. For example, talking suave to Marburg is . If Mike chooses to, he can call up Albatross to taunt him about this.
 * Just for Pun: Mike makes one when talking to Steven, if you select the right option. "Shouldn't you have stabbed him to get the 'point'."
 * Karma Houdini: Depends on your actions. People who have done some bad things can get shot, or they can get away with it. is certainly the go-to example here; it's much easier to miss the chance at killing this one then the others. The trick is to.
 * Karma Meter:
 * There is none to speak of, though the game keeps track of every action you take and during at least one ending, a character will recount every bad thing you've done. So if you want to play Michael as an extra-Manipulative Bastard who only seemed like he was doing good right up until he decides to work for the bad guys, you can go for it.
 * True to form, Obsidian have planned for the latter approach, and it'll be noted that "nobody could ever understand what's going through [Mike's] head."
 * Kent Brockman News: The INN newscasters, who occasionally report on stories like "the dreaded Nigerian puppy scam" and the shocking new study linking sugar to hyperactivity in children.
 * Kill'Em All: Depending on how you play, the game can end with nearly the entire main cast dead. The only major character you can't kill off is, though you can't eliminate both in the same game.
 * Kill It with Fire:
 * Steven Heck's preferred method of killification.
 * Also a perk if you use enough fire grenades.
 * Kirk Summation: Michael Thorton delivers an epic one to Conrad Marburg if you choose to . If you have enought negative reputation,.
 * Knife Nut:
 * Brayko again.

"Steven: That's why I like ya Mike, you're a stand-up guy. Not like Wen. No sir. Not like Wen at all."
 * Michael if you use lethal silent takedowns. Interestingly, Mike makes knife kills realistically: the way he jams the blade hard into the side of his target's neck is the 'proper' way to slit a throat, the "ear to ear" concept often seen in fiction is Rule of Cool and doesn't do a good job opening up the jugular.
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: Thorton could have been quite a twist... it could have. Especially if it wasn't the kind of twist everybody uses these days.
 * Laughably Evil:
 * Konstantin Brayko. He is a rather vicious mob boss, but the guy's bizarre 80's obsession and just how Ax Crazy he is make him a real entertaining bundle of fun. If you simply read his dossier, you look forward to killing him, but if you take some time to talk to him before, that urge really goes away.
 * While Steven Heck is technically an ally of the player and not quite evil, this trope is the main thing keeping him sympathetic at all. Normally, a character who's disappointed at being told not to kill anyone would be rather vile if it wasn't someone as entertainingly completely crazy as Heck is.
 * Left Hanging: They never do explain why the NSA listening post in Rome is apparently manned by.
 * Let's You and Him Fight:
 * In the ending, it's possible for Mike to set this up between.
 * Level Up At Intimacy 5:
 * Working on your relationships with your Handlers can increase the Handler Bonus you get from them.
 * Inverted in that you get equally useful bonuses if your handler hates you.
 * Likes Older Women: Michael if you romance SIE.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Not quite to Suikoden levels, but there's a lot of people to meet and/or hunt down.
 * Lost Forever: It is incredibly easy to unintentionally skip over computer terminals, dossiers, equipment or money unless you search every area very thoroughly. Doors will sometimes close and lock behind you once you pass into a new area, cutting you off from whatever was behind you, so it's a good idea to take a minute to search every location for items. This can be very important at times. For example, if you don't fill out all of Brayko's dossier, you won't be able to.
 * MacGuffin: The Halbech missiles.
 * Made of Iron:
 * Cutscene!Thorton may as well be invulnerable. Most (if not all) of the bosses fall into this category too, able to survive close to a good half dozen headshots. In a row.
 * Magikarp Power: The humble pistol. At the beginning of the game, it's good only for inflicting Back Stabs on unsuspecting guards, but keep leveling it up and, by the end of the game, you'll be able to empty a room with a single attack or kill any boss (except the ones inside armored vehicles) in 10 seconds or less.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Michael, if you pick up on people's behavior (which isn't hard) and how they prefer to be treated - read the dossiers! - can be one of these. Nothing quite like playing someone up so that they really like you, and then smashing their face into a table.
 * This is actually one of the reasons Westridge thinks Mike would be a good agent. Basically, Mike questions if his people skills are really that good. Westridge says no, it's not that he's charismatic, it's that Mike can read people very well and thus manipulate his/their responses as needed.
 * Master of None: Inexperienced players want to avoid this, especially if not playing with the bonus AP from the Veteran background. A generalist build is doable, but very difficult if you don't know what you're doing.
 * Melee à Trois: In one of the Rome missions, Mike goes to investigate a warehouse and walks into a gun battle between Deus Vult and The Mafiya, both of whom will attack Mike as readily as each other..
 * The Men in Black: The CIA agents and Marburg's Deus Vult agents tend to rock this look, though the G22 agents tend to fill in the role as shadowy agents.
 * Mind Screw:.
 * The Mole: Many, many of the characters are keeping their real loyalties hidden:
 * Almost every organization you have to fight in the game has at least one mole who will feed you intel for a price: Deus Vult, the CIA, Al-Samad, the Mafiya, the Triad defectors, even G22 (although their mole isn't actually a member of their organization, it's the guy who installed their autoturrets).
 * More Friends, More Benefits: Played mostly straight. You get the "womanizer" perk for seducing every possible Love Interest in the game, and shopping for equipment and intel is easier if you're buddies with the people who provide you with such things. Plus, it's usually easier to get dossier information from people who like you, which often opens up new options for developing the plot. However, it's not essential; the game is still perfectly winnable if you go through it actively trying to piss off absolutely everyone.
 * Multiple Endings: Four of them, with dozens of variations. They are as follows:
 * "Crime Buster":.
 * "No Compromise, No Mercy":.
 * "Rising Star":.
 * "Thorton, inc.":.
 * Most sub-variants of the four above depend on who is Mike's handler for the final mission and who rides off into the sunset with him. It could be.
 * New Game+: If you beat the game with the recruit background, you can play through again with the Veteran background. This starts you off with three levels in every skill (with no effect on your future AP), and with better armour and weapons. Also a bit of a Game Breaker: after the initial mission, you have the option of customizing your character, and there's absolutely nothing preventing you from removing AP from the skills you won't use and bumping up the skills you do. You can max out three skills (to the level limits, anyway) before you leave Saudi Arabia. Also a Bragging Rights Reward since beating the game as a Recruit means you've proven that you don't need those extra skill points.
 * Many of the "Veteran" stances indicate that this version of Thorton simply does not have time to deal with rookie crap; he demands a fast-forwarding of the orientation process, and his very first line in the game upon waking up is "Where's my gear?" rather than a confused "I can't believe they drugged me!".
 * New Meat: You can also choose to have Mike start off with a Rookie background. Doing so means that you'll not have any AP when you start the game, but you can get special bonuses that are only available to Rookies if you play into your inexperience in the tutorial section. You'll still be underpowered compared to other backgrounds, but it's the only way to unlock Veteran.
 * Nice Hat: Quite a few, including Hong Shi's fedora, SIE's beret and Omen Deng's Commissar Cap. Mike can get a beret of his own, or an ushanka during the Russia hub.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Alpha Protocol Thorton, they forgot that Alpha Protocol is so secretive that not even Westridge knows where all their safe houses are. . Additionally, Alpha Protocol.
 * Ninja:
 * If you let Brayko live, he later describes you as the offspring of "(expletive) Ronald Reagan and an (expletive) American Ninja."
 * Darcy calls you one of these in an email if you go through an early mission without killing anyone or raising any alarms.
 * Nintendo Hard:
 * The game can be pretty brutal... but only if you specialize in one style of gameplay. Skill specialization won't hurt you, however, being unable to be flexible and think on you feet will.
 * A no-kill playthrough would be a challenge for Big Boss though. No-kill at least can be eked out by using the pistol with the (expensive) sedative rounds, plenty of points in martial arts and toughness and some in stealth.
 * Boss fights, doubly so if you're running a fragile build. Marburg will punch the hell out of you if you get close. Or any encountered with a low supply of ammo, not enough points in certain skills, etc. This isn't unique to Alpha Protocol but it does seem to happen a fair amount.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mike can deliver one of these to, complete with.
 * Noble Demon: Shaheed comes off as this, more or less. Once he makes a promise, he keeps it, and he's quite smart and forthcoming. If he wasn't running a terrorist organization that blew up a passenger airplane in the beginning, it'd be easy to like the guy. At the very least, it's easy to see why he inspires loyalty among his men.
 * Non-Lethal KO: Several forms: you can use martial arts takedowns, shoot people with tranq rounds, or deploy lots of shock traps.
 * Noodle Incident: No one really knows what Wen Shu did to earn Steven's animosity. Considering that Wen gets the blame when Heck can't find his keys, it's possible that he never did anything at all, and is merely the Chew Toy.
 * A no-kill playthrough would be a challenge for Big Boss though. No-kill at least can be eked out by using the pistol with the (expensive) sedative rounds, plenty of points in martial arts and toughness and some in stealth.
 * Boss fights, doubly so if you're running a fragile build. Marburg will punch the hell out of you if you get close. Or any encountered with a low supply of ammo, not enough points in certain skills, etc. This isn't unique to Alpha Protocol but it does seem to happen a fair amount.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mike can deliver one of these to, complete with.
 * Noble Demon: Shaheed comes off as this, more or less. Once he makes a promise, he keeps it, and he's quite smart and forthcoming. If he wasn't running a terrorist organization that blew up a passenger airplane in the beginning, it'd be easy to like the guy. At the very least, it's easy to see why he inspires loyalty among his men.
 * Non-Lethal KO: Several forms: you can use martial arts takedowns, shoot people with tranq rounds, or deploy lots of shock traps.
 * Noodle Incident: No one really knows what Wen Shu did to earn Steven's animosity. Considering that Wen gets the blame when Heck can't find his keys, it's possible that he never did anything at all, and is merely the Chew Toy.

"Mike: Does Leland send you out for dry cleaning, too? Maybe shoot your chauffeur on the way? Chief of Security for Halbech - talk about a joke. Yeah, I know all about Deus Vult and that abortion of an op in the Middle East. Poor Agent Marburg believed dead...maybe wishing he was dead. Boo. Fucking. Hoo."
 * No Party Given: Averted, twice:
 * U.S. Senator Patrick Darcy (Sean's father) is identified as a Virginia Republican (by the notation "R-VA") in a dossier Michael can receive from Mina.
 * President of Taiwan Ronald Sung is given an explicit party affiliation.
 * No Points for Neutrality: More like No Points for Inconsistency. Pick a playstyle and stick with it, you'll get perks. Vary it up too much, and you get nothing. Similarly, you get bigger bonuses to your stats if your handler loves you or hates you and smaller bonuses if they feel ambivalent.
 * Not Quite the Right Thing: After Marburg's Sadistic Choice in Rome, pretty much every character in the game treats as the more moral choice, but the epilogue reveals that it actually did more to further Halbech's goal of passing tougher anti-terrorism laws. Similarly,  leads to China and Taiwan moving closer to war.
 * Not So Different: Marburg is a bitter, betrayed Thorton 30 years later. Thorton points this out to Marburg's annoyance - or pleasure, if Thorton has gained his approval.
 * Oh Crap: You get one when Omen Deng reveals that ...
 * Omnicidal Neutral: A particularly hilarious - although not very subtle - gaming style consists in bulldozing your way through the game playing Mike as a perpetually angry Determinator who antagonizes everyone and keeps executing every single enemy who has the misfortune of being at his mercy, regardless of his/her faction.
 * Only Known by Their Nickname:
 * Dear God where do we start? 'SIE', 'Albatross', 'Sis'.
 * Interestingly, if you hack the computer in the locker room at Alpha Protocol after the intro sequence, you can read an e-mail from Westridge to the other agents telling them of the new arrival. He says they are "to refer to the new arrival as Michael Thorton", implying that we don't even know the protagonist's real name.
 * At one point, when discussing the possible 'deletion' of Alpha Protocol with Mina, he muses "Wonder if I'll get a new name."
 * Optional Sexual Encounter: There are four romance-able characters in this game. You get a perk for sleeping with each one and a different perk for having slept with all four. Alternately, you can get other perks for refusing to sleep with some of them individually and for sleeping with nobody. Your choice.
 * Pacifist Run:
 * You can do it if you want to. Good luck. The game even has a unique metric for tracking your kills: Orphans Created. Kill one guy, and you might create one, two, or three orphans per kill. It is entirely possible to get through the game without killing anyone, but it requires significant investment in tranq rounds (at about $5000 a pop), or a lot of luck/save scumming with random ammo pickups. Note that tranquilizing a boss will still result in them being covered in blood when you talk to them though (note that shooting a boss with normal bullets does not count as a kill: you have to choose to kill them).
 * The game also tracks non-lethal takedowns... in hospital costs!
 * You get perks for having a lot of non-lethal takedowns that make this easier to do as the game goes on. Among other things, you get major boosts to your endurance and your sneaking skills.
 * This is made easier by stealth and martial arts being massively overpowered in the mid- and late- game (especially once the perks start piling up), and hand-to-hand takedowns never count as kills.
 * There are a few non-optional kills, two manned vehicles and one person on foot (the first two at least are not counted in your kill stats). That's not counting ones your character kills in cutscenes no matter how you dealt with them.
 * Plan B: Kill It with Fire. See above.
 * Playing Hard to Get: In a rare male-to-female inversion, the less interested Thorton is in SIE, the more interested she is in him.
 * Precision F-Strike: While the game certainly does not want for swearing, Mike can engage in an absolutely glorious example of this against Marburg in Rome provided he has the proper intelligence on Marburg and Deus Vult.

"Nasri: "Did you not hear me? I pay you! I pay--" Mike: "Westridge; One for extraction.""
 * The Present Day: The game is set in 2009. Recent trailers say 2010; this may because the release date was pushed back.
 * Properly Paranoid: Well, the whole cast really since this is the Spy world, but.
 * Psycho for Hire: Heck, SIE, the rest of the VCI.
 * Punctuated Pounding: Mike.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mike can deliver one of them to several main characters. It is especially violent against.
 * Regenerating Endurance, Static Health
 * Relationship Values
 * The Remnant: Though not outright stated, it is strongly hinted that G22 is actually the remnant of.
 * Right Hand Versus Left Hand:
 * It's a complicated spy drama, this sort of thing should be expected. For example, Alpha Protocol (the organization) is so heavily compartmentalized that no one person who works for it knows everything there is to know about the organization, and this means you could technically be on the run from them and still be able to use some of their hidden safehouses.
 * This is almost certainly the case with G22. In a few files or conversations, you may learn that one of Alpha Protocol's prior incarnations was called "G19" and since Alpha Protocol's hierarchy encourages compartmentalization and splinter groups, they are almost certainly one such off-shoot. Since you can potentially turn one against the other, it definitely becomes a case of Right Hand Versus Left Hand.
 * This trope is invoked directly when Mike introduces himself to Surkov. Mike says that "The right hand and the left hand aren't on speaking terms these days."
 * The entire Operation: True Heirs mission..
 * The Rival:
 * Darcy, depending on how you treat him. Otherwise, Mike and Darcy become something akin to Bash Brothers..
 * One of your perks is this, which talks about.
 * Rogue Agent:
 * , following Operation: Desert Spear.
 * Throughout the game, Mike believes that Alpha Protocol as a whole has gone rogue, only to discover in the endgame that.
 * Romance Sidequest
 * Rule of Cool: Random ziplines, although some of them look like powerlines.
 * Sadistic Choice:
 * All the damn time. ?
 * And you can't even Take a Third Option. Except . You can also Take a Third Option in.
 * Made worse in by the fact that you don't know if  is pulling a Joker and lying about the respective locations of the things you can choose between.
 * Say My Name: The official Music Video.
 * Scary Shiny Glasses: These are an optional look for Michael.
 * Schrödinger's Gun:
 * No matter what your character's background is, that makes him perfect for joining Alpha Protocol. ...
 * Similarly, whichever personality Mike demonstrates in the first couple of missions, that's the reason Mina put her faith in him.
 * Also used so that your choices always lead to the same results. For example, no matter what you choose in the Sadistic Choice in Rome, Marburg will say he expected you to choose the other path.
 * Used in the Rising Star/Thorton Inc. ending..
 * Screw the Money, I Have Rules:


 * Ironically, you actually get more money by turning Nasri in than by accepting his bribe.
 * In a couple of the endings, 's last words will be an offer to bribe you if you choose to kill him.
 * Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Depending on your actions, you can make.
 * Secret Mission Control: In the final mission, if you've done your homework and have a high enough reputation with a certain character,.
 * Shoot Him! He Has a Wallet!:
 * . Of course, later, if you screw up,.
 * Happens again in Moscow with.
 * Shoot the Dog: You can choose to do it over and over again. For example, in Rome,.
 * Shoot The Son Of A Bitch: A lot of the people you can shoot have it coming.
 * Shout-Out:
 * Mike Thorton's twitter feed, in addition to providing amusing tongue-in-cheek commentary on training at Alpha Protocol, as well as clues about gameplay features, often references other franchises. Some tweets from October and November of 2009 mention that he's heard Russian terrorists killed civilians in an airport, later noting that one of his superiors described it as "media bullshit".
 * In-game shout-outs include Time-Cube of all things.
 * Name of the yacht that you need to infiltrate in Moscow hub is a hilarious shout out to Adventures of Captain Vrungel.
 * Many of other agencies mentioned in the game are, of course, shout outs to both real life and fictitious spy organizations.
 * One of the terrorist organizations operating in Saudi Arabia is the Al-Tair organization.
 * One of the buffs is named "These Are Not The Agents You're Looking For".
 * A very subtle one when Westridge is briefing you when you first arrive at the safehouse in the Middle East. Apparently, the computer has an internet connection "that's so fast you'll feel like you're going back in time."
 * The loading screen mentions both John Keats and Dan Simmons.
 * "Uh, I think they just armed the bombs." "Bombs."
 * Having Heck as your handler for the final mission will have him sometimes say "Danger, Mike Thorton, Danger!" in a robotic tone of voice.
 * According to Westridge's dossier, he was involved in an affair with a woman codenamed "Saffron".
 * The emails you get from tapping the NSA and CIA lookout posts in Rome have names appended to them that are references to spy characters from Tom Clancy books: Chet (Nomuri), (John) Clark and Ding (Chavez).
 * Shown Their Work: Quite a bit of Stephen Heck's rambling is based on either actual events (Acoustic Kitty really happened) or conspiracy theories floating around in Real Life (like the one about the Federal Reserve).
 * Shut UP, Hannibal:
 * You can do it several times..
 * Especially since the above was your.
 * "Dear Steven, please shut the fuck up."
 * Sociopathic Hero: Mike can be played as one.
 * Sociopathic Soldier: The VCI is a faction of these.
 * Spell My Name with an "S":
 * Thorton was often confused with Thornton in previews. There is even a Lampshade Hanging on this in the game.
 * "Darcy sent me this for acing the tech course. He misspelt my name - 'Thornton'..."
 * Spiritual Successor: To Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines and Deus Ex.
 * Standard FPS Guns: Ready and accounted for!
 * The pistol is your standard pistol, though the only weapon that mount a silencer and use tranquilizer darts, making it ideal for stealth playthroughs. It also has the Chain Shot ability.
 * The shotgun manages to avert Short-Range Shotgun, especially if you both upgrade your skill with shotguns and equip weapon mods that reduce scatter. It can also blow people off their feet if you aim it long enough to get a critical hit.
 * Submachineguns fill in the bullet hose role, wielded in pairs and having the advantage of Bottomless Magazines when their special ability is activated.
 * Assault rifles serve as an excellent all-around weapon, but specialize in being the marksman rifle, having very high accuracy and doing excellent damage on critical hits.
 * You can't carry a Sniper Rifle on most missions, but a sniper rifle can be purchased and left in certain areas as a dead drop. A couple of missions start out with Mike packing a sniper rifle, including a dedicated Sniping Mission.
 * Rocket launchers are available for a couple of specific boss battles (Shaheed's Stryker and the helicopter in the final mission).
 * Gun turrets can be manned on certain missions, generally after killing their operators and taking over. Other automated turrets can be hacked. A tech specialist Mike can even hack turrets that are normally unhackable using Remote Hack.
 * Stealth Run: Possible for many missions in the game, but you need to be very patient. Stealth abilities are a means to an end - the end of running up to your opponents silently and choking them unconscious/cutting their throats. There are, however, certain missions which will mention whether or not you managed to completely evade detection and ghost the level. It is far easier to use exceptional stealth abilities to sneak around and knock out every guard without being detected, but entirely evading detection is difficult, if not impossible, on some levels.
 * The Stoner: Heck and Brayko.
 * Stop Helping Me!: NPC allies are the bane of the Stealth Run, as they all behave like Leeroy Jenkins. Even G22 troopers, who are supposedly stealth experts.
 * Take a Third Option:
 * In a rare few cases, a properly specc'd Mike can actually get out of The Sadistic Choice.
 * Relatively easy and fun one in Taipei:.
 * Talking Is a Free Action: Averted and lampshaded. Westridge points out that the clock is still running during a conversation, which means both your ability timers and your endurance will restore if there's a conversation in the middle of a battle or a level. Unfortunately, conversations rarely crop up in the middle of combat, and you can't actually initiate them yourself either, so the opportunities to make use of this tactic are few at best.
 * Tap on the Head: Averted, and played with. Mike's non-lethal takedowns are usually quite a bit more than this. Some (like the karate chop to the throat) could even be considered a bit too much. Michael himself hangs a lampshade on this trope when.


 * Technical Pacifist: Thorton seems to enjoy making his non-lethal takedowns be extremely painful. Lampshaded by the description on the "Merciful" perk.
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Depending on your choices, the final boss is either . The former fights you with a series of miniguns, while the latter decides to use a rocket launcher.
 * Three-Way Sex: "Mike, I have important news. I totally did it. Two chicks. At once. Hells yeah." One of Mike's possible responses is asking if they weighed less than 600 pounds combined.
 * Timed Mission: And it's a short timer, too: you have 30 seconds to kill a guy, pick a lock on a door, and escape before you get hit by a train.
 * Too Kinky to Torture: SIE, who actually INCREASES her opinion of you if you attack and try to kill her. And afterwards sends you a very friendly and complimentary email about her scars from the battle and how much they hurt and how much she loves you for it.
 * Trailers Always Spoil:.
 * The Triads and the Tongs: Appear in Taipei.
 * Tranquil Fury: No matter how much Mina hates your guts, she won't show her anger or disgust til the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
 * Translation Convention: None of the non-American characters and enemies speak their own languages. In pretty much any background you pick, however, Mike speaks several languages, so he could just be translating on the fly.
 * Trick Bullet: Each primary weapon has two special ammunition types with unusual effects. For example, assault rifles have armor-piercing ammunition and subsonic ammo for silenced shooting, pistols have tranquilizer darts, and shotguns have incendiary shells.
 * Verbal Tic: SIE, dahling.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential:
 * Sound generator + train = squish.
 * It gets worse: if someone dies from getting run over by the train, and his allies are nearby, they'll come to check it out. And there's another train coming...
 * Walk It Off: In addition to his normal health bar, Mike also has "endurance" -- some combination of bulletproof armor and an iron will -- that'll let him endure an infinite amount of bullets and blunt trauma... as long as he can he can take periodic 15-second breaks to let his endurance recharge. Health, on the other hand, does not recharge on its own, so you'll need to find lots and lots of convenient first aid boxes.
 * War for Fun and Profit: What Halbech is trying to achieve.
 * The War on Terror: The reason why Thorton was sent to the Middle East in the first place.
 * We Can Rule Together:.
 * But why would we rule together, when I Can Rule Alone?
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Two in the final mission: First, . Second,.
 * What the Hell, Hero?/What the Hell, Player?: Kill people or do overt actions, and you will get yelled at by various people for it, most commonly Mina if you're killing civilians or American agents, Albatross if you're being way too loud and obvious, or Madison if you're being a jerk to her. On the other hand, SIE or Steven will gleefully praise you for going on murder sprees.
 * Where Are They Now? Epilogue: During the end credits, a one of the INN anchors will update you on what happened in the Middle East, Moscow, Taiwan and Rome as a result of your choices.
 * Where It All Began: Operation Full Circle.
 * Where the Hell Is Alpha Protocol: Deliberately invoked. No key personnel working for Alpha Protocol know where the "Graybox" base is, no matter how trusted they are. If you want to go the base or leave it, you get sedated for two full days while your body is transported. It's inefficient, but it makes the organization practically mole-proof. Presumably the ones doing the transporting aren't being told the truth about who they're picking up or dropping off, and presumably the very top guys at Alpha Protocol know where the base is, but that's about it..
 * With This Herring: Justified. Since Alpha Protocol doesn't officially exist, they can't give Mike supplies without risking someone tracing the supplies back to them and thus finding out that they exist..
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Marburg, since he's Thorton if he got thoroughly fucked over and didn't have the personality to win friends to help him out.
 * Word Salad Title: All of Steven Heck's names he give to operations in Taipei. Operation Turbo Panther. Operation Latex Turtle. Operation Angry Bees. Operation YYYEEEAAAHHH!!!
 * Worst News Judgment Ever: The news report about the Brayko fight ? One of the funniest lines in the game, delivered deadpan.
 * Xanatos Gambit: By Halbech, for the most part. At the endgame, Leland notes that.
 * You Bastard:
 * This game keeps track of how many orphans you create due to the kills you rack up. It gets really sad when you realize that by kill only 15 people you managed to make 80 orphans.
 * And in a case of The Dev Team Thinks of Everything, who you kill actually influences how many orphans are left. For example, killing Al-Samad terrorists generates a lot of orphans because Saudis have large numbers of children. Killing VCI, G22 or soldiers nets you very few orphans because those sorts don't generally have families or children. Killing  troops nets one orphan per kill because.
 * The game also keeps track of the medical bills for the mooks you take down non-lethally. You can inflict potentially millions of dollars in broken bones and battered bodies.
 * The writers love doing this in the news reports if you decide to cut deals with Nasri and/or Shaheed..
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: At the end of the game, the villains invoke this on.
 * You Lose At Zero Trust: Averted totally. You want to have a negative reputation with everyone, including your handlers? Go right ahead. All it means in the long run is that you'll have to fight more of your battles without backup, and if you keep that up long, you'll get perks for playing that way to help you keep playing that way.