Alpha Protocol: Difference between revisions

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* [[I Can Rule Alone]]: {{spoiler|When Leland hires you, he doesn't exactly check to make sure you'll be a loyal minion.}}

* [[I Gave My Word]]: {{spoiler|Sparing Shaheed has its benefits. He is a man of his word as he says, and doesn't just vanish off to stroke his beard and be villainous. You have to actually agree to let him go, however, as he'll die in the attack if you arrest him.}}

** {{spoiler|The ending reveals that he's alive and well, and continuing to carry out his attacks.}}

* [[I Minored in Tropology]]: In the catacombs of Carsulae, Mina jokingly credits her knowledge of bathhouses to her major in <s> Architecture</s> Ancient Roman Plumbing and a minor in <s> Ancient Roman Plumbing</s> Architecture.

* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: Hong Shi looks pretty much like his voice actor, [[James Hong]].

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* [[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 {{spoiler|Steven Heck}}, though you can't eliminate both {{spoiler|SIE and Albatross}} in the same game.

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* [[Kirk Summation]]: Michael Thorton delivers an epic one to Conrad Marburg if you choose to {{spoiler|let Madison die and give suave responses when talking to Marburg before and during the boss fight}}. If you have enought negative repuation, {{spoiler|Marburg [[I Shall Taunt You|will fight to death]].}}

* [[Kill It with Fire]]: Steven Heck's preferred method of killification.

** Also a perk if you use enough fire grenades.

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* [[Kirk Summation]]: Michael Thorton delivers an epic one to Conrad Marburg if you choose to {{spoiler|let Madison die and give suave responses when talking to Marburg before and during the boss fight}}. If you have enought negative repuation, {{spoiler|Marburg [[I Shall Taunt You|will fight to death]].}}

* [[Knife Nut]]: Brayko again.

{{quote|'''Mike''':"[[Incredibly Lame Pun|Guy's pretty sharp with a knife.]]"}}

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* [[Mind Screw]]: {{spoiler|Start the game as a "Veteran" and when Mike first picks up his PDA, he'll briefly see, instead of Mina's face, the face of the grubby weird guy running the gelato shop/information server. He'll wonder if hallucinations are a side-effect of the drugs.}}

* [[The Mole]]: Many, many of the characters are keeping their real loyalties hidden:

** {{spoiler|Alpha Protocol, the whole organization, is basically working for Halbech. The one exception is Mina, who never actually left the NSA and has been spying on Alpha Protocol for them.}}

** {{spoiler|Scarlet was hired by Halbech to assassinate the President of Taiwan.}}

** {{spoiler|Omen Deng, high-ranking member of the Chinese Secret Police, is a [[Fake Defector]] and Taiwanese double agent.}}

** {{spoiler|Surkov in Moscow is the real Halbech contact, but he sics you on Brayko. Unless you've been playing smart, you'll never even find out and the final Moscow mission will be closed off.}}

** 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 [[Jerkass|piss off absolutely everyone]].

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** Boss fights, doubly so if you're running a fragile build. Marburg will punch the hell out of you if you get close.

*** Also any boss fights 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.

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* [[No Party Given]]: Averted, twice:

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** 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.

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** President of Taiwan Ronald Sung is given an explicit party affiliation.

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* [[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.

* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Mike can deliver one of these to {{spoiler|Grigori}}, complete with {{spoiler|repeatedly slamming his head against the bar and then beating him over the head with a bottle of vodka.}}

* [[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.

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** Wen gets the blame when Heck can't find his keys. It's possible that Wen never did anything at all, and is merely the [[Chew Toy]].

{{quote|'''Steven''': That's why I like ya Mike, you're a stand-up guy. Not like Wen. No sir. ''Not like Wen at all.''}}

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* [[No Party Given]]: Averted, twice:

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** 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.

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** President of Taiwan Ronald Sung is given an explicit party affiliation.

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* [[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 {{spoiler|letting Madison die to defuse the bombs}} 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, {{spoiler|saving Sung from assassination}} 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.

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* [[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 [[Informed Attribute|supposedly]] stealth experts.

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* [[Talking Is a Free Action]]: [[Averted Trope|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.

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** 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.

* [[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: {{spoiler|bug ''all'' the servers during the mission to bug G22 servers, and you can bluff your way out of deactivating all of them, thereby getting Albatross to trust you more ''and'' getting data off the G22 database.}}

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* [[Talking Is a Free Action]]: [[Averted Trope|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.

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** 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 {{spoiler|you make Madison scared and angry enough to make her attack you.}}

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Mike:''' ''"What are you doing? Hitting someone on the head to knock them out only works in movies."''}}}}

* [[Technical Pacifist]]: Thorton seems to enjoy making his non-lethal takedowns be ''extremely'' painful.

** Lampshaded by the description on the "Merciful" perk.

* [[That One Level]]: The Brayko boss fight is either impossible for some players (resulting in a de facto game over as the fight cannot be avoided) or so easy some players on the forums report completing it on the first go. With the pistol.

* [[The War on Terror]]: The reason why Thorton was sent to the Middle East in the first place.

* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: Depending on your choices, the final boss is either {{spoiler|Yancy Westbridge or Henry Leland}}. The former fights you with a series of [[Gatling Good|miniguns]], while the latter decides to use a ''rocket launcher''.