Alpha Protocol. A short review for short people.

I have a headache and my back hurts,this is unfortunately my experience of Alpha Protocol.
Having followed the game for sometime, reading the articles,watching the vids,i was pretty optimistic of a good experience.

After multiple retry's at a boss fight,i give,i yield,i plan to make use of my game stores return policy tomorrow.

The true frustration here is,i did enjoy the game.
Yes, with all the poor graphics,shoddy AI and a bunch of other things you would think would be standard by now. I was enjoying it.

WOO.

-I liked the Perks as rewards for actions,thumbs up on that one.
-HUGE fan of customizable avatars, whilst pretty limited its still nice to have a choice.
-The conversation system was pretty good, the conversations themselves had amusing moments.
-The combat was passable(strong flashbacks to ps1).
-I liked the really simple stealth.(not everything has to be complicated)


BOO

-The checkpoint system! A poor idea. The idea may have been to keep the pressure up by not allowing players time to think,or second guess themselves - The result for me was,constantly getting boned by odd AI spotting me while I am in cover from across the room. Even with valid player fault (IE dying legitimately) the checkpoint system is a right pain. I would often trigger the next checkpoint by accident,leaving me healthless with the alarms going off.
-Difficulty suddenly sky rocketing.Bosses would slaughter me,or sometimes a particular section of a level would be insanely hard for no particular reason.

There is certainly more for the BOO pile,those two items are enough for me to return the game to the store.



All said i will give the game 5.5 / 10 .
Seems high for all the angst this game caused me,however - i did enjoy the game,bar the bosses,and its possible that the difficulty's i faced are in part due to the fact i am playing the game on Hard. I may have been able to enjoy more of the game had i put the difficulty lower.
Here's hoping Fallout Vegas is either great,or gets canned.