Alpha Protocol/General Notes

Movement

Movement is a peculiar concept in Alpha Protocol. There is no real way to increase your speed naturally, except for sprinting. But before we get there...

Although covered more below in "Shooting", aiming your gun does reduce your speed by a margin. You could call it "walking" speed as opposed to "jogging". So obviously, you should avoid it as much as possible.

Generally, performing actions with the world will lock you in position until the action is complete. This generally does not come into play, and is mostly artificial, such as opening doors.

Speaking of which, opening doors is something you should never do. Always bash doors. The key difference is that bashing a door down opens it instantly, whereas opening will cost you about a half second while you wait for the damn thing to open. Bashing doors will attract guards to you, but you were never being stealthy in the first place, right?

Guards will constantly block your way. All the damn time. So obviously, you should go around them, giving them plenty of leeway. The primary reason for this is because all guards have a melee attack which will stop you in your tracks. Aside from losing your pacing and being open to any enemy fire in the area (which is generally plentiful) you will also be knocked back and dead in your tracks for about a second or two. If you can't move around an enemy, knock them back with the shotgun.

Sprinting

This gets a title of its own for a very specific reason. That's because it's bloody stupid.

Alpha Protocol uses an "invisible stamina bar" system to determine how much you can sprint. This is common in many games, for example, Grand Theft Auto. Alpha Protocol however does not have your character panting in place if he is out of stamina. However you obviously cannot sprint, which is critical in many places.

Your stamina bar is actually very large, you can sprint for a decent distance, and is as said, critical in some locations. For example, the Rome Finale. However, there are three critical flaws to simply sprinting through the entire game.

First, your control is slightly more limited while sprinting. Although you are not locked on the line, you do have slightly less control than if you were not sprinting. You cannot round corners as well while sprinting essentially.

Secondly, you cannot perform any actions, such as shooting or reloading. Therefore if a guard gets in your way, you have to stop sprinting. The reason this is a problem...

When you start sprinting, a portion of your "stamina" is depleted. It has not yet been figured out exactly how much, but it is significant. This makes it much more economical to sprint larger, straight distances, than short little spurts of the sprint. If you have to start and stop, you are simply wasting sprint.

Using your sprint bar therefore becomes a matter of judgement based on the situation. Although guards are not governed exclusively by RNG, there are some RNG factors that could place guards that usually are not in your way, in your way. Therefore you would save sprint there. Further, if you know you are going to want sprint for another section, you may need to "save" sprint up to that point.

The last thing to note is that your stamina bar regenerates with loading screens. So essentially, after any unskippable cutscene that lasts any semi-decent length of time, you will have full sprint.

Shooting

I have before today described this game's shooting mechanics as very much like Mass Effect 1's. I stand by that.

What I mean by that is that you will never actually have a 100% accurate gun like Call of Duty or (almost) any other shooter game. I am aware that my analogy is not by strict definition accurate, I still think it at least mildly fitting.

Although in Alpha Protocol there are some exceptions to this rule (such as Critical Shots) this holds true. Therefore, being the best shot in all of the world is not a specific requirement to run this game...

Although by the same token, aiming does help. If your crosshair is on your enemies head, you won't be shooting the vase on the shelf that is 20 meters away, it will likely hit, or at least be close. Therefore aiming well is always a good thing to do. But be warned, this doesn't guarantee a hit.

Moving and shooting is really what you want to do, but the penalty for moving and shooting is huge, especially with the pistol. Therefore stopping to really nail your foe in the head is not always a bad idea.

Shooting from the hip (i.e. aiming without holding the right mouse button) is virtual suicide...except with shotguns. This leads on perfectly to the next topic.

Weapon Chemistry

You will be using the pistol and the shotgun throughout your run. You may find the assault rifle really good, or the SMGs really fun, but if you aren't using the pistol and shotgun, don't let the door hit you on the way out. I will now of course, explain the reasoning for this.

(Please note, this section only regards the ebb and flow between these weapons. For a more detailed analysis on why these weapons are chosen, see below in the Weapons section.)

The short version is that the pistol easily can deal the most amount of damage in the shortest amount of time, and the shotgun can stun enemies...but obviously there is more than that.

Using the pistol on the move is almost suicidal. Not only is it slow (as you must stop to aim properly) but is also risky as you may run out of ammo if not conservative, or you will simply miss.

The shotgun has the problem that as the game progresses, the chances of killing an enemy go from reasonable to zero. In fact, the same could be said about the pistol. However used together, they form quite the team.

Essentially, you only want to use the pistol when you need something dead - and fast. If you need to stop and actually kill something, you pull out the pistol. If not, you keep the shotgun out. The shotgun is used for knocking back enemies on the fly, as firing from the hip is not as ineffective. (Seeing as the pellets spray everywhere anyway, aiming is a virtual formality)

Believe it or not...it's that simple.

Weapons

Weapons in this game are obviously critical, given the genre and all. However the problem is that effectively, some are more useful than others. You can only ever carry two on you at a time, therefore choosing from the four available is tricky.

Oh who am I kidding, it's easy.

The Pistol

There is a very simple reason why the pistol is used.

Chain Shot.

Using the pistol, every boss will die. Between the moment when one can shoot at the boss, every boss in the entire game will die in under 10 seconds. This feat is impossible with any other weapon. Now, one can say that is a very narrow view, and that therefore the weapon is useless in the long run. If the only purpose is killing bosses, then what about the rest of the game?

Well, the pistol shines there as well. If one could only choose a single weapon to take with them throughout the entire game, it would have to be the pistol. It operates brilliantly even by itself. In a speedrun, one primarily will use the shotgun on goons for the knockback, however the pistol works very well in situations where you have to actually kill someone. It deals superior damage even without the use of the skill. Therefore, it is an easy choice for the number 1 slot.

The Shotgun

When playing casually, I always used the assault rifle for my "second" weapon. However for a speedrun, this is a fools errand.

The shotgun is not brilliant, deals only moderate damage after the prologue, and is overall useless if you were playing this game casually. But for a speedrun, it has one real advantage. It can stun enemies.

When enemies actually get stunned is beyond me. I believe it's when they suffer enough damage from the shotgun in one hit...and then roll the dice for a "saving" throw. (So to speak) So essentially, it's almost random as to when an enemy is stunned. However, the advantage over the pistol is that you really don't have to aim the shotgun to gain the full potential.

You can run by and hip fire the bad boy until you need to reload. You also don't have to stop. This has the obvious advantage that enemies will not get in your way while you run by, or hit you with a melee attack. It is primarily the fact you can run and gun most effectively with the shotgun that easily secures it the number 2 spot.

The Irrelevant

The other two weapon choices you have in the game, at least in regards to speedruns, are irrelevant. I will now discuss them.

The assault rifle is actually decent. It deals high amounts of damage and is reasonably accurate...if you aim it. This is where the problem lies. The assault rifle only really competes with the shotgun for the number 2 spot, and since you cannot use it on the move, it falls flat. Furthermore, it's skill is lackluster at best. It essentially aims automatically for you...but it's just...lame.

The SMGs are easily the worst weapon of the four. They are in effect, two uzis that your character wields. But they both suck equally. For starters, they are horribly inaccurate. You would think the whole point of uzis is that you can just hold the trigger. Well you can, but bullets spray everywhere. This eliminates the ability to run and gun. The second and primary problem is that they deal very small amounts of damage. The whole "point" of the SMGs is that you gain a damage multiplier, which increases by 0.1x for every consecutive hit you make, in a certain period of time. If you miss any bullets, the multiplier drops totally. Considering the terrible inaccuracy of the weapons coupled with lackluster damage, it's a horrid choice.

The Gadgets

"Gadgets" in Alpha Protocol are not just the 007 style stuff. Gadgets also account for grenades, first aid, sound generators and anything else that can be equipped to the "G" key.

Primarily, the only gadgets you will be interested in are EMPs (discussed in Mini Games) and First Aid. First Aid is used as you would think, to save yourself from death. However Alpha Protocol works interestingly in regards to first aid.

When using a first aid, you recover a certain amount of health quickly, over a short period of time. This is about 20-30 points of health per second. This increases based on perks and skills. (See Classes and Skills for more information on what you will likely get during the run) For the sake of explanation, let's say that a First Aid Kit recovers 100 HP, and that your max is 120 HP.

So, you're running through the bad guy's lair and you're currently sitting on 80 HP. If you were to decide to use your First Aid immediately and nothing to happen, you would simply recover the missing 40 HP and go to your max. However, if you were to use your First Aid while being shot, and during the First Aid's use time, you were to use an extra 60 HP, you would still be recovered to your maximum of 120 HP. This is because First Aid works in real time. You still gain the full use of a First Aid, even if you started the use with 119 HP. If you take damage a frame after you use it, you still recover the full amount.

This makes using First Aid strategic in many ways. You generally want to have slightly less than max health (so you can use First Aid) and then use it just as you are sprinting through an area where you are guaranteed to take damage. By the end of the game, First Aid can heal masses of health, therefore having the ability to recover whatever you lose in real time is huge.

For the entire game really, your gadget loadout should consist of 4 EMPs and 4 First Aid Kits. This allows you to bypass all mini games, and heal enough damage to see you through the level.

Fist Fighting

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. We're in a game with tons of guns, and we're talking about melee attacks!? Well, there are two primary reasons why one running this game, would want to engage a sir or madam in a totally dishonorable game of fisticuffs.

The first is actually reasonably sensible and easy to understand. There's a skill that you can get without time loss, that helps you out! It's called Martial Arts, it's cheap, and effective. Generally, if you talked in percentage, as long as you level this skill up decently well throughout the game, you can deal the "same" amount of damage to an enemy, even though they get more health. If you want to know more about the skill, just click the link previous.

The second reason is a more devious one, and is so to speak, two tricks...but two sides of the same coin. When you need to kill someone, especially later in the game, you will need a little more than just a blast from the shotgun. Therefore, you can work this is two different ways.

1) Run up close, shoot with the shotgun and then quickly start mashing the melee button. 2) Run up close, start mashing the melee button, and when they start blocking, then shoot.

The first one is recommended for the earlier game, because often you can luck out, get all the pellets to hit the bad guy and they just die instantly. But if you don't luck out, you can just follow on with a punch to the face.

The second one is far more devious, but relies on the fact that you get out of your punch animation just slightly before they get out of their blocking animation. This gives you the time to shoot them with your shotgun. If this is really late in the game, you can then shoot again, because it's likely they have been stunned from the first shotgun blast.

To conclude, this essentially makes martial arts one of the most overpowered things in the game...however, the obvious drawback is that it is slow to do this. Performing a punch locks you in place, meaning you cannot "run and gun" a melee attack. If you can get away with it, attempt to continue using the shotgun for as long as possible...but if you really need the guy dead, just give him the old 1...or 2.

Conversations

Short story, always use responses on the left, until after Rome where you want always right, mash left click to skip conversations.

But personally, I think it's insulting to just leave it at that, so here we go...

There is a cutscene "skip" (it's not a bug, just an avoidance...if you will) that requires you to kill a certain character, Conrad Marburg. To do this, you must fulfill two conditions. First, he must displease you greatly. This means you have to piss him off, a lot. This can be satisfied by simply giving him "suave" responses (the ones on the left) every chance you get the first time you meet him. The second condition is that in a majority of conversations up to the point where you fight him, you have used suave responses. This "barrier" is not 100%, however if you do not use many suave responses, you will not get to kill him. Therefore, this is why you use suave up until the end of Rome.

The other half of the cutscene skip is that you must make Leland hire you as his security guard. This will change the final boss from Leland to Westridge. (Don't worry if those character names make no sense at the moment...all you need to know at this point is that it changes things.) If you successfully obtain Westridge as the final boss, the final cutscene before you lose control comes far sooner, at least a minute sooner, than if you have to fight Leland. (Leland is a pussy and tries to bargain for his life...and it's all unskippable. Westridge simply tells you to finish it...and you do)

HOWEVER, as much as this has said what it has said...there are occasions where you should not use suave responses. However, those instances are highlighted in the walkthrough itself so don't worry!

The Clearinghouse / Money

If played casually, money is the most precious commodity in the game, as you cannot "farm" it, or gain any more than is scattered around the map, you gain from scripted events, or in the form of cash drops or useless equipment that you sell. In a speedrun however, money is almost a non-issue, as you will always have enough.

Essentially, there are only three times you should ever be going to the clearinghouse to buy/sell things. They are listed below.

1. Before the first Saudi mission, you should buy a couple of first aid kits and as many EMPs as you can.
2. Once you get to Moscow (your first of the "main" destinations) you should use the money you have acquired to now to buy approx 10 first aid kits and approx 25 EMPs.
3. Lastly, before Brayko's mansion, you need to buy the spiked coke.

To acquire this money, you must download Mina's slush fund (found in your emails, on the same computer you will access the clearinghouse from) Extort Nasri, and sell your Gold Assault Rifle, which you gain automatically from finishing Saudi.

Although I'm sure there are other things which would be useful for a speedrun, the time it takes to get them in comparison with the time it would save is...poor. For example, at first I would extort Brayko in order to gain the money for a level 3 pistol. It was really good, but did not save all that much time. There is also armor that could be bought, but again, getting the money would likely prove inefficient.

Mini-Games

There are three different kinds of mini game found in Alpha Protocol. They are:

1. Disabling alarms
2. Picking locks
3. Hacking computers

They are probably, and I can say this without any hesitation, the absolutely worst part about the game. It's not that there are mini games, it's just that they are awful. Thankfully, you only have to do one of each in a speedrun. The rest are skipped by using EMPs with Sabotage. However, because you must do one of each, and they are in the game, I felt it necessary to mention them.

Actual guides on how to properly do them are found in the main 'walkthrough', in the relevant section.