Dead Space 2
Dead Space 2 is a survival horror video game in third-person view, developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, released in January 2011. Set three years after the events of the first Dead Space, the game follows protagonist Isaac Clarke's fight against a new Necromorph outbreak on the Sprawl, a space station surrounding a shard of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Unlike its predecessor, Dead Space 2 has a multiplayer mode, pitting human characters against Necromorphs across the Sprawl. A Collector's Edition is available for all three platforms. A port for Wii was not released, it is one of the most expensive video games with $60 million budget as development cost and $60 million as marketing cost, overall $120 million at the development years. A sequel, Dead Space 3, was released in February 2013; the player controls Isaac Clarke from a third-person perspective, looking over the character's right shoulder. As in the previous game, the game uses the Resource Integration Gear suit, an in-world heads-up display system that uses holograms projected from Isaac's suit and weapons to show information such as messages and ammunition count.
In vacuum areas, a timer appears on Isaac's right shoulder, counting how much oxygen his suit has before he suffocates. The RIG uses gauges on Isaac's back to display his health and stasis module levels. If Isaac's health or air reaches zero, or if the player fails to survive a quick-time event, Isaac will die, forcing the player to restart from the last checkpoint. Early in the game, Isaac acquires the stasis module, which slows down enemies and otherwise-impassable moving obstacles to allow Isaac to pass through safely; the player can upgrade their weapons and armor at work benches. There are automated stores, where the player can buy and sell various items, gain new weapons and suits through acquiring schematics found throughout the Sprawl. Throughout the game, the player will come across different puzzles. In some cases, Isaac must open doors; the player encounters zero-G environments, where Isaac is capable of maneuvering in all directions with thrusters attached to his suit. Both normal and zero-G environments may be in areas within the vacuum of outer space.
Much like in the first game, Isaac must fight the Necromorphs, organisms that mutate and take control of human corpses. To take down Necromorphs, the player must use "strategic dismemberment": in other words, slicing off limbs or sections of the Necromorphs' bodies. For example, shooting a Slasher Necromorph in the head will, like many other types, have little effect. Depending on how they are wounded, some Necromorphs, like the Pregnant and the Ubermorph, can adopt new stances and tactics sprouting new limbs or spawning more enemies in the process. Dead Space 2's main campaign offers five difficulty levels: Casual, Survivalist and Hard Core. Hard Core is unlocked. Hard Core mode, which can only be enabled upon beginning the game, limits the player to three saves in the entire campaign. Item drops and credits are more rare, enemies are more challenging, checkpoints are absent. Multiplayer in Dead Space 2 known as Outbreak mode, pits two four-player teams of human Sprawl Security forces and the Necromorphs against each other in different locations and scenarios.
The Humans complete various mission objectives before time runs out, such as activating escape pods and destroying machines. There are two rounds per match, with each team switching sides at the end of the round. Human player characters start with two weapons in their arsenal, starting with the standard Pulse Rifle and Plasma Cutter, before unlocking new weapons to use. For Humans, new weapons and improvements are unlocked through level progression, along with different suits similar to the ones in single player for the humans. Necromorph players, on the other hand, unlock boosts to their current abilities and damage. Necromorph players can choose the Necromorph they will spawn as: a Lurker, a Puker, a Spitter, or a member of the Pack. In order to use stronger Necromorphs, like the Puker and Spitter, the player must wait for a number of seconds on the respawn screen before that type is usable. Whilst Sprawl Security players spawn in their main spawn areas, Necromorph players spawn through vents and floor panels all over the map, can choose their spawn point on the spawn screen.
The events of the game take place on the Sprawl, a densely populated civilian space station built onto the last remaining shard of Titan, one of Saturn's moons, site of the first planet crack. Three years after the events of Aegis VII, Isaac Clarke is awakened in an insane asylum by Franco Delille, an engineer on the Sprawl, sent to rescue Isaac. With the already-ongoing Necromorph outbreak, an Infector kills and mutates Franco into a Slasher in front of Isaac, leaving Isaac to escape on his own with no memory of his time on the Sprawl.. While fleeing the chaos of the Necromorph outbreak, Isaac stumbles upon a bloodied Foster Edgars - a scientist that oversaw Isaac's sessions - who puts Is
Dead Head Fred
Dead Head Fred is a horror comedy action-adventure video game for the PlayStation Portable, developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by D3 Publisher. It was released in North America on August 28, 2007 and is powered by Vicious Cycle's proprietary Vicious Engine, it features a premise, a combination of 1940s-style noir and contemporary horror, dubbed "twisted noir" by the design team. The game is a single-player experience whose title character, Fred Neuman, is a private investigator with the ability to switch heads. Fred has been murdered and decapitated, has few memories of the events leading to his death; the plot follows Fred as he pieces together the clues of his murder and tries to get revenge on the man who killed him. Unlike many action game heroes, Fred has no conventional weapons—he relies on the powers available to him from the severed heads of fallen enemies; the game received positive reviews, with reviewers mentioning its dark humor and noir-inspired motif as high points.
It received criticism for its lack of combat depth. In 2008, it won the Writers Guild of America's first-ever award for video game writing. Dead Head Fred is a third-person action-adventure game that incorporates a variety of gameplay styles, including combat and puzzles; the core gameplay of Dead Head Fred revolves around Fred's missing head and his ability to "switch" heads by defeating certain enemies, decapitating them, collecting their heads. As Fred explores the city of Hope Falls, he can collect an assortment of heads, each of which has unique abilities. Examples include the Stone Idol head, which Fred can use as a battering ram, the Corpse head, which can be used to suck up and spit out water and other materials. Fred uses these heads to navigate the city of Hope Falls, certain parts of the city are not accessible until certain heads are found; the high level of radiation in Hope Falls has led to a proliferation of grossly mutated worms, which the player can collect and use to upgrade Fred's heads and temporarily increase his fighting abilities, among other benefits.
Collectible are money and special items, which can be earned by defeating enemies or completing various side-missions. There are several minigames unrelated to the plot, such as pinball and fishing, scattered around the city. In combat, players have several attacks at their disposal, depending on the head Fred is equipped with; these attacks include combos, head-specific counterattacks, ranged attacks. During a counterattack, the player can complete a Quick Time Event to kill an enemy by removing its head, which gives Fred "Rage" points. Rage energy builds up over time, the player can use it to unleash powerful attacks on multiple foes. Dealing a large amount of damage to an opponent will stun them, during which time Fred can remove their head. Collected heads can be traded at "Head Shops" for a usable version. There are several types of environmental puzzles that the player has to solve in order to progress through the game; each one requires a specific head—the Bone head gives Fred sharp claws which allow him to climb on the sides of buildings, while the Shrunken head decreases his size and lets him navigate platforming levels, such as a saw mill.
There is a mannequin head that Fred must use to socialize with the residents of Hope Falls, because they are terrified of his other heads. There are nine available heads. Dead Head Fred takes place in Hope Falls, New Jersey, a once-prosperous area based on American cities in the 1940s; the city has fallen from grace since a business mogul named Ulysses Pitt began accumulating power. Pitt has a background of petty crime, there are allegations that he was somehow responsible for the disappearance of Vinni Rossini, an influential Hope Falls businessman. Pitt's new "Nukular Plant" has finished construction and has caused a high level of radiation in the city, leading to strange phenomena like mutated wildlife and undead monsters. Hope Falls is composed of several areas; the first that Fred has access to is Dr. Steiner's castle, the ancestral home of the Steiner family where Fred has been resurrected. Outside of the castle is a large cemetery. In Hope Falls proper are the urban areas of Downtown, Old Hope Falls and Zombietown.
Downtown is the home of Pitt's headquarters, Fred's office is found in Old Hope Falls. Zombietown, as its name suggests, is overrun with zombies and most of its residents have fled the neighborhood or barricaded themselves in their homes. Two other rural areas border the city: Freak Farms, where Fred owns a small cabin, the Boonies, a irradiated area where the Nukular Reactor has been built; each area contains several teleporters in the form of sewer manholes, which Fred can use to move from one area of Hope Falls to another. The protagonist of Dead Head Fred is a private detective. Fred is the only playable character, but since each head gives him a different set of animations, he could be considered nine separate characters; as he does not have a proper face, Fred's mood is portrayed by the tone of his voice and by face-like expressions formed by his eyes and frontal lobes. Fred has a wisecracking, sarcastic personality and breaks the fourth wall, such as heckling the player when he dies. Ulysses Pitt, the game's primary antagonist, is a small-time hoodlum turned racketeer.
Pitt employs many henchmen throughout Hope Falls, the most prominent of, his lieutenant Lefty, whos
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA is a French video game company headquartered in Montreuil with several development studios across the world. It is known for publishing games for several acclaimed video game franchises, including Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Raving Rabbids, Tom Clancy's; as of March 2018, Ubisoft is the fourth largest publicly-traded game company in the Americas and Europe after Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive in terms of revenue and market capitalisation. The Guillemot family had established themselves as a farming support business for farmers in the Brittany province in northwest France and nearby regions, including into the United Kingdom; the five sons of the family – Christian, Claude, Gérard and Yves – helped with the sales, distribution and management of the company with their parents prior to university. All five gained business experience while at university, which they brought back to the family business to help improve it, at a time where farming businesses were starting to wane.
The brothers came up with the idea of diversification to sell other products of use to farmers. In the early 1980s, they saw that the costs of buying computers and software from a French supplier was more expensive than buying the same materials in the United Kingdom and shipping to France, came upon the idea of a mail-order business around computers and software, their mother said they could start their own business this way as long as they managed it themselves and split its shares between the five of them. Their first business was Guillemot Informatique, founded in 1984, they only sold through mail order, but soon were getting orders from French retailers, since they were able to undercut other suppliers by up to 50% of the cost of new titles. By 1986, this company was earning about 40 million French francs. In 1985, the brothers established Guillemot Corporation for similar distribution of computer hardware; as demand continued, the brothers recognised that video game software was becoming a lucrative property, decided that they needed to get into the development side of the industry having insight on the publication and distribution side.
Ubi Soft was founded by the brothers on 28 March 1986. The name "Ubi Soft" was selected to represent "ubiquitous" software. Ubi Soft operated out of offices in Paris, moving to Créteil by June 1986; the brothers used the chateau in France's Brittany region as the primary space for development, hoping the setting would lure developers, as well as to have a better way to manage expectations of their developers. The company hired Nathalie Saloud as manager, Sylvie Hugonnier as director of marketing and public relations, as well as several programmers, though Hugonnier had left the company by May 1986 to join Elite Software. Games published by Ubi Soft in 1986 include Zombi, Ciné Clap, Fer et Flamme, Masque, as well as Graphic City, a sprite editing programme; as their first-ever game, Zombi became a critical and commercial success, had sold five thousand copies by January 1987. Ubi Soft entered into distribution partnerships for the game to be released in Spain and West Germany. Ubi Soft started importing products from abroad for distribution in France, with 1987 releases including Elite Software's Commando and Ikari Warriors, the former of which had sold 15,000 copies by January 1987.
In 1988, Yves Guillemot was appointed as Ubi Soft's chief executive officer. Around 1988, the costs of maintaining the chateau were too expensive, the developers, about a half-dozen at the time, were given the option to relocate to Paris. One of Ubi Soft's first hires was Michel Ancel, only a teenager at the time, but had been noticed by the brothers for his animation skills, he and his family relocated to Brittany. However, with the chateau's closure, Ancel's family could not afford the cost of living in Paris, returned to Montpellier in southern France, while the Guillemot brothers told Ancel to keep them abreast of anything he might come up with there. Ancel came back with Frédéric Houde with a prototype of a game with highly-animated features which caught the brothers' interest. Michel Guillemot decided to make the project a key one for the company, establishing a studio in Montreuil to house over 100 developers in 1994, targeting the new line of fifth generation consoles like the Atari Jaguar and PlayStation.
Their game, was released in 1995 to critical success, is considered the game that put Ubi Soft in the worldwide spotlight. Alongside this, Yves managed Guillemot Informatique, making deals with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line and MicroProse to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Guillemot Informatique began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, they entered the video game distribution and wholesale markets, by 1993 they had become the largest distributor of video games in France. In 1996, Ubi Soft listed its initial public offering and raised over US$80 million in funds to help them to expand the company. Within two years, the company established worldwide studios in Annecy, Shanghai and Milan. One difficulty that the brothers found was the lack of an intellectual property that would have a foothold in the United States market; when widespread growth of the Internet arrived around 1999, the brothers decided to take advantage of this by founding game studios aimed at online
Sega
Sega Games Co. Ltd. is a Japanese multinational video game developer and publisher headquartered in Tokyo. The company known as Sega Enterprises Ltd. and Sega Corporation, is a subsidiary of Sega Holdings Co. Ltd., part of Sega Sammy Holdings. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega of Europe, are headquartered in Irvine and London. Sega's arcade division, once part of Sega Corporation, has existed as Sega Interactive Co. Ltd. a Sega Holdings subsidiary, since 2015. The company was founded by Martin Bromley as Nihon Goraku Bussan on June 3, 1960, which became known as Sega Enterprises, Ltd. after acquiring Rosen Enterprises, an importer of coin-operated games. Sega developed its first coin-operated game with Periscope in the late 1960s. In 1969, Sega was sold to Western Industries. Following a downturn in the arcade business in the early 1980s, Sega began to develop video game consoles, starting with the SG-1000 and Master System, but struggled against competitors such as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
In 1984, Sega executives David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama led a management buyout of the company with backing from CSK Corporation. Sega released its next console, the Sega Genesis, in 1988. Although it was a distant third in Japan, the Genesis found major success after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and outsold its main competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in the U. S; however in the decade, Sega suffered commercial failures such as the 32X, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast consoles. In 2001, Sega stopped manufacturing consoles to become a third-party developer and publisher, was acquired by Sammy Corporation in 2004. In the years since the acquisition, Sega has been more profitable, but has been criticized for prioritizing quantity of game releases over quality. Sega produces multi-million-selling game franchises including Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Yakuza, is the world's most prolific arcade game producer, it operates amusement arcades and produces other entertainment products, including Sega Toys.
Sega is a subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings, a corporate conglomerate with over 60 individual subsidiaries. In 1940, American businessmen Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, James Humpert formed Standard Games in Honolulu, Hawaii, to provide coin-operated amusement machines to military bases, they saw that the increase in military personnel with the onset of World War II would create demand for entertainment at military bases. After the war, the founders sold Standard Games and established a new distributor, Service Games, named for the military focus. In 1951, the United States government outlawed slot machines in US territories, so in 1952 Bromley sent two employees, Richard Stewart and Ray LeMaire, to Tokyo to establish a new distributor; the company provided coin-operated slot machines to U. S. bases in Japan, by 1953 had changed its name to Service Games of Japan. The name Sega, an abbreviation of Service Games, was first used in 1954 on the Diamond Star Machine, a slot machine. On May 31, 1960, Service Games of Japan was dissolved.
On June 3, Bromley established two companies to take over its business activities: Nihon Goraku Bussan and Nihon Kikai Seizō. Kikai Seizō focused on manufacturing Sega machines, while Goraku Bussan served as a distributor and operator of coin-operated machines jukeboxes; the two companies merged in 1964. In 1954, David Rosen, an American officer in the United States Air Force stationed in Japan, launched a two-minute photo booth business in Tokyo; this company became Rosen Enterprises, in 1957 began importing coin-operated games to Japan. In 1965, Nihon Goraku Bussan acquired Rosen Enterprise to form Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Rosen was installed as the CEO and managing director. Shortly afterward, Sega stopped leasing to military bases and moved its focus from slot machines to become a publicly traded company of coin-operated amusement machines, its imports included Rock-Ola jukeboxes, pinball games by Williams, gun games by Midway Manufacturing. Because Sega imported second-hand machines that required maintenance, Sega began the transition from importer to manufacturer by constructing replacement guns and flippers for its imported games.
According to former Sega director Akira Nagai, this led to Sega developing their own games as well. The first electromechanical game Sega manufactured was the submarine simulator game Periscope, released worldwide in the late 1960s; the game sported light and sound effects considered innovative, was successful in Japan. It was placed in malls and department stores, it cost 25 cents per play in the United States. Sega was surprised by the success, for the next two years produced and exported between eight and ten games per year. Despite this, rampant piracy in the industry would lead to Sega stepping away from exporting its games. In order to advance the company, Rosen had a goal to take the company public, decided this would be easier to accomplish in the United States than in Japan. Rosen was advised that this would be easiest accomplished by Sega being acquired by a larger company. In 1969, Sega was sold to American conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries, although Rosen remained CEO following the sale.
Rosen continued to develop his relationship with Gulf and Western chairman Charles Bluhdorn, in 1974 Gulf and Western made Sega Enterprises, Ltd. a subsidiary of an American company renamed Sega Enterprises, Inc. Sega released Pong-Tron, its first video-based game, in 1973. Despite late competition from Taito's hit arcade game Space Invaders in 1978, Sega prospered from the arcade gam
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It is the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue and market capitalization after Activision Blizzard and ahead of Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft as of March 2018. Founded and incorporated on May 27, 1982, by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for its games. EA published numerous games and productivity software for personal computers and experimented on techniques to internally develop games, leading to the 1987 release of Skate or Die!. The company would decide in favor of abandoning their original principles and acquiring smaller companies that they see profitable, as well as annually releasing franchises to stay profitable. EA develops and publishes games including EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, NBA Live, UFC. Other EA established franchises includes Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, as well as newer franchises such as Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Their desktop titles appear on self-developed Origin, an online gaming digital distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve's Steam. EA owns and operates major gaming studios, EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Vancouver in Burnaby, BioWare in Edmonton as well as Austin, DICE in Sweden and Los Angeles. Trip Hawkins had been an employee of Apple Inc. since 1978, at a time when the company had only about fifty employees. Over the next four years, the market for home personal computers skyrocketed. By 1982, Apple had completed its initial public offering and become a Fortune 500 company with over one thousand employees. In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin' Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple, where Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, allowed Hawkins use of Sequoia Capital's spare office space to start the company. On May 27, 1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US$200,000.
For more than seven months, Hawkins refined his Electronic Arts business plan. With aid from his first employee, Rich Melmon, the original plan was written by Hawkins, on an Apple II in Sequoia Capital's office in August 1982. During that time, Hawkins employed two of his former staff from Apple, Dave Evans and Pat Marriott, as producers, a Stanford MBA classmate, Jeff Burton from Atari for international business development; the business plan was again refined in September and reissued on October 8, 1982. By November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, Steve Hayes. Having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo office that overlooked the San Francisco Airport landing path. Headcount rose in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner, Nancy Fong; when he incorporated the company, Hawkins chose Amazin' Software as their company name, but his other early employees of the company universally disliked the name.
He scheduled an off-site meeting in the Pajaro Dunes, where the company once held such off-site meetings. Hawkins had developed the ideas of treating software as an art form and calling the developers, "software artists". Hence, the latest version of the business plan had suggested the name "SoftArt"; however and Melmon knew the founders of Software Arts, the creators of VisiCalc, thought their permission should be obtained. Dan Bricklin did not want the name used. However, the name concept was liked by all the attendees. Hawkins had recently read a bestselling book about the film studio United Artists, liked the reputation that the company had created. Hawkins said everyone had a vote but they would lose it if they went to sleep. Hawkins liked the word "electronic", various employees had considered the phrases "Electronic Artists" and "Electronic Arts"; when Gordon and others pushed for "Electronic Artists", in tribute to the film company United Artists, Steve Hayes opposed, saying, "We're not the artists, they are..."
This statement from Hayes tilted sentiment towards Electronic Arts and the name was unanimously endorsed and adopted in 1982. He recruited his original employees from Apple, Xerox PARC, VisiCorp, got Steve Wozniak to agree to sit on the board of directors. Hawkins was determined to sell directly to buyers. Combined with the fact that Hawkins was pioneering new game brands, this made sales growth more challenging. Retailers wanted to buy known brands from existing distribution partners. Former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped expand the successful company; this policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, key advantages the company would leverage to leapfrog its early competitors. A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days; this characterization was further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling.
EA referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. Their first such ad, accompanied by the slogan "We see far
Alpha Protocol
Alpha Protocol is an action role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Sega. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 in May 2010; the player assumes control of agent Michael Thorton, a new recruit at a clandestine United States agency called Alpha Protocol, given unlimited resources to conduct covert operations on behalf of the government. Thorton must unravel an international conspiracy to stop a war. Throughout the game, players must make many choices. Played from a third-person perspective, players can confront enemies using firearms, martial arts, stealth; the game features extensive customization and a dialogue stance system that allows players to select dialogues based on three different tones. The game's development began in March 2006 after publisher Sega approached Obsidian for a new intellectual property role-playing game. While Obsidian co-founders Feargus Urquhart and Chris Jones came up with the concept of an "espionage RPG", no one was assigned to lead the project until early 2008.
The project was inspired by iconic spy characters such as Jason Bourne, James Bond, Jack Bauer. Sega participated in the game's development, supporting the plot rewrite by Chris Avellone, sending quality assurance and cohesion strike teams to ensure there were no plot holes. Alpha Protocol received polarized reviews upon release. Critics praised the game's setting and reactivity, but criticized its gameplay, story and presentation. Retrospectively, the game's reputation improved and it gained a cult following. Despite Obsidian's desire to develop a sequel, intellectual property owner Sega was not satisfied with the game's financial performance and no sequel is planned. Alpha Protocol is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. Players assume control of Michael Thorton, a secret agent who must travel around the world as he unravels a conspiracy that threatens his safety. At the start of the game, players can choose Thorton's agent history. There are Freelancer and Veteran options, in which players custom-build their own class.
Players can customize elements of Thorton's appearance, including his hair, eye color and accessories including hats and glasses. Missions start at a safe house, which serves as a hub for players. In the hub, players can select missions, access the black market to buy weapons and intelligence, use the weapon locker. Weapons can be extensively customized. In missions, players can approach their objectives in a variety of ways. Players can buy armor. Non-lethal means can be used. Levels are intricate, with multiple paths for players to explore. Players can collect money bags and open safes in mission areas, use the money to buy weapons after returning to the hub. Players can hide behind a cover to prevent themselves being noticed. To open locked doors and encrypted computers, disable alarms, players must hack them by completing mini-games. A mission summary screen, which lists the number of completed objectives and individual players killed or knocked out, appears after the completion of missions. By choosing the correct dialogue options and completing certain gameplay challenges, players can earn small combat enhancements called Perks.
Thorton's skills can be extensively customized. Players earn experience points while completing certain actions. Skills points are earned when players level-up after earning sufficient experience points, which can be used to upgrade nine aspects of Thorton's skills. Spending points on these aspects unlock new skills that can be activated to enhance Thorton's combat efficiency. For instance, a skill known as Chain Shot slows the passage of time and allows players to kill enemies in rapid succession. Players can specialize in three skills. Alpha Protocol features numerous non-playable characters with. Conversations occur in real-time, giving the player a limited amount of time to respond to key decision points; the dialogue system in the game, known as the Dialogue Stance System, allows the player to choose one of three attitudes, or "stances", when speaking to an NPC. In dialogue sequences, the player can choose from three main options. Sometimes, a fourth, "special" dialogue choice is available.
Dossiers enable players to gain early understanding of NPCs before approaching them. Each NPC will react differently to these choices, it will change NPCs' actions during the game, benefiting or undermining Thorton's operation. While dialogue
