In this episode, we continue our siege on Brayko's mansion while anaphysik continues to speak in his native accent. At the same time, Ringwraith insists on faking a British accent. What a jerk!
Anaphysik makes a great point when it comes to the reference to "The Outsiders". Considering the kind of attention to detail that I'm used to from Obsidian, it's odd that they include this little reference to that book without actually doing much of anything with it. Brayko's self-styled band and the protagonist's group from the book have very few things in common. I wouldn't expect Brayko to understand the subtleties, but I would expect Obsidian to. It would've been interesting if Mike had some sort of dialog option that eludes to some comparison between them, either subverted or played straight, just to make use of the little detail. If it's just there to show Brayko's comic ineptitude when it comes to understanding things, then I'd like to have something to point it out. As it stands, it seems like the writers just remembered about it and thought to include a reference to the work in their game.
One thing I'd like to note is that we got Championchik's Secret Fact... without ever having met him or even getting a single document on him. This means that we can't view it since we have no file on him. If we didn't play this game before and met him, we'd basically be going "Cool, we got Championchik's secret fact! Wait, WHO THE FUCK IS CHAMPIONCHIK!?"
I like how Obsidian decided to include a vault as a way of tying Alpha Protocol into the Fallout series. I'm surprised though, how would Brayko have been involved with Vault-Tec? Did he know about their plans to experiment on vault dwellers? If so, did he allow them to do it willingly or was he coerced by them? It's a great leap for both this game's and Fallout's canon, but it raises so many questions.
It really is bizarre that the game gives you the choice to execute SIE/Albatross if you choose to save them. Mostly because in order to do so, you'd need to willing choose to abandon the vault data to kill them yourself instead of having Brayko do it for you. This is incredibly petty, even for an aggressive Thorton. I'm not complaining, since the choice still allows for more role-playing possibilities, but honestly anyone who chose it for any reason other than role-play is dumb.
Brayko's boss fight sucks... unless you're playing as a Veteran on Easy. I remember playing through my first time on Hard: This is the exact opposite of fun. I hated Turn Up the Radio for weeks just because of that boss fight. People complain about his ridiculous coke-fueled CQC attacks which give him huge defense, but on Hard he's even FASTER, so dodging him is very difficult. Again, the boss fights are so bad in this game. It's shocking how much this real-world spy thriller can be a typical 90s video game.
