Alpha Black Zero: Intrepid Protocol is a textbook example of why bigger does not always mean better. This third-person action game from developer Khaeon aspires to be an epic shooter, but it muddles that goal with terrible pacing. Instead of filling Alpha Black Zero with fun and exciting action, Khaeon instead serves up a dimly lit, lackluster game that doesn't know when to stop.
The game takes place in the near future. You play as Lt. Kyle Hardlaw, a young marine officer in charge of an elite, five-man squad called Alpha Black Zero. Hardlaw is the kind of take-charge officer who is not afraid to take the initiative. Of course, we know this from the prologue of the game, which puts Hardlaw in front of a military tribunal explaining why he and his squad decided to wipe out a facility full of civilians. The rest of the game then serves as a flashback, setting up an interesting but convoluted story of rebels, renegades, and sophisticated artificial intelligence systems.
From the opening moments of the first mission, you're introduced to all the game mechanics you'll need to worry about in Alpha Black Zero. You and your squad start off on foot and must march from one point on the map to another while wiping out any resistance that you stumble upon. While you play as Hardlaw, you can issue orders to your squad, and they'll follow you around. You've got to be careful where you go, though, because the squad AI isn't too bright. For example, you can lose squad members when they occasionally try walking off of cliffs to catch up to you.
You can switch between squad members, which is a fairly useful feature, as you'll discover that your highly trained, elite marines apparently can't even scavenge weapons and ammo from the bodies of enemy dead. You'll have to switch to another team member when your ammo is running desperately low, and the only way to replenish ammo is to raid an enemy supply cache, many of which are scattered throughout a mission. The fact that you can use ammo from an enemy supply cache and not ammo from a fallen enemy is just one of the many annoying contrivances in the game.
The enemy AI is fairly dull, and most of your battles will consist of encounters between you and a bunch of bad guys sitting around waiting for you to stumble upon them. Their behavior is downright laughable at times, because they'll scatter, run straight at you, or just stand still. Combat itself feels clumsy, since the controls and animations just aren't smooth. Even worse is the fact that Alpha Black Zero is one of the dimmest games we've seen in a long time; in fact, most of the game feels like it takes place in perpetual twilight. Unfortunately, your marines don't even have night-vision devices, though the technology does exist in the context of the game, because some weapon scopes offer some kind of light amplification. However, the overwhelming darkness makes it difficult to spot enemies, and it hangs over the game like a depressing pall.
All of the aforementioned problems wouldn't have been half as irritating if you didn't have to suffer them for long. However, Alpha Black Zero drags on to the point of frustration. Case in point is a tedious escort mission where, for some harebrained reason, your high-tech military squad has to walk a small convoy of technicians through enemy territory (it's an age of interstellar space travel, and apparently you can't shuttle the convoy by air). So you battle through enemy territory to get the convoy to its destination, only to learn that you have to go back to escort a second convoy through the same territory you just vacated. So you battle back to the starting point (yes, all the bad guys reappear) to meet up with the second convoy. And, yes, the territory that you've cleared out twice now is teeming once more with bad guys. So you deliver the second convoy only to learn that you have to go back to repeat the process a third time. The game is full of levels like this, and even if they were half the length, they'd still border on "dragging-on-for-too-long." You almost dread getting a level with a mountain in it, because you just know that you're going to have to wind your way around it several times to clear out every ridge and valley.
The multiplayer is only limited to cooperative gameplay, and you can play with up to four other players. This has its obvious advantages, as you don't have to worry about shepherding your AI squadmates, which allows you to focus your fire more effectively. However, the weak combat remains pretty much the same.
Alpha Black Zero uses Croteam's Serious engine, the same graphics engine that powers Serious Sam. It's certainly capable of rendering huge levels that play seamlessly. However, Alpha Black Zero is nowhere near as colorful as Serious Sam, because the game is mired in bland environments. The alien worlds are practically barren, save for clumps of grass, and the few buildings are relatively basic in design. Some of the atmospheric effects are nice, such as dust storms. And there is one outrageous sequence where huge, fiery chunks of metal fall from the sky. The game's indoor levels are a bit better, since they tend to be better lit, though not by much, at times. While there's some decent voice acting during the long cutscenes that are interspersed throughout the game, the sound, for the most part, is otherwise forgettable. You can barely hear the dialogue during the game; the toylike sound of weapons fire is pathetic; and, generally, the music consists of a constant, low-frequency thrum that doesn't change pitch.
Khaeon certainly presents some interesting ideas with its game's universe, because the story is jammed with all sorts of details that are waiting to be explored in future titles. However, the developer needs to spend just as much attention on getting Alpha Black Zero: Intrepid Protocol's gameplay mechanics right if it wants anyone to care about the game's story.
