Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol hides which approach works, so players must read the guard. A Saudi guard lets you through if you are direct or aggressive, but joking with the line 'Christmas trees!' makes him call ahead and the conversation collapses into combat.

The game never signals the right option. You judge the guard's mood, past reactions and social cues, which turns the conversation into a puzzle about a person. "The game doesn't tell you what will work - you have to decide for yourself by reading their mood."

Make talking a different kind of play, not a way to skip play. Mark Brown contrasts Alpha Protocol with skill-check dialogue like Fallout: New Vegas, where a speech stat of 30 and one button press replace an entire fight. In Alpha Protocol the conversation can fail and turn into combat, so choosing to talk tests social skill instead of avoiding the challenge.

Skill checks only have a win outcome, while combat has a range from total success to complete failure. A conversation that can go wrong gives talking that same range. "And so this provides an actual alternative to the more typical combat gameplay, rather than just an option to skip it."