Alpha Protocol is the kind of game I really wish was great. Stealth games, an understated thinking man's genre of gaming, are far and few between, especially good ones; so when one is released, especially one that appears to represent something new in the genre, namely a third person, stat-based stealth shooter, cum-rpg with a deep back story of espionage and intrigue, you really hope for the best.

And then you discover that all that is largely irrelevant if the quality of the gameplay doesn't match the quality of the premise. And unfortunately in the case of AP it certainly does not. In this day and age there are certain expectations placed on games to deliver on the most basic of gameplay aspects. Gaming is no new phenomena; precedents have been set, rules have been established. Yet still developers, inexplicably, continue to get the fundamentals wrong and AP is a perfect example of this.

Let's take the first level for example; you're placed behind cover in the corner of a yard with an impenetrable wire fence cordoning you off and a guard patrolling just in front of you. Ignoring how you actually got there in the first place, over the un-climbable fence and without the guard seeing, you kill the guard, and he rests, slumped, in the centre of the yard. So why can't I drag the body off to a shadowy location to ensure he won't be discovered? Surely a stealth game like this would require such a feature? Well, even the new Splinter Cell game discarded this ability, so perhaps it is unfair to criticise too heavily for this oversight. But make no mistake it is an oversight.

Let's continue. Wander round the corner and attempt to climb a ladder resting against a building and you discover there's no key command for climb; instead you have to fumble about at the bottom of the ladder until the game decides you want to climb up and allows you on to the ladder. And there's no option to climb fast and to jump off the ladder if you need to make a quick escape.

Assail up to the sentry's guard post on a nearby tree top; next to a building you're trying to reach the roof of, and attempt to leap from tree to roof and you get a key prompt saying press to leap. "I didn't need a key prompt for that," you think, but wait, you do; as there is no key assigned to jump, so the game has to show you where it is possible to jump from, with a key command. Stop a minute... did Obsidian just make a stealth game which would see you climbing buildings, using zip wires and similar stunts only not to include a jump key? Yes. Yes they did.

Climb along the roof, jump to the adjacent balcony and enter the adjoining building through a door in the roof and it takes you into a room with platforms along the ceiling and two guards patrolling down below. Up top you're in full view of the guards, fully lit, yet they don't see you. Climb down and walk to the rear of the building, which is in darkness, and you're warned they've just seen you. How could they? It's pitch black back here. Which means light is not a factor. In a stealth game! And that means that you can't shoot out the lights to give yourself cover; yet another fundamental stealth mechanic missing from the game. Add it to the list.

Kill the guards individually, with stealth, (again you really should be able to dispose of the bodies, one is patrolling not five feet away from his murdered colleague who is lying in full view of him on the floor to his right, but he fails to spot him) and move out to the next building. Look up; oh the zip wire, from the first building I climbed, goes to this building's balcony. I'll go back and use that. Oh wait, you can't. Getting back on to the balcony shows that, whilst the game gives you the option to jump to the building, you can't jump back in the direction you came and reach the zip wire. And you can't walk through the hole in the balcony fence either; something invisible is there. Frustrating. The game should reward creative situation tackling ideas, not hinder them.

Go back through the building, which is filled full of aisles of stacked boxes and crates that you inexplicably cant climb over or on to, and you reach a yard with two more guards in. They are easy to kill by simply learning their patrol routes, finding a moment when they are not facing each other and stealth killing them from behind. There are not many things that I would enjoy doing to a man from behind, but stealth killing them in Alpha Protocol is one thing that is not entirely unsatisfying. However, as the game unfolds, you soon realise this is the best, maybe even the only, way to pass through the game unnoticed. And it soon becomes laborious.

I could continue to pick at the little things within the game but I won't. There are certain areas the game excels in and despite these flaws within the core gameplay elements there is more than enough within the game to keep the attention of lovers of the genre. It certainly managed to keep me going back to it. Maybe I just love stealth games too much, I don't know.

The problem is that, in a great stealth game, you need to be able to know that you can interact with obstacles and conditions within your environment, otherwise it ruins the immersion simply because it lacks any sort of realism. The gameplay is conspicuously limited and, simply put; no great game makes you aware of its limitations. Example: I'm crouching behind a knee high wall waiting for a guard to patrol by me on the other side, once he's gone I want to leap over the wall and sneak past him but I can't jump over it. Instead I have to creep all the way round it and as I do so, he spots me. Why oh why can't a CIA trained espionage expert climb over a knee high wall?

And speaking of which, why can't a CIA agent shoot a guard ten yards away with a headshot with his pistol when the crosshair is directly over his head? I'm all for stat building and improving, but if the best the CIA can produce can not hit a man ten yards away, without holding the aim steady for several seconds until the crosshair turns red, then something has gone seriously wrong during training.

In a genre in which immersion and absorption are two vital ingredients, you simply cannot kill the suspension of disbelief by making such fundamental design errors as the ones mentioned. Individually they're forgivable, collectively they are not. The cut scenes would have you believe the game is a thinking man's Splinter Cell, with RPG elements and the like bundled in but there's no point making the story, stat building and inventory intellectual when the game play is for dummies.

Alpha Protocol is ultimately a slightly above average game that probably won't appeal to anyone other than stealth or action rpg enthusiasts. Maybe, one day, a developer will produce a thinking man's stealth game with a deep and engrossing premise, and gameplay to match. I live in hope.