Protocol

Protocol was reviewed on a PS4

Protocol is a game that I never thought I’d ever play. It’s the bizarre lovechild of Alien’s sci-fi setting and Postal 2’s outlandish humor. You play as an ex-military guy who recently underwent a traumatic divorce. In order to get away from his thoughts, he decides to enroll in a top-secret mission to the North Pole.

What’s in the North Pole? Well, aliens, obviously. What’s your job? Making first contact with the aliens.

Sit tight folks, cause Protocol is a one of a kind game, and so, it truly deserves a one of a kind review. 

What is Protocol?

Protocol is a First Person adventure game that’s filled to the brim with crass, vulgar humor, over the top voice acting and a lot of creativity. If I had to describe it in a few words, it’s a sci-fi Postal game. The protagonist even sounds like an imitation of the dude from Postal. If you don’t know what Postal is, it’s the GREATEST GAME EVER MADE.

The complex where you spend most of your time is controlled by an AI whose sole job is making sure that you don’t violate the protocol. How do you violate the protocol? By not following the AI’s obscure rules and instructions. If it tells you to use your keycard on a RED terminal, then you better make sure you use the keycard on the goddamn red terminal. Otherwise, prepare to be literally decimated in a nuclear bomb.

You have violated the Protocol. Have a nice day.

For example, one of the other ways of violating the protocol is literally forgetting to lift the toilet seat before peeing, which I’m proud to have done so on my first try. Violate the protocol, and the AI will literally nuke the complex you’re in, out of existence. During the first few hours, the game leaves you no room whatsoever to experiment. Almost any small action that deviates from the AI’s instructions will violate the protocol, making sure that you endure another one of Protocol’s lengthy loading screens.

The loading screens are an absolute nightmare. Since you’ll violate the protocol a lot, you’ll have to put up with a lot of them. This made me think twice before trying to experiment with new ways of violating the protocol.

A lot of the humor stems from the protagonist’s relationship with his ex-wife. The complex’s AI decides to assign him a virtual assistant in the shape of his ex-wife, who delivers a few funny remarks at time, and the humor succeeded in making me chuckle and grin thanks to the exchanges between both characters.

Some of the other funny moments is when the game uses observational humor. At one point during the game, you have to kill an alien and interrogate another. The AI orders you to carry the alien to a medical center where you’ll have to perform an autopsy for the recently deceased creature. The protagonist comments on how disgusting it is to carry the aliens without any gloves. This line works not just because of the absurdity of the situation, but also because of the great voice acting.

Don’t Forget Your Keycard

Most of the puzzles are cleverly designed. At the start of your mission, you’re given your keycard. This keycard is important since it allows you to access each location in the complex. However, just like in real life, you need to remember to take the keycard out of every terminal after you use it. The game even acknowledges the fact that the player will keep forgetting it by giving you a few achievements for forgetting to do so at certain points of the game.

Some of the puzzles can be a bit too difficult for casual gamers or for people who aren’t paying much attention. The game requires you at times to remember something from the earlier puzzle that you didn’t know you were supposed to remember. At one point, the AI decides to give you a test in which it tests your reaction to a few images. It later tests you about the order of the appearance of these images, which can catch many players off guard.

There’s also a few notes scattered around the complex, and they act as another way of delivering the game’s humor. One of the early game notes is a man who’s angry that his superiors sent him beer when he asked for alcohol. He’s in the North Pole, and they sent him beer instead of any other warming alcohol. Another note tells of how a few employees were locked outside of the complex because they forgot to take their keycard with them. There’s a lot of keycard jokes in Protocol.

Glass Half Full

The first half of the game was amazing; I loved exploring the complex and interacting with the AI/Ex-wife. During the second half though, the game starts to lose focus as it tries to do too many things at once. It felt as if the developers were just throwing everything they got at the game hoping that something sticks.

It goes so off rails and so wacky in its later chapters that it might literally cause some people to stop playing it altogether. For what it’s worth though, I didn’t, and I commend them for their creativity. However, this outburst of creative level design doesn’t gel well into making a “fun” game.

What’s great about the second half of the game though, is that it sets the game apart from the typical “walking simulator”. Rest assured, you‘d be doing more than walking during the last six hours of the game or so.

Not a Great Looker

Visually, the game is a bit bland. It runs on the unreal engine so it does look decent on the PS4, but its visual design isn’t that interesting. There are quite a few visual glitches like textures not fully loading and lighting not baking properly, and the game becomes an absolute slideshow at a few points later on. The frame rate drops so badly that it becomes infuriating to play. These moments, however, only last a few minutes, so they won’t ruin your experience with the game much.

The game’s controls are also a bit awkward. Picking up and throwing items is very clunky and janky. If the item you’re carrying gets in touch with any surface whatsoever, your character drops it. Throwing the items isn’t very accurate neither as you can never tell where they might land.

Finally, the game features multiple endings and the way they’re set up is ambiguous. Some of the endings can be achieved during the chapters before the last one, so if you don’t check the chapter selection screen, you could mistake the game for being shorter than it really is.

Overall,

Protocol is a game that takes risks. It’s up to you to decide whether that’s a good thing or not. Would you rather trade the game’s fun factor for novelty? Or, would you rather the game stick to what it does best?

I for one, enjoyed Protocol very much, but I also understand that these design choices can be off-putting to some. I’m sure that there’s an audience for games like these, and I’m one of them. I grew up on Postal 2, so I’m a big fan of satire and outlandish humor.

The first 6 hours or so were very entertaining and there was quite a few laugh out loud moments in them. I wasn’t a big fan of the second half of the game, but it did a decent enough job. Protocol is a game that I’m so glad to have experienced, but it’s definitely not for everyone.

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Special thanks go to Fair Games Studio for providing us with a review code.

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You should play Protocol if you

• Love a game with lots of swearing and sarcastic humor
• Don’t mind the long loading screens
• Love the creative level design
• Don’t mind the difficulty of some of the puzzles
• Are a fan of first person games
• Don’t mind the few technical issues
• Love aliens and government conspiracies
• Don’t mind violating the protocol a LOT

Protocol’s Score

7/10