Mass Effect 2 and Alpha Protocol have a lot in common. They're both admirable attempts to combine an RPG with a shooter to tell a complex story in a familiar genre. They're both flawed. But only one of them is ultimately successful.

First, I should explain something: I didn't care for Mass Effect 2. It fumbled a lot of things crucial to a space opera, to an RPG, and to a shooter. You can read more here if you're interested.

I should also explain that Alpha Protocol can be awfully rough-hewn. The interface is terrible, forcing you through too many button presses to get to too many screens. The visuals are frequently wretched, with cringeworthy animation and a sadly limited graphics engine that makes the slums in Taipei feel the same as the ancient ruins in Rome. The ending is rushed and unsatisfying.

But with that as my starting point, I'd say Alpha Protocol comes together much better as a game, as a story, and as an attempt to blend an RPG with a shooter. In short, Alpha Protocol is exactly the right way to do what Mass Effect 2 did wrong.

After the jump, 11 ways Alpha Protocol is better than Mass Effect 2.

11) As a role-playing game
Alpha Protocol is often awkward and sometimes ridiculous. But it's internally consistent because it is first and foremost an RPG. Sure, it's silly when spies can hide in plain sight like cloaked predators. But stealth is an important "leg" of the game, along with gadgets, hacking, and gunplay. The idea is that you choose among them for the kind of spy you want to be. From there, everything is based on advancing how and how well you do these things. This evolves based on your skills and gear, which are the hallmarks of any good RPG. Contrast this to how Mass Effect 2 distills everything down to crossing space dungeons by playing a streamlined shooter with skills aplenty and gear that doesn't matter so much.

10) Guns with personality
Gunplay is pretty much a prerequisite for everyone in Alpha Protocol, but each type of gun is like its own type of combat. Or like a character class. For instance, I got all the way through the game with only a pistol because the pistol isn't merely the weakest gun. Instead, the pistol is a specific type of combat. My choice of pistol model, the components I attached to it, and occasionally my special ammo all made a big difference in how the game played. At first, any gun is relatively weak. The pistol can be as much of a struggle as the shotgun, assault rifle, or SMG. But by the time Alpha Protocol was over, I could step into a room with my pistol and instantaneously kill six bad guys without leaving cover. But Mass Effect 2 never broke out of its rudimentary paper/rock/scissors interplay among attacks and defenses.

9) As a standalone game
Mass Effect 2 is full of fan service. It's one of those sequels that absolutely demands familiarity with the first game. This isn't necessarily a criticism if you're a fan of Mass Effect 1. But for everyone else, Alpha Protocol does a better job not expecting you to already care about who's who. Its characters need no introduction because this game is their introduction.

8) As a story
Mass Effect 2's storyline is 90% "Hey, we're getting the band back together!" backstory, with 10% actual saving the galaxy at the end. It makes for a disjointed story, with the main dramatic conflict simmering on the back burner while you help your sidekicks work out their family issues. But Alpha Protocol is full of twists and turns. It's constantly forking off into different directions that dramatically change the relationships among the main players. In Alpha Protocol, I feel like I'm in the driver's seat, determining how the story unfolds. In Mass Effect 2, I feel like everyone else's errand boy, biding my time until the story actually starts.

7) As a story narrated by a smoking man
Both Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect 2 use conversations with a mysterious smoker as a framework for telling their stories. By the time Alpha Protocol is over, you will know all you need to know about its smoking man. But I still have no idea what was up with that elusive man in Mass Effect 2, except that he sounds like President Bartlett.

6) As a set of clear goals
In Alpha Protocol, it's always clear exactly what you're doing, why you're doing it, and then the effects of having done it (by "always", I mean "always except for at the end"). It never wants for information about motives, personalities, organizations, and agendas. After every mission, you get a modular debriefing that gives you the effects of your choices and where you'll be going from there, broken down meticulously. There's none of the under-the-hood plotting that occasionally made Mass Effect 2 so bewildering.

5) Showing the world (or not)
Mass Effect 2 moves you through sparsely populated boxes asking you to believe they're vast cities or sprawling space stations. It is absolutely not up to the task of what it intends to show you. But Alpha Protocol is under no such delusion. Its hubs are simply safe houses, and its levels are simply its missions. And although many of the missions are chintzy, there is no failed attempts at world building, because there is no attempt at world building. Alpha Protocol knows its limitations.

4) Conversations
Your choice of things to say in Alpha Protocol is almost always clear. It's a simple abstract system. You choose among suave, aggressive, and professional comments (the developers break it down as Bond, Bauer, or Borne). Sometimes you get a bonus choice if you've met certain prerequisites. You could almost say it's like a game! But you never feel like you're guessing, which is often the case in Mass Effect 2 where every reply has two layers: what's written and what you actually say. Conversations in Alpha Protocol are clearly intended to be part of the gameplay instead of cat-and-mouse with the writers.

3) Minigames
The minigames in Mass Effect 2 are tedious busywork that feels entirely out of place. But the minigames in Alpha Protocol are varied and fit neatly into the concept of spying. They include pattern recognition, trigger button finessing, and a reverse maze game to represent hacking, lock picking, and rewiring. They're almost always optional. What's more, you can change their difficulty based on your character's skills and the gear you equip. And even if you don't like one particular minigame - the hacking was particularly tough for me - there's nothing in Alpha Protocol quite so odious and ubiquitous as Mass Effect 2's horrid planet scanning.

2) Gear
The weapons, armor, and gadgets are fantastic in Alpha Protocol, and they all tie neatly into the economy. The game constantly forces tough choices for how you spend your money. Do you buy gear, information, or special bonuses for upcoming missions? There will never be a time you don't want more money to buy stuff. Important stuff. Stuff you really really need. Stuff that gives you an incentive to search for money, blackmail other characters, and get better at the minigames even if you don't like them. In Mass Effect 2, I wasn't even sure why I was buying what I was buying when I was buying it.

1) Steven Heck
Mass Effect 2 doesn't have Steven "Don't call me Steve" Heck.