Tigranes

? What version do you have - Steam, Boxed, Download? What are your specs?

Ugh. I still hate Steam, but since FO:NV will use it I've resigned myself to flirt with the devil, for now, and see if it's not that bad. That said, Monkey Island. Second remake coming out soon, 10$. Preorder and first one free. I haven't played any of them, but I liked old school point and click adventure games that I played, like the Robin Hood one from the 90's or something, Gabriel Knight, etc. Worth it? Awesomesauce? No?

So you *can* finish the game, right? It's just an issue with the objectives screen? If so, I wouldn't worry... there are minor bugs with the objectives screen sometimes becasue of the sheer amount of stuff you have to keep track of. (Also, are you sure those 2 missing objectives aren't something else?)

Might not be a fully fledged game, but something like that Dragon Age thing?

Man, why does every thread become the same with the same people making the same complaints? But then, I probably do it too... I think there's a good lesson to be learnt though - make up your own mind, not from the reviews.

Honestly, I think the whole age consideration's rubbish. We don't look at a gangster film released today and say "of course it should be several times better than The Godfather or The Goodfellas". Obviously games are a little different with a very rapidly developing technological element, but there are areas of game design technology clearly improves, and others where it doesn't so much. There's this big illusion that games get (or should get) better year after year, or that old games are no longer good to play. That's both rubbish. All that matter is, there are a lot of games; and smoe of them are really, really good. That said, what's the point here? Just looking at what things DX did well, and what AP did well. I think it'll give us a better perspective on what things make good spy games and how AP might be improved... certainly better than all this nonsensical comparisons to ME2 and others.

Interesting - I don't remember what it was like last time. It doesn't bother me, but then AP doesn't bother me either. As I say, it's early days - we'll see.

So Alpha Protocol, in many ways, looks back to Deus Ex for inspiration. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Near-future-real-world setting, choices & consequences throughout the game, RPG mechanics taking precedence in a shooter experience, multiple solutions to gameplay challenges, etc. Skipping the stupid "X > Y" "No your mom" stuff, I decided to go back to Deus Ex and see what kind of specific comparisons we can draw, and think about what features work well in which game. I only played Deus Ex a couple of years ago, in fact, when stranded in a foreign country with a crappy laptop, and I think I had to stop about half way. I really like the game - but at the time I didn't think it was this amazing thing that towers over the rest of the video game landscape like some others do. Anyway. So far I've played the first mission and got to Hell's Kitchen, on Realistic. There are some really interesting things here, most of all: Deus Ex reticule is very similar to Alpha Protocol reticule. There are people that think AP's combat fails just because you can't get a headshot like you do in Halo... but when you start the game in Deus Ex, even though you are 'Trained' in Pistols, your reticule is massive. *massive*. It takes more than 5 seconds to hone in, and if you move even a little bit, it goes out again. So nearly identical to AP's assault rifles with a few skill points in it. Practically speaking, this means that despite being a nanoaugmented superagent (i.e. more badass than Mike Thorton), you can't run & gun, and you have to be very careful and line up your shots. Even then, the NSF goons might survive a headshot, and require a few more. This is essentially the same kind of experience as AP: early game, you can't just spray bullets and hope to get them, you have to line up your shots. If you are lucky, you can get headshots even without any (I've managed to headshot and instantly take out the first guard you see after you pick up the pistol in the tutorial), but really, you'll have to level up and use the critical hits. If anything, on Hard/Realistic, Deus Ex is even more punishing because there is no regenerating armour, you can be crippled in arms/legs, and you die a lot faster. The point is, in both games (and, to an extent, in Mass Effect 1, I think), it's your character shooting, not you. Does it work? Well, in Deus Ex, it does, at least. I think perhaps the idea is easier to grasp in DX, it's communicated more simply. Deus Ex art design & Alpha Protocol art design I can't quite remember what Hong Kong was like, or Paris, but man, it's really dark... and it's pretty bland. The UNATCO offices and the Greybox look exactly the same - and they both look just like you'd expect a real life secret agent HQ to look. Grey, grey, doors, tables, etc. The difference is that DX seems to push a more unified, realistic style (i.e. everything is grey and dark and concrete), whereas AP goes for a more stylised and schizophrenic style to differentiate its hubs. It works for both games, I think - DX is a much more sombre game as a whole. Deus Ex AI & Gameplay Coming back to this I was really surprised by how poor the AI is. I didn't remember it being this bad. There's no indicator for stealth, but when you are crouching and sneaking up behind a goon, they might turn around - and you would be at 90' angle, 5cm next to them - and they wouldn't see you. They are really blind. And then when you shoot them in the head, they turn around - facing you directly - then stand still for a couple of seconds, before reacting and firing. meaning you can get at least 3 or 4 headshots in there. We'll see if they get smarter in the later levels. On the other hand, DX' gameplay - pretty hard to criticise, IMO. There's so many things you can play with - picking up things, TNT boxes (hey?), using boxes to climb, hell, using LAMs on walls to do rock-climbing, swimming, etc, etc. I remember one place in Hell's Kitchen where you can wire the entire corridor with traps and go nuts. More to come..

Yeah, it was onside. Really not comparable to the first Argentina goal. Two borefest games tonight, hope it livens up again for the quarter-finals. So far matches between evenly matched teams have all been boring. (No, Germany - England wasn't 'evenly matched'.)

What? This thread was discussing hacking in terms of just playing, not modding. Then you came along and gave multiple complaints and accusations about 'lazy coding'. Nowhere did you mention what your purpose was behind the fiddling - what do you expect? Anyway, alright. I guess in the end we're saying the same thing - that we should expect things to break, and meanwhile try and find creative solutions. I'm certainly not saying leave things alone. I haven't yet found any variables for the minigames themselves, though.

Well... that particular phrase is so well known, you know. Still, it's one for the record. They clearly used real photos of real books for the safehouse bookshelves and the like - there are some others that I can't quite make out. Anyone know anything about the painting in Marburg's Villa? SIE mentions it...

Well, I forgot that ETW forces Steam on you. After 3 hours of installing, patching, and downloading over 1gb of mods (none of which are, of course, due to Steam), now I'm stuck at the "Preparing to launch game" screen for 15 minutes, as usual. Yes, literally 15, I've just read the entire forum while waiting. Now I remember why I uninstalled... hrrrrrrrr edit: Oh, I see, this game is not currently available. THANKS FOR UBISOFTING ME edit 2: Why does it suddenly need another update? It already did a 600mb update. Why another one? Why didn't I need it before? Why am I even using Steam again? This is like getting STD from a legalised prostitution ring and coming back for more

Basically billionaires who come out of nowhere, buy up a club, and then take one of several permutations: (1) Treat the club as their plaything throwing money at it (and, through that spending, causing market inflation and making that club's finances unsustainable) and interfering (2) Taking up huge debts to buy the club and the hoping the club can be used to pay it off, again making the club's long term future bleak (3) Billionaires who buy the club but run it with relative moderation, so far

Gorth: EU3 HTTT - Yes, I really enjoyed this for a time, since the army instakills and such refreshed the familiar AI traps and cheeses in the game. I tried to go back into it today, though, and I don't know - even with countries like Korea or Mali, once you get to a certain stage you become a juggernaut and when you are fighting for your life, things like AI peace deals really frustrate. Love Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I own and love 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, but sadly it's once again the same deal of the AI - they break alliances and attack you every 6 months for no reason whatsoever, forcing you to expand faster than is historical, and then after a while you're just too big and the game is no challenge. Stuff like Anno series and East India Company really interest me, but not sold on it enough to fork out the cash - has anyone tried them? How are they on longevity and AI/balance? Hrm. I passed at the time because I didn't want to give CA more money after screwing the fans over, and the marketing made it sound like more cinematic bullcrap... but is the campaign AI significantly improved? Picky customer, I know, it just seems like all the games out there have fun stuff to offer, but none really emerge with superior AI and longevity tha I crave now. I'm downloading Darthmod 6 for ETW, maybe if that doesn't satisfy I'll go for King Arthur or one of the others.

Historical is nice - EU3 and TW are actually my favourites, but I've just been burnt out and I know the AI too well. Not a fan of sci-fi or space, which is why I passed on Sins of Solar Empire. Fantasy is alright, I remember enjoying Age of Wonders 2. Basically something where I build up a civilisation in a detailed setting with a lot of options and micro, have a sense of narrative, and tactical battles. I gave away my MTW2, so I'm looking at the latest Darthmod for ETW and wondering whether its promises of better AI will prove right. Disciples II feels more HOMM-y, but I loved King's Bounty, so maybe I'll pick that up off GOG.

It's only if you give yourself a thousand AP or something stupid. Anyone who's ever played around with mods and file edits know that when you input outrageous values, you might get outrageous results. Would be a giant waste of time to 'fix'.

Can't remember why I didn't go for that one - I think I remember reading on the Codex that the battle balance/AI wasn't great after a while. Did you play it?

Alright, a few months go it was action, and your recommendations led me to Dark Messiah, which was very enjoyable (and Crysis, still on hold). I'm about to do a Deus Ex playthrough but I also have a hankering for a good old strategy game - the Total War sort, not the Age of Empires sort. But the trouble with me is, I grow to hate the ridiculous AI on these games. In every Total War, after a while every single faction just attacks you randomly and you are set on this neverending cycle of battles, but because of the poor AI you always end up facing them at good odds, instead of getting overrun. In fact, you only become overrun because you can't be arsed dealing with them anymore. I really enjoyed EU3 but Heir to the Throne has grown old for me, especially because enemies never seem to accept reasonable peace deals. I'm keen to try E:TW again if there are any good mods that will spice up the experience? Or are there other, lesser known titles out there that offer similar gameplay?

Hey? They don't have any responsibility over it, and they can't stop people doing this anyway. This is like you meeting someone in the movie theatre who likes Star Wars, and then he calls you an idiot, then you call Lucasarts and complain that they should do something about it. You haven't been insulted by any sort of official organisation or entity, just some gamer. Note that the facebrook group doesn't claim any sort of official association. If something like that causes you not to buy the game, well, I don't know. I don't really understand that so I'm not sure how you could be convinced otherwise.

Huh, I've never heard of this. In any case, the quotes that you yourself use: I think they show very clearly that whoever's running the group has nothing to do with Obsidian or Bethesda. It sounds like just some random Fallout fan who made the group.

Maybe you should tell us which site you're talking about, because I don't think any of us do. Sounds like it's a fansite not an official site. Or is it a 'facebook site' - I mean, what is that? Do you mean a facebook group? OE doesn't have one, it could be anybody doing a prank.

What else other than a quota can you do, though? I mean, the obviously reasonable answer is to look at the academies and the way youth talents are bred, both in terms of the methodology and the culture (i.e. get rid of "we ain't need no technique we just need hard strong English men", which is happening at the moment I think), but that'll take decades. What do you think they should look at changing? Fair enough about the culture argument. Re: wages, Spain has a more competitive tax rate for highest earners, but that probably only effects the Ronaldos. I think the fact that EPL / La Liga / etc players play so many games is a factor, yes, but that's hardly limited to England.

*shrug* Will a very strict English player quota imposed on the Premier League result in a better english team? Maybe, maybe not. At the moment the real problem is: 1) English players aren't that good. 2) English players & media & FA think they are. The English team, as a collection of players, haven't had the quality to be contenders for the World Cup for years - maybe in the Golden Balls Beckham days with Michael Owen and the like. The English press rant about how the team has failed, but in fact for England a Round of 16 / Quarter Final finish is exactly what you would expect of them. Look at how many English players play outside England - not a lot. That's the most important statistic, actually. If English football had good talents, then foreign clubs would be buying them up. Seriously. If you want to argue that English talent is being wasted and not being looked at because of the foreign players in the English league, then you'd have to show that the talent is there to begin with - but why do so few English players get picked up? It's because they're not that good, and they can get inflated hype, star treatment and salaries in England. When an English player has good talent, he gets nurtured and developed, no matter how many bloody foreigners are there - see Wayne Rooney, Micah Richards, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Aaron Lennon, etc. The foreigners aren't the cause of the disease, they're just the symptom. Anyway. Argentina played fairly well I thought, even if Mexico gifted them one goal and the referee another. They may not go all the way but they're sure entertaining, same with the Germans.

Uh, sorry - you wanted us to do anything else other than add paragraphs? Or did you mean developers?

Got to be something in the inventory screen - but you can buy and see weapons and armour in the clearinghouse just fine, right? So it can't be those? Maybe the Thornton model in the inventory? :/ Tried the good ol' reinstalling of the game itself, by the way?