Tigranes

It happens quite a bit on the PC as well.

That's weird. In every other case I've seen, the game saves every time you enter and exit the safehouse. Where exactly are you, anyway? Checkpoints seem to be deliberately placed so that you don't die while it saves...

Do you want to try running Alpha Protocol\Binaries\en\enterkey.html? The activator is really a website packaged up, it seems, and when I load that file in Firefox, I am able to enter in my key. If you were looking at other static screens, you should be able to find it. Regarding the activation through the SEGA website, that's my guess as well - can someone confirm? It kind of sucks that they have 2 methods of activation, but both depend on the same program working. :/

People have talked about this here. Check out the thread and see if those solutions help you.

Try rolling back your INI change, I suppose. Should be the first port of call.

Hrm. I guess it doesn't really affect me at all, since I've been using AR fine. Sucks that the ini fixes don't work for everyone. :/

Let's try that again... I know you're posting from an ipad or something, but I actually don't know where you are getting stuck. :/ I think you mean when you do Darcy's second gadget training, and... what's happening? You can't get back to Darcy? The guards you escaped *before* are now there?

Guy has problems, no point using that as a platform to vent your own problems. Anyway, unskilled, you're right - the activation page is pathetic, there's so little info I don't know what you're meant to be uploading, either. O_o There are people here that made it work that way, though, so they should know what file you're meant to upload? I assume you've tried manually running activator.exe in the game folder/binaries.

You should now be able to deactivate your first activation online. I'm surprised that such minor changes forced you to reactivate, but surely, unless you want to fiddle with your speakers and change INI settings and your graphics cards every time, you won't be "reactivating every time".

BG2 had an inventory item, your baby from Aerie and you. I never romanced Aerie because she's a whiny annoying sack of whine, so I don't know if that made it into the game. I'd rather see romances that were done halfway decently instead of the softcore crap we get now, so if babies are involved in that, sure, why not?

SMGs were always going to be the weakest gun type against a single powerful enemy, while (arguably) the most effective against multiple weaker enemies. It makes perfect sense that it should give you a good time against goons, and a hard time against bosses. It's the consequences of your... choice. But yes, gadgets should be of big help in turning the tables here. If you're referring to Brayko, in particular, as I suspect you are, one grenade takes off his entire armour, and there are things like Heck's drug dossier. I mean, remember, Brayko is built to be strong against a martial arts/SMG specialist, but he'd be at his weakest against a pistol/shotgun specialist, for instance.

I might give it a brush-over when I complete another playthrough. I've done Normal & Normal/Recruit, now I'll try Hard/Veteran and try to do all the things I didn't do in my relatively professional playthroughs. Go Assault Guns, act like an arse to my superiors in Alpha Protocol, execute key characters, . Should let us know more about how deep C&C is.

You can use WASD to select.

I like to think that he actually did start off as a CIA agent, but the experience simply fuelled his original wackiness and made his mind go overboard. I mean, the spy life can make you become paranoid. Making Wen Shu the assassin is the best joke I've seen in a video game for some time.

Official answer to DLC, before release, was "never never can talk about that", but there are some vague quotes from SEGA hinting at plans for an AP sequel. I think it's safe to bet there will be at least one patch: DLCs, we'll have to see how sales do over the coming weeks, I guess.

That mission is composed of three set-pieces: outside the front gates, where you identify 3 people, in the courtyard, where you can identify 5 (i think - it's the one where you can look at the scantily clad chick), and finally, outside the main mansion, where there are 4 (again, i think) targets. Here, one of those targets is Jibril Al-Bara - you have to look very high up, on the stone balcony. I don't know where you get stuck, but if you are getting stuck in the third set piece, you can simply identify Al-Bara, and finish the mission. If you are getting stuck before that, though, you'll just have to hope you get lucky with reloads, or try coming back to that mission later and see if it helps.

I encountered a similar bug in the Rome ruins mission, at the end, where you fend off enemies while Mina does her thing. Her final dialogue wouldn't fire, so I couldn't finish the mission. After about 5 tries, I tried not using any special abilities that slow down time, like Fury and Chain Shot, and having a reasonable amount of delay between killing each enemy. Worked out. I'm guessing this is a scripts firing bug, which are notoriously unpredictable, and I guess I was just trying to give the game plenty of time and make sure it doesn't get confused. Problem is, there's not much you can change in your behaviour in the Rome identify mission. Maybe try identifying people in different order? Or, if you've got that far, just go ahead with Al-Bara and not bother? Hell, shoot van der graaf and see what happens...

alt-tab works flawlessly for me, better than most other games. Fast, reliable, even when I alt-tab out for half an hour or more. Really luck of the draw. :/

Yep. Basically you're saying that AP's bugs is an 'unusually high and unacceptable' level of bugs. I'm saying that, it's actually a fairly acceptable and reasonable level of bugs. There's no miscomprehension going on here, we just disagree. To me, 'showstopper' bugs are where people get random CTDs, plot-central NPCs disappearing or bugging out, your character disappearing through floors, massive memory leaks, etc. Sorry, but I don't see anything at the moment that suggests your radical claim. Obviously there are some people who can't play at the moment, which sucks. I've had my more than my share of that.

Considering some people are only just getting the game, and how 'professional' reviews are very polarised, maybe it'll be good to have some impressions out there from people who've given the game a good go. I've now completed two playthroughs, so maybe this will be of help to people who are still on the fence... I played the PC version, and I went into it without a lot of expectations. I like my RPGs, from Ultima VII to Planescape: Torment to Dragon Age, but you always knew that this one was going to be pretty different. Especially in the first playthrough I just let the game take charge and then did what I wanted to, instead of trying to game the mechanics. Here are my impressions broken down into sections: Plot The plot, and the way it is delivered, is excellent. Think of your favourite spy movies, and then imagine someone made five or six different versions of that movie and let you play out that story. That's what it is. At its core the story is simple and realistic, and all the archetypes of the genre - the crazy psychopathic killer, the double agent, the global conspiracy - are met without becoming cliche or generic. This is mainly due to the delivery of the plot, which is very very polished. There are very few moments where you are watching a scene play out and you groan because the plot has a big hole, things feel contrived, there's a deus ex machina, etc. None of Fallout 3's "here, SOMEONE HAS TO DIE AT THE END, just because" or Dragon Age's "have sex with me and you don't have to sacrifice yourself". In terms of plot, the game grabs you after the initial missions and never lets go. Characters Characters are a very important part of Alpha Protocol and they are generally done very well. Michael Thorton, the main character, seems to be a love/hate thing - some people think he's a baby-face with a drone-like voice. I think this is because, being a spy game, many people expect a strong personality and gruff looks from the hero, in the form of, say, Solid Snake. But because Mike just looks and talks like your ordinary guy (and you can customise him, anyway), you can really tell the difference when you choose different dialogue options. He also has a general bent towards dry sarcasm, so if you like that stuff, you'll be fine - if you want a stylish, all-out 'cool guy', maybe not. The supporting cast I feel are great, if a little underdeveloped. With people like SIE, Scarlet, Steven Heck and Conrad Marburg you get a very consistent delivery that reflects their strong personalities (everyone's a strong personality in the spy world), and verbal sparring with them is very very enjoyable. You will definitely look forward to talking to them. A small pity is that some characters, like Sis and Sean Darcy, don't get a whole lot of spotlight. Choice & Consequences This is the big one - it's the big thing in Alpha Protocol, the reason you are playing the game. The whole game was built so that, theoretically, each playthrough has different middles as well as endings, you make choices that actually have impact. Of course, most reviews out there won't really have a clue about this. In short, does Alpha Protocol have great choices to make? Definitely. Do they have great consequences? Mostly. Certainly more than almost any other RPG in history. Choices. You make them consistently throughout the game. It doesn't feel like you're railroaded for 30 minutes, given one choice, then more railroading; where you think you should have a choice, you almost always do. The choices feel real, not artificial. You don't get stupid situations where it feels like the whole thing was contrived just to give you a choice. There are virtually no 'fake choices' that are common in RPGs (see: Mass Effect, where some of your choices were basically "Yes", "Certainly" and "I guess so, yeah"). Someone asks you to remove a bug you planted in their data servers: if you choose to keep the bug, you actually do bug on them and get info, if you remove it, you don't get the info. It's not a case of "oh, you 'chose' to keep bugging us? Well we'll destroy your bug." The consequences to these choices are only fully felt when you go on your second or third playthrough, as you see what changes. Let's give examples. If you choose to enlist X's help in a mission, then she will give you certain tips, but not know some of the other facts. At some point you will be surprised by faction Y crashing in and shooting everyone, and will have to outmaneuvre them. If you choose to be handled by Y in the same mission, then you will get different advice on how to approach the mission. Depending on what else you did, you might also get faction X crashing in. But if you're trying to keep on the good sides of both factions, you would want to finish your mission without harming the operatives from faction X. And of course, you could have gotten to this mission without any prior contact or knowledge with faction X or Y. How much NPCs like you will also change what type of help they will give; your choices will also determine who dies and who lives. Finally, these consequences are not dependant on a single choice, in many cases: it will be a combination of dialogue choices, order in approaching missions, performance in missions, etc. Alpha Protocol definitely fulfills its promises in this regard, and if you love C&C you will love this game. Combat & Stealth Let's move on to some 'gameplay' aspects. Apart from talking, most of the time you will be in missions, and in them, you will mostly be either shooting bad guys down, or stealthing them down. This is the bit where Alpha Protocol, well, starts out limp but finishes very strongly. In the first few hours, if you like playing shooters or expected a shooter, you are going to feel crap. Since this is an RPG, stats determine whether you hit your target or not: you can get a headshot in but the guy might only lose a few health, if you're low level. Now we can debate all day about whether it should be that way or not, but the question I'm interested in is, does it work, is it fun? I think it is, if you accept it for what it is. What it means is that if Mike has no levels in Pistols, you being a master at aiming WILL help, but you still won't be able to headshot everyone down in five seconds... because Mike is still a noob with guns. If Mike has maxed out pistols, even if you're useless at aiming like me, you can use chain shot to headshot six people almost instantly, because Mike is that good. This is why the gameplay gets a lot more fun once you have a few levels. Think of traditional fantasy RPGs. When you're early level, you can only cast one spell and then your mana is down. You swing your sword ten times but only hit once. A grue kills you. But what's really fun is when you get a few levels, a few abilities, and really start to see your character get better and better. That feeling of progress and accomplishment is very much there in Alpha Protocol - from 1/3 of the game onwards or so, you really start to feel badass. Other than that, well, it's a pretty typical third person shooter of this day and age, plus a good, if not exceptional, stealth system. You have bad guys, turrets, cover, grenades, patrol routines, etc. A few things of note are that you can 'blind-fire' from cover, or shoot behind you while running, lob a grenade behind you while running, or drop on enemies from above to knock them out. In addition to the special abilities you get and the martial arts, that means you have a lot of ways to take on your enemy, and you really feel versatile - you really enjoy the fact that Mike uses all sorts of methods to take the enemies down. Unfortunately, this is marred by poor AI. I mean, poor AI is sort of the standard in video games (seriously, when's the last time you saw GOOD AI?), but AP's enemies do act weird fairly often. Sometimes they will do sensible things, use cover, throw grenades at your position, or even flank you, but other times they will run blindly at your position while you put bullets in them, or not take cover for no reason. It is also regrettable that while martial arts looks great and is fun to use, it really involves pushing the E button a lot and you can't block. In conclusion, if you can accept the fact that it's an RPG not a shooter, and you don't expect unusually great AI, you will really enjoy all the cool things you can do and how badass Mike becomes. Level Design The level design always has a big impact on how enjoyable the combat / stealth is. AP's levels can be summarised as well-made, but too small and too linear. A lot of it seems to do with technical limitations, though whether they come from having a 3-platform game or UE3 or something else, I wouldn't know. The game does its best to only load small portions of a level at a time - although most of the time, you won't notice that. What you will notice is that in many cases, there are only one or two routes in a level - though then you get a lot of choice in the way you navigate those routes. You won't ever find sprawling complexes that you can get lost in. Alpha Protocol levels, it seems, is about moving through a series of challenges and having a lot of choices in how to tackle those challenges, but not about dumping you in a big big place and running loose. I think a big opportunity missed was the fact that Mike can't jump or climb, but only climb ladders or drop down or leap over in designated hotspots with interact markers. There are several places where you think, I'd like to jump down from here, or get on top of these boxes, but you can't. It exacerbates the linearity of the levels, as well. All in all the levels are decent and enjoyable, but you shouldn't expect big, sprawling places to explore. Skills & Character Development Ten skills. Each level up gets you a passive or active ability. You will be somewhere between level 18 and 20 by the end of the game: along with perks, you will get enough points to max out three skill trees, or round it out a little. I think this part is generally well done, but with a few flaws. The most important thing about character development is that you feel a sense of progress as you level up, you feel you really get better; and that the skills & abilities are well balanced, there aren't skills you regret taking or skills that break the game. The first part, I already covered, and was done very well; the second part was done mostly well, but with a few downers. Currently, the pistol and assault rifle appear to be much more useful than the SMG or shotgun. The pistol is ridiculously weak early on, but the chain shot ability is arguably the best in the game. The assault rifle is great at long range and short range. Combined, I'm not sure how much reason there is to go for SMGs or Shotguns instead... but maybe someone else can enlighten me. Technical Aptitude also seems to be a relatively weak skill tree, as if all the useful things in that tree were taken out and put into Sabotage. Still, there's enough in here to deserve a few playthroughs. Dialogue Stance System I'll throw in a short paragraph on the DSS, since it was very controversial before release. I think the genearl consensus so far is that it works well, and I agree. I think the game is a lot more entertaining because of it. The conversations flow very naturally and look great, you get a decent spread of options when it's your turn to talk, and you are very rarely surprised - there won't be a lot of times where you think "that's not what I meant to say" or "why don't I get this choice". The problems with the DSS come in the technical implementation side. The 'fast-forward' function where you skip parts of the conversation, illogically, removes the subtitles as well - and then people stand around saying nothing while you make your choice. This makes it pretty impractical to use, unless you are reloading a conversation for the 10th time. The subs could also be longer, and it seems like people who are not playing in their native language are running out of time. In general, the DSS is sound - a few people have problems, but even if you generally like to take a long time to come to your decisions in dialogue, you should give it a try first. Minigames Minigames. In general, I hate minigames. Almost none of them are fun, and they feel like pointless gimmicks that get in the way of real fun. They also often demand completely different skill sets and interfaces every minigame. In that context, I was surprised to see how little they bothered me in Alpha Protocol. I think whether you like or hate them depends on the person. They are well designed; they make sense; the instructions are easy to follow; and they are not too hard. However, the controls on the PC are quite clunky, especially for the hacking minigame, and this might spoil your ride. I think they are all right - but putting two points into Sabotage really makes them less annoying if you find them so. Graphics & Sound This isn't really that big a deal for me, and I'm notoriously bad at judging artistic style or graphical quality. So I won't say much on this here. What I will stress is that the graphics aren't top notch, but they are unlikely to bother you, either, unless you're the kind of person that can't enjoy a game because it doesn't have high res textures or can't use 8x anti-aliasing and HDR. There are jaggies. There is the very occasional texture popping in, say, people going through convoluted animations. There are some low-res textures that stand out. But overall the graphics do their job - that is, making you feel like you are in a real-life spy setting. They're not great, but they won't ruin the atmosphere created by the story. Sound is great, by the way. Again, I'm not the kind of person that can tell whether a gunshot sound is realistic for that SMG or not, or so forth, but the sound effects are all immediate, easy to tell, and distinctive; music is low-key and doesn't impose itself, but fits the mood and again aids the atmosphere. Performance, Bugs, Polish In terms of performance, i.e. how smoothly the game runs, it is very very smooth in most places, but there are a few flaws. Loading times are good, frame rates are decent (unless you want 60FPS), and there is almost no 'command lag', the game is very responsive to what you input. The exceptions are that the mouse can stutter for some people (it did only a little bit, for me), and that going into your PDA has a 2-3 second lag, which is quite silly. (Similar to when you open the FO3 pip-boy, but a bit worse.) Next, bugs. There are very few bugs. Given that video games, and especially RPGs, nearly always ship with lots of bugs, I think it's important to note that Alpha Protocol doesn't really have major, big, game-breaking bugs that affect a lot of people. There are annoyances, like enemies disappearing when you load a checkpoint (so that you have to reload till it works), but for the most part, there's nothing that stops you from playing, no enemies dropping off the map, people getting stuck in the middle of ladders, dialogue looping endlessly, crashes to desktop, stuff like that. So generally, Alpha Protocol stands up very well in technical issues as well. The problem is polish. It's very odd: in some places, the game is very polished and very slick - notably the UI, the storytelling, the cutscenes. In other places, it feels somehow loose and clunky, especially the controls and graphics. Conclusion I think what it comes down to is the kind of player you are, and what you enjoy and what you get annoyed by. If you need a game that runs well, where you can move and do things easily, and the production values are very high, you will be frustrated with Alpha Protocol. If you're the type of person that puts more importance in a good story, choice & consequences, etc, then you will love Alpha Protocol. Ask yourself - when you play other games, especially RPGs, what are your best moments and your biggest frustrations? If you remember yourself thinking "what a retarded story", "I wish you could actually change what happens here", or "I want better than these cardboard cutout characters", then get Alpha Protocol now. If you scan screenshots of upcoming games checking for texture popups and weird walking animations, and if you like playing 'hardcore' shooters for the fast and furious thrill, well, it's not such a sure thing. This is way too long. Why the hell did I do this?!

Ah, I see. Personally it was better for me as I could see it all on one page... and honestly, AP's maps are pretty small and linear, I never really used the maps. Fair enough though. You mean one guy on this forum who had to try 80 times? I mean, I feel for the guy, but now you're just exaggerating. You want 'catastrophes', go look at pre-patch Gothic 3 boars. There's really two points here - that a 'real-life' setting should not have such bosses, then that Brayko is too hard. Those are separate arguments. For the latter, considering you can come back to Brayko later on in the game, that there are dossiers available to make him considerably easier, and that once you work out the right ways to beat him it is not that hard....

This is a problem because? O_o The same boss that I can kill on Normal, going to Moscow first, hand-to-hand & stealth specialist, even though I can barely beat Halo single player on Hard? I don't disagree the game needs polish and has problems, but sometimes stuff that annoys us annoys us becasue of our particular experience, just because we hate it doesn't mean it's some catastrophic disaster.

Well... you could change them and see what happens? I don't think any of them have been fiddled with yet.

Man, it doesn't get easier, huh? :/ There's just so many things going on there, I have no clue. Have you tried following this up with SEGA's customer support?