WorstUsernameEver

The guy is awesome. Obsidian or Bioware should immediately hire him as a voice actor for their next fantasy game. Would definitely enhance the experience!

Just saw the ending for Flashforward. Hilarious. So wait.. basically.. you know.. it's a.. cliffhanger for the next season that will never be? Meh. The series was getting really fun after the mid series pause...

Meh, I honestly can't wait to play Alpha Protocol, even with all the flaws I know I'm going to get.. I'm a sucker for choices & consequences. Still playing Stalker though. The game is slowly but steadier growing more and more fun as I play, but it's also growing more and more buggy and I'm not sure if I understand the balance (and the reason behind some design decisions like the time limit on most of the side missions). I've also noticed that the AI has some pretty buggy moments when they see me behind walls and try to shoot me, and strangely, that's only for human beings. When it comes to mutants, they may not be bright, but the AI seems to work perfectly. Meh, not sure what to think. Weapons are all interesting to use and I'm glad to see that after I've got used to the controls I'm constatly headshotting bandits to death, stealing their ammos, eating something to replenish health (and also make space for ammo) and generally having fun. The art direction is superb. Overall, it's certainly not on the level of AAA shooter when it comes to graphics and gameplay, but it's also incredibly ambitious (even if I'm pretty sure the developers wanted to introduce a LOT MORE features) and definitely a lot of fun. The storyline and setting are also surprisingly good for a shooter without dominating the game (like it happened for Bioshock). Oh, and I bought for 3 bucks, so overall, I'm quite happy for my purchase.

You're pretty hyped about a game that will probably never be developed? I don't want to be too harsh, but considering the reception to the game has been lukewarm, and the criticism, Alpha Protocol would need some big sales to get a sequel. Then again, I'm not in the mind of the higher-ups.

I'd love to have the choice to avoid them or simply take them down with a stealth kill before the inevitable cutscene begins. Now i understood your reply and i must say i agree with you. I thought you meant that rather a game without mini -bosses. I think that bosses work well as a climax to a 'combat route', but in rpgs combat isn't always the main focus (though it seems it still is the main gameplay focus on Alpha Protocol, with stealth approach being geared more to taking people out from the shadows than simply avoiding them altogether), so putting unavoidable bosses or combat in general feels like a poor choice from my point of view.

I'd love to have the choice to avoid them or simply take them down with a stealth kill before the inevitable cutscene begins.

Deus Ex has bad AI, lacklustre shooting, shallow stealth, multiple ways of completing missions, plot exposition through dialogue and intel, bad animations, RPG character development, a person who speaks in your ear during missions, and the plot unfolds while you travel the world. Now, which game does this description remind me of? It's on the tip of my tongue. It's called Alpha! Alpha something.... One thing that bothers me about Alpha Protocol is that, having Deus Ex as a game to look at, they didn't realize that placing bosses you have to fight is a bad idea. I mean the (very few) bosses were one of the worst parts of the game, and Alpha Protocol seems to emphasize it from what I hear.

Choices and consequences. E.g. (I invented this example, I haven't played the game and I don't know what are the C&C in the game) you arrive at a bank where a senator's daughter is trapped. You can choose to sneak inside, take out the daughter, and save her at the expense of the other hostages or try an aggressive approach. If you concentrate on the daughter the senator will thank you and will provide help in your next missions, if you instead go for the aggressive route he'll be angry with you for endangering her daughter, but maybe someone else will be pleased. There weren't many instances like this in Deus Ex and they almost had no consequences, except for the ending.

That's another review where the reviewer seemed to like it more than the score would indicate. It seems as if he scored it based on how he thinks people will react to it rather than how much he personally enjoyed it. .... To be honest I don't think that's a bad philosophy to follow. Shouldn't review be made to indicate to people whether or not it's worth to buy a product? You can't simply give your opinion, you also have to try to stop for a minute, think about what people could think about this or that feature, think about who can enjoy it and who can't, etc. It's not a simple post on a forum, and that's why I honestly can't take seriously a lot of reviews.

Never said he hasn't. I still haven't played the game, but if you look back I've found that comment credible since the first time it was posted on this forum (before we even had different sections for Alpha Protocol). It's just that going in nerdrage and using profanity against users that aren't even quoted or mentioned in the message it's kind of a bad way to hammer it imho.

To be pretty honest, with fantasy elements, it's pretty easy to come up with strange characters and plots, it would probably be at least a little bit harder if I was organizing a realistic campaign. My players are also pretty slow when it comes to adventure, which means that usually after a session I can look back at what they did, spot plot holes, fix them, see what I can twist/retcon to make the story more interesting etc. Oh yeah, I'm going to post about the organizations pretty soon.

To be honest I don't know, they could pick a relatively unknown developer, or even an action game developer. Also, I don't know, from my point of view it seems like the reasoning from SEGA's part would be 'let Obsidian take all the blame, say that the concept was fantastic but there was some erroneous design decisions and that Obsidian simply isn't good, give the game to another developer and even if it'll probably end up sucking just make some quick bucks'. I may be unfair to SEGA but their last projects don't exactly inspire a lot of confidence (the wildly unbalanced new Alien Vs Predator comes to mind).

One thing that seems pretty sure right now is that Obsidian won't be the developer behind an eventual sequel.

I fit together a morbidly obese taxi driver, a violet horribly deformed lady with an enormous mouth on her stomach, a cigarette smoking tough guy all too prone to take out a gun and a drug dealer in the same story without a random generator... ok, technically my mind is a random generator. EDIT : Btw, Walsingham, don't think your random generator isn't an interesting resource. It's simply that I don't need it right now, it's one of the few things I don't have problems with, generating random things lol.

Interesting, but for now, I honestly don't feel like I have to generate characters with a randomizer. They just usually either come together on the fly or I design them (if they're plot important) when I'm preparing the session. Thanks anyway.

Oh, Neverwinter Nights 2 had plenty of bugs. Granted, most of them simply didn't bother me, and I was lucky enough to never encounter the gamebreaking ones, but you're being revisionist here Tigranes. Neverwinter Nights 2 had sliding enemies, teleporting player characters, a lot of abilities were broken, etc... The expansions themselves weren't all that buggy, true, but the original game? Oooh it very much was. I like Obsidian's games, but it's not like their 'buggy' reputation isn't their own fault.

... You understand what I said.. right? You think they're horrible because you think the style is horrible. Point is... the criticism here is that Alpha Protocol lacks a focus, a style when it comes to art. Just look at another Obsidian's project : New Vegas. Magically that flaw just isn't there. There is a sense of style. You may or may not like the style, feel like they could have done a better job with assets, etc. but the style is there. When I look at Alpha Protocol's screenshots, I don't get that sense of style. Part of it may come from the fact that the game world is pretty real-world inspired, but even then, it does feel a bit disjointed.

Brink looks like **** in terms of character models. That's incredibly poor art direction that looks like it's geared toward the tween demographic. That's an interesting thing though, and it actually speaks in favor of Nightshape, from a certain POV : Brink has a strong art direction, so strong actually, that it elicited a <<the characters looks like 'four-letters-word-that-I-am-not-sure-what-it-is-but-I-certainly-have-an-idea' >>. As for Alpha Protocol's art direction, I don't know, I'll comment when I play it. New Vegas seems to have a much more coherent art direction and look than Alpha Protocol though.

Are you referring to the Tweak Pack? I remember it was a Weidu mod that incorporated some big mods like high-resolution and Qwinn's fix pack, but it's a lot of time since I followed Infinity Engine's modding.

Again.. the game never gave me that impression. Again and again they repeat that the fact that his soul has been taken out has made him incapable of feeling anything... Also, even if what you say is true.. I don't know. He never worked well as a villain for me. It's not just the inner conflict that bugs me, but also all the circumstances surrounding him.. it's like Diabolus Ex Machina to the max, with his hawt Elven Queen fianc

Could very well be, true. Still, I'm not that comfortable with the control system for XBOX360 when it comes to Dragon Age, and I also don't personally own the console, so buying the game for PC just seemed like a natural fit. And even with Awakening's bugs, I don't regret this decision one bit.

From his POV though, he has to work for a living. Would you really compromise your work just to show that you have 'guts' ? Granted, even if it's true there is a lot of bias and probably a bit of hatred/jealousy too in that post (maybe HE was one of the 'real designer' that tried to make Chris Parker change his ideas?), but, and I'm telling you, BUT, if the post is true, it also casts a shadow on Obsidian's next projects. If Obsidian has indeed such a bad project management, then I'm not sure if I really would like to buy another game.

You may be right on this Volourn.. still doesn't change that Sarevok works better as a threat for me than Irenicus. Irenicus I don't know.. he seemed schizophrenic as far as his portrayal goes. He should be emotionless and yet he's driven by revenge and jealousy, and basically goes on to try to complete his plan again.. after failing the first time you'd think he learned the lesson, but no! I liked him the first time I played Baldur's Gate 2 but trust me Volo.. I played the game a lot of times, and the more I played it the less I liked him as a character. Part of it stems also from the fact that the italian dub is pretty ****ty when it came to his character, because at least, the english version has Irenicus giving really awesome delivery to his lines. Granted, I still feel he is ridiculous (dangerously ridiculous but still...), but at least he works a bit better.

I'm not familiar with the rogue bug but the JNPCs are bugged to hell and back Volourn, at least on PC. Things like approval going to 100 because of broken triggers during side quests, impossibility of making a party member ( ) do the Joining ritual if you break the sequence of events that the developers probably intended you to do (then again, if you give me freedom in the order to tackle different main quest mission I'm going to take advantage of it!), dead NPCs reappearing during the final sequence, etc. Add to that the frequent crashes and Awakening is by far the buggiest game I've played from Bioware. Granted, it is indeed awesome IMHO, and felt spot-on when it comes to story, interactions, feel and depth.. it's just that there is a remarkable similarity between this project's lack of polish and usual Obsidian games.