Hathur

Well, if you invest enough in stealth skill (and have the patience + personal skill), you can quite literally sneak past almost every enemy in the entire game.. virtually never having to pull the trigger, except for a few rare fights where you're required to kill a boss or specific enemy. So yes, you can sneak through the entire game... in many ways it's like splinter cell when played in a stealthy way.. you can sneak up to an enemy and choke him unconscious... or stick a knife through his throat.. depending whether you want to kill or just subdue.... or you can just sneak past them completely and not bother to even take them out (you get experience even for doing this). You can use stealth and take advantage of the terrain to help you get through the area quietly and unseen.. just like in splinter cell (the old splinter cell games.. not the new action one that just came out). It's a decent stealth game... though it becomes too easy if you go pure stealth skill... the higher tier stealth skills are insanely good and completely remove any challenge.. you'll practically never be spotted or seen (that's why I usually don't put more than 5-6 boxes into stealth.. otherwise the game becomes boringly easy).

Meh, I served in the military for 4 years.. even veteran, battle experienced soldiers I served with often slipped up and called them clips (I have too even).. it's just easier to say... I was only in a firefight twice in my military career in Afghanistan.. and yet in our second engagement I managed to expend 6 magazines on my m4a1 while suppressing the enemy's position (it was a nasty standoff sniping engagement along some mountainsides, took us 4 hours to kill them all and even then, some got away... vest saved my life too in that fight, hehe)... And during that fight, after I emptied my 6th (and final) magazine, I could have sworn I turned to my buddy and said: "clip" (indicating to him in 1 word I needed ammo).. not "magazine"... was just easier, shorter, faster to say during a firefight. Then again, I'm Canadian, so maybe we Canuck soldiers just aren't such "gun nazis" and all hehe.

Two bugs I've found.. managed a workaround for both. 1) Mouse glitching. Fixed with help from tech forum here.. seems a wide spread problem on PC version. 2) Reloading checkpoint. Often the game reloads with NO enemies on the map... making advancing further impossible (can't complete objectives often.. or you lose experience for not being able to kill / sneak past them). This is resolved by quitting directly to menu and reloading checkpoints straight from the menu, rather than reloading a checkpoint while you're doing a mission. Oh... and I guess a 3rd one.. small one, but annoying during heated fights.... not all walls or flat surfaces can be used to take cover... it's often a pure guess which wall will let you lean against it and which won't... many a time I got screwed over when I wanted to take cover by a wall next to a doorway.. yet for some inexplicable reason, it won't let you.. even though there's some 5-6 feet of open empty space for Thorton to fit... it's like the programmers forgot to code "Let player take cover here" on all the walls or something. After having come from MAss Effect 2, where you could literally take cover against virtually any and all objects, it was rather jarring and still is at times.. especially during a tense battle where my character is badly hurt and needs a breather.

The problem many reviewers seem to be having is this.... the game LOOKS like 3rd person shooter (but the game is in fact a RPG)... and when something looks like a 3rd person shooter, the player naturally expects it to behave like one. This is a lesson Bioware learned with Mass Effect 1.. many of the complaints people had 2.5 years ago about ME1 was the combat... it looked like 3rd person shooter (it was an rpg hybrid) but it's shooting mechanics didn't behave like a 3rd person shooter.. it was based on the stats on the character, very much like AP. For ME2, they realized that if they wanted to make a game that looks and behaves similar to a 3rd person shooter, they'd better make the shooting gameplay behave like a 3rd person shooter.. not a stat based RPG... so in ME2 they removed that aspect of the game and relied on other aspects to enforce the RPG elements (story, characters, squad points to unlock special abilties, etc... but the core shooting behaved purely like a classic shooter). For me personally, I don't mind AP's shooting mechanics because I seldom play shooters and I am accustom to RPGs where weapon skill comes from character stats... so I was able to wrap my head around it.... but AP tries to look like a shooter, so it confuses many gamers / reviewers and rather than realizing the shooting aspect is functioning as intended, they call it sloppy or buggy instead. A game like Knights of the old Republic didn't have this problem... they were over-the-shoulder view gameplay (3rd person), but they worked like traditional RPGs... you select a target and auto attack... your hits were determined by dice rolls... there was no complaint about buggy / sloppy action because it behaved as one expected.... but the moment you require the player to have to manually target and train crosshairs on a target himself... and then add the dice roll element ontop of that to compound the difficulty, many gamers simply balk and think it's buggy... "Uncharted's shooting isn't sloppy like this!" or "Gears of Wars shooting is sloppy like this!" etc etc. Obsidian likely should have gone the same route Bioware did for ME2... made the shooter mechanics not dependent on stats, but purely player skill like regular shooters... and then used skill points to unlock special abilities or make stealth better, etc etc. This would have alleviated many of the harsh reviews the game received (though again, personally, I like the combat mechanics of AP as is... but if Obsidian was worried about wider appeal, they should have done the same as ME2 with the gunplay). That all said... there is no excuse for the game's abysmal, idiotic, buggy as all hell AI. Yet despite that, I still love AP.... I'd buy the sequel or even DLC for it.. though I doubt we'll see either... the game is getting panned hard in North American reviews... which saddens me because the more I play it, the more and more I realize that this game is truly a wonderful little gem... that just happens to have some tarnish on it.

Ulicus, the maxed out version of shadow ops on my character recharged in around 45 seconds (that's when you have the appropriate perks and equip mods on your armor that lower cooldown time on all your powers). With a 30 second duration, I was able to empty multiple rooms / entire areas just by running up to them and killing them with the stealth strike.. It's insanely broken and why I don't allow myself to put more than 5 boxes in stealth (master awareness). As for quick shot vs bosses, I killed most bosses with a 6 tag chain shot to their head... if you're targeting their torso, no you won't kill the boss... but put all 6 tags on his head and I have yet to see any boss survive it. No other weapon special can let you kill a boss in a fraction of a second. Chain shot is utterly broken as well... as such, I don't allow myself to use it. I'm just telling people this so they know that if they don't want to breeze through the game, don't specialize in stealth (don't go past the first shadow Ops skill.. it only lasts 6 seconds and you can't run with it on.. the higher level ones last too long and let you run) and don't use chain shot.... again, that's only if they don't want the game to be a cake-walk. If you want to breeze through the game, by all means, use them.

Chain shot would have been fine as a tool... but only if the challenge of the game justified its existence. As it exists, Chain shot maxed can kill bosses on hard instantly... it can clear an entire room of enemies while in stealth with ease. Now compare quick shot to Focused Fire (assault rifle) Bullet Storm and then the shotgun special skill (Forgot name).... none of these skills reduce the difficulty of battle to zero the way chain shot does.... there's a huge disparity in the effectiveness of this skill vs the other weapon skills. In fact, pistols are the sniper rifle of this game... you can kill enemies from insane distances using quick shot... the Assault rifle takes time to line up a shot, and Focused fire is of only limited use compared to quick shot. It was a game testing failure.. .they failed to see that this one skill reduced the game difficulty to almost non existent. They should either have made the game more challenging or reduced the effectiveness of quick shot compared to other weapon specials. And with stealth... the existing stealth engine is fine... it's the fact that Shadow Operative as the highest level makes you invincible. Enemies can't see you, it lasts extremely long and allows your character to run up to enemies, stealth choke them all to death... you can even kill bosses like this, removing all chalenge of the game whatsoever. It's the fact that once you get this skill, you can't lose... it lasts so long and recharges so fast, you can effectively keep it active for every single fight you encounter and just casually saunter up to every enemy and kill them with zero risk. Compare that to other skills in the game, other than quick shot, none of them reduce the difficulty of the game to zilch other than these 2.... the designers needed to be more careful with how they made those skills (and in my opinion, once you get past Shadow Master Basic, the stealth system breaks the game since it removes all challenge in the game... up to Shadow Master Basic, the stealth system is solid since there is always at least some risk you can be seen and die.)

No, if the enemy dies (or is aware of you), it does not count as an evaded enemy. Evading enemies still gives you experience just as if you had killed them though, so if you've sneaked past enemies ,there isn't really any reason to go back and kill them.

Evading an enemy means just getting past him without him ever seeing you. If you kill him or he sees you, it doesn't count... just sneak past enemies rather than killing them and they count as being evaded (so long as they were never alerted to your presence). The "Seasoned" one is story related, a choice later in game.. won't spoil it. You'll probably know it when you come across it (you have to make a choice).

I'll agree to a degree. I was hoping the customization (mods) of weapons would be far better... in terms of visual appearance.. most mods don't even change the appearance of the gun (which many should). I.e. fit a new expanded magazine on the assault rifle, yet the model doesn't actually change at all (it should show a longer magazine). Same with many of the accessories. The scopes are all 100% identical.. fit a basic sight and it shows a huge sniper scope instead... fit a scope and it shows the exact same thing. On pistols, equip a laser sight..... and it shows a sniper scope on it... the hell? Each gun at most has 2 visible mods and they all use the exact same model. This is very annoying for me. I don't overly care about my character customization.... It was sufficient... skin tone, hair style, facial hair... other stuff... wasn't a huge selection for each, but I wasn't really looking for that either, I was pretty satisfied with it. Armor mods have no appearance either... I.e. adding armored joints shows nothing, ammo pouch shows nothing, etc... lots of these mods would be visible on the armor, yet there's nothing modelled for it.

After playing on my first playthrough as a stealth character for about 5 or 6 hours, I stopped, deleted the character and started over as tech specialist. The reason being, that even on hard difficulty, stealth is waaaay too easy and powerful... the shadow operative skill is too powerful.. at high levels, you can activate it, silent running then run into a massive room and perform melee stealth kills on 10-12 enemies before the timer runs out... it's absurdly easy. Also.. while pistols are very hard to use early on since they can't hit anything beyond point blank, at mid to later levels with lots of points in it, they become absurdly powerful (like stealth)... the problem being Chain Shot... you can clear entire rooms with this skill with the press of a button every 45 secs (far less actually with various cooldown reducer perks and armor upgrades). I've tried the Assautl rifle, SMG and shotgun specials in comparison, and none of them can annihilate bosses or entire rooms in the blink of an eye like the pistol chain shot. So.. in summary: Stealth.. over powered. Pistols (Chain shot) overpowered. My advice? Don't specialize in stealth... don't go beyond master awareness (5 points or so in stealth i think)... keeping only a few skill points in stealth lets you feel like a stealth operative, but without the magical impossibilities of Shadow Operative.. enemies can still spot you and you're forced to play a lot more like in other stealth games (watch enemies, wait until they turn their backs, then move... you don't have "invisibility mode" from the crazy high end stealth skills). Also, if you want to play with pistols, don't use chain shot (max the skill.. but don't use chain shot). On my playthrough as tech specialist, I went with Assault Rifle, Sabotage, and the other tech skill (forgot it's name). On hard, the game can be challenging at times, and is quite fun. I have no points in stealth, but I still sometimes can either sneak up on an enemy for a melee kill or snipe with my assault rifle using subsonic rounds.. but I eventually do get spotted and am forced to slug it out. Good times. If you want a real challenge.. play hard, recruit and use shotguns or SMGS as your primary weapon (and don't go higher than 5 points in stealth)... now that's rough going.

This is part of the reason i went tech specialist.. makes hacking a lot easier. However, if you want, just bring several emp grenades and use those to disable hacking terminals.

I press and hold G (pc version) to prep my grenade... then release the key to throw... However, there are times when the battle situation changes and I no longer need to throw the grenade (enemy ran away, moved too far for me to throw it at him, etc) but once I've wound my arm back, there doesn't seem to be a way to cancel... I'm forced to throw and waste the grenade. Is there a key or way to put the grenade away if I change my mind about throwing it? Can't count how many grenades I've been forced to throw away just because the enemy was no longer in the fight... basically forcing me to throw it at empty ground just so I can draw my gun again.

Despite the subpar shooter mechanics, I'm delighted with my purchase. I'm playing on hard mode (first playthrough) with a tech specialist.. and honestly, this class is so much fun to play... having a slew of gadgets gives so much flexibility in how to handle situations... I feel like a real spy with this character. I initially started on normal.. and hated it. I felt like I was made of steel.. could walk up to enemies and let them spray bullets in my face for what felt like eternity and I'd barely get hurt.... but on hard, you'll die in 1-2 seconds from point blank gun fire.... this really helps make the game much more appealing as it offsets some of the AI's weirdness and ineptitude at times. Hate pistols... they work like garbage even with skill points invested (chain shot being the exception.. but it feels like cheating)... Shotguns and assault rifles feel right and are useful... Dual SMGS.. I'll never play it... I'm a spy, not a bloody gangster.

My only real gripe.... (other than the small ones people have already discussed)... If you're in a gunfight with the AI... and there happens to be a ladder within 20 feet of them... 90% of the time, the AI will inexplicably move to the ladder and climb it for no apparent reason... thus leaving themselves 100% vulnerable. Seriously.. the AI is magnetized to ladders... in the middle of a firefight, they ALWAYS move to the ladder and climb it.. making these gunfights a literal turkey shoot... it's very frustrating. I even found a way to abuse the game... shoot at a group of enemies -- run back further in the level to where you saw a ladder so the enemies chase you near it... then watch as they all go and climb the damn thing while you shoot them... it's the most bizzarre AI glitch I have ever seen. It's like they coded the AI to climb ladders no matter what.. so long as they are near it.. they climb it. Other than that, the game is fun.. when the AI isn't committing suicide anyway.

Hey morgoth, were you playing stealthy? What's your build? Is it truly possible to go through the entire game without killing anyone as was billed by Obsidian? I don't see that as possible... considering that i've seen numerous missions that involved "Kill so-and-so".. usuallly a boss or mini boss.

Dunno if it's been mentioned.. G4tv gave it's review http://g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/62110/alpha-protocol/review/ Pretty harsh, 2/5. Not that I usually put much weight in G4's reviews to be honest... but just posting it there incase anyone cares.

Someone posted a great "first 2 hours of Alpha Protocol" on youtube. The story and characters look really good, compelling enough for me to buy the game (but not until I hear news about a patch that fixes the rather severe mouse bug on PC version). Combat looks alright overall, nothing special. Animations are brutally stiff, easily 6+ years old in quality if not worse. Things (like cars / trucks) also explode in the most absurd old-school shooter manner that games did a decade ago (one second car is there... next second when the explosion occurs, it is replaced by a wrecked car and a poorly designed explosion... i swear it's silly how easily you can spot the model of the undamaged truck and damaged truck being swapped). Running and walking animations are poorly done.. gets annoying to watch after awhile. And there's something real weird about the way NPCs die.. the animations look really messed up (reminds me of old games where all enemies died exactly the same, as they were coded to die a certain way... whereas proper ragdoll physics gives much more realistic looking death sequences). Anyhow, despite the vast visual shortcomings, the game still looks like a lot of fun... visuals mean little to me personally (I still love playing old DOS games.. the graphics don't bug me at all in those)... but for those who expect / require strong visuals, they will quickly be frustrated and irritated by the poor animations (tons of texture clipping too.. a lot like Mass Effect 1 had)

My friend has the exact same problem on the PC Smooth when not moving mouse (using wasd to run like you were).. but as soon as he turns the camera even the slightest amount with the mouse, everything turns all jerky just like in your video I was going to buy the game, but now I'm going to wait until I see that a patch is released to fix it. EDIT: I should also note... it's not just a nuisance or cosmetic problem... it is literally impossible to aim like this... it's also not a performance issue since FPS is running solid (especially considering the specs of his computer).. there's something just buggy as hell in the code that makes the screen jerk around the second the mouse input goes in.

Yeah I'm Canadian as well... I noticed at Gamestop that the preorder is only for the Ps3 and Xbox version... the PC version receives no pre-order bonus... even called them to verify. Game companies love kicking PC gamers in the nuts

The concept is fine - the art team merely designed the night scope incorrectly. Conceptually it works and is used like this in the military.... though that night scope in the pic was just drawn / designed improperly.