Libertarian

Some folks are just asinine. AP is a good, solid looking game. I actually think it's beautiful in many ways. Nice shots!

Fyi: I don't like you.

Bethesda games are vastly overrated these days. Both Oblivion and Fallout 3 suck compared to Morrowind. Those games have so many problems, yet they were overlooked.

Killzone 1 was awful, yet it received a pretty damn good sequel. The same looks to be happening with the Two Worlds francise. The first was terrible, yet #2 looks at least solid. AP is better than the original KZ and TW, so it should get a sequel, imo.

Considering it's not out in the US yet, no, I guess it's not doing that well with sales at the moment. Yup. I like The Conduit. It's just a fun game. But it's not as good as Alpha Protocol as an overall package. If The Conduit were on PC, 360 or PS3, it would've bombed. It did well because of the platform it was on.

The shooting feels quite similar to ME1. The reticle is nearly identical, too. Many people ******* and moaned about the combat in ME1, so we got ME2, which is basically just a shooter and no longer an RPG.

It doesn't have the polish of a ME2, but as an overall RPG, AP has it beat. However, ME2 is a top notch game, but it lost a lot of its RPG roots.

I took 5 hours just in Saudi Arabia. Finished the game in around 20-25 hours. I spend more time in games, though.

Well, I enjoyed it from the very beginning, so I'm sorry, sir, but I can't help you.

Here's the fundamental problem. The "real life" style you talk about has a catch. It dramatically increases the alienation effect. In other words, immersion is easily destroyed. The more "surreal" the art style is, the more the player can cope with the visuals. The game play needs to reflect the "real" of which you speak. Therefore, the fact that you have a RPG with its clearly unnatural mechanics/mode of play and an art style that is "real" as opposed to "surreal", the flow is easily ruined. It is much harder to make an immersive game when the mechanics and art style require much more polish and attention to detail. AP might end up being a risk that didn't pan out as some would have otherwise hoped. It's not unusual in this industry. In trying to attain some kind of "real life", "uncanny valley" look, Heavy Rain is perhaps the best example that springs to mind, AP doesn't even come close to nailing "real life", its leaning more towards cartoon real life if anything. Could go into spoiler territory regarding Heavy Rain. This is your warning. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Completely disagree. Many of the animations in Heavy Rain pushed the impressive character models in Heavy Rain into the "uncanny valley". If you received this section in the end, where Norman Jayden is on a television program, and his hands/arms are spazzing out like he's trying to spin a record. And don't forget Ms. Lauren Winters: member of the "uncanny valley". Oh, and we shall not forget the love scene, especially when kissing is involved. And let's also not forget when Ethan Mars put his shirt back on after the love scene. The shirt moved like a solid brick and had no fabric/material light weight to it. Heavy Rain was real life without the style (save for some scenes like the club scene). And while the character models had a lot of detail, they often animated in absolutely awful ways.

Sega continues to support the Wii with hardcore titles like The Conduit 2, even though their past hardcore releases for the system haven't done so hot (The Conduit, MadWorld, House of the Dead: Overkill). It seems like they can see the potential for The Conduit's future, so I hope they see the same for Alpha Protocol on PC, 360 and PS3.

Deus Ex is my favorite game off all time, but let's be honest, that game had major issues. Like most great RPGs, you have to overlook the faults to see the true beauty beneath. Alpha Protocol is no different in that regard. I can certainly say that Alpha Protocol is one of my favorites this entire generation.

... 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. Real life doesn't need style. And I disagree that AP lacks style. Obviously you haven't met many of the characters in AP. A few have a lot of style and their artistic design is interesting. How many games do you see with characters that are scene girls with pink hair and a lip piercing? Brink looks about as stylistic as The Club. I'll take a real world look over a craptastic art direction, thank you very much.

I remember you from the Xbox.com forums. Didn't you have a Condemned avatar? Anyways, Too Human was very solid and I really enjoyed it. The difficulty spikes were pretty insane, though. And I love Deadly Premonition! Weirdest and most awesome game in a while, I say.

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. http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/images/05/20/52004_Brink-02.jpg No, it's piss poor horrible. Fact. And yes, my opinion = irrefutable factoid. And I'm excited for Brink since I like Splash Damage. Wolfenstein: ET, yum.

Brink looks like **** in terms of character models. That's incredibly poor art direction that looks like it's geared toward the tween demographic.

Trolls sure know how to use the wrong terminology, eh? In no way whatsoever is Alpha Protocol "broken". Also, I agree. GameTrailers review particularly rubbed me the wrong way. Not the score, mind you, cause I can see how some may feel that way toward this game, but the complaint about the dice roll gameplay. You're playing a real Action/RPG, so that kind of gameplay is to be expected. If you don't want that, then go play Gears of War or something. Let RPGs be RPGs, ya damn reviewers. They're making the industry conform to what they think should be the norm and it's ******* annoying.

Well, I'm a complete ahole, so I'm rather happy with how the character turned out.

He's not asking for artistic filters, he's asking for ART DIRECTION, you know varied environments with different color palettes etc; not some sepia filter. And my response is the same.

The problem with most reviewers today is that they review a game for what it isn't and not what it is. I see many reviewers crying about the combat and that there's too many dice rolls going on behind the scenes. Um, hello, this is an RPG, not a straight up shooter. This also happens with games that have no multiplayer component. Many reviewers will dock a game for not having it. I heard a few reviewers pissing and moaning about Alan Wake not having multiplayer. Are they freaking serious? Multiplayer wouldn't work for that game. It'd go as well as it did for The Darkness. Reviewers are often too slow for the position they hold.

I like the graphics. They're supposed to bring out the best of real world locations and they do. While they're no visual stunner, they're not supposed to be artistic in any way whatsoever. This isn't Okami. I don't want it to pull a Conviction and shoehorn in black & white filters. Keep the artistic crap out.

I agree. This game is pretty much gold in terms of story and characters. The dialogue system is completely awesome and allows for a lot of choice. I'm glad Avellone's expertise shows through here.

Well, I bought it for console due to the fact that I was afraid the PC version would be a bad port. I'm glad this isn't the case. I'll be picking up the PC version sometime down the road. However, I don't find most of the texture pop-in to be that bad. It's certainly better than Mass Effect 1. That game had some really bad pop-in.

The 1UP review was very solid. They gave AP a B+.

Huh? There are tons of reviews out for this game. Maybe do better research before buying something next time? Consider this bit of knowledge your "refund". Now use it going forward in the future, k? Btw, Obsidian made a solid effort here. It has issues and that's irrefutable, but it's not bad by any means whatsoever.