Deng

I think you are right. They are both certainly fresh. It's seriously nice to see RPG style play moving on to other settings and styles. The swords and sorcery trope has been beaten to death. And one thing both games do really well is immerse you in the idea of a secret society. Both in Bloodlines and AP I really do get the sense I'm through the look glass.

Haha, Gothic 3. You can kill an orc, but not a boar

Fallout 3 has BROKEN combat. Mass Effect shooting is EXACTLY like AP. The gameplay mechanic is the same. The AP AI is pretty poor, but then again, the FO3 AI is just plain stupid.

Yeah, but I see BS in what you're on about. Have you played Mass Effect 2? Whether a person likes the action-focus trend of many RPGs these days, ME2 deserves all the praise it gets. There are niggling issues here and there, but overall it reeks of pure quality. The same can be said for those other games ('cept maybe Oblivion, which I thought was over-hyped). I don't think it is a conspiracy, but ALOT of the reviews have criticised it for being being too "dice heavy". Well Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 are also Dice heavy. In FO3 I can aim at a guys head and do no damage. Then a gamespot review said it lacked "character and soul"...wtf? If the comments were that it is a bit buggy or too short, I could understand. But to criticize it for using a gameplay mechanic used by other games is just ridiculous. It is not a conspiracy, but it is pretty well known that "AAA" games from publishers with big media and PR divisions generally get an upturn in review scores.

I really liked how on the plane with Scarlett you could say that you were an oilman who wanted to own a baseball team. That's a George W. Bush reference (he owned the Texas Rangers). It's the small touches like that...

This game has less bugs than ME1, Dragon Age, and Gothic 1/2/3 on release. Calling it buggy or a chop job is just ridiculous. There are bugs, and you probably will notice them, but there is nothing game breaking.

Meh, not a huge fan of excessive eye-liner and hiplessness

There is an easy fix for this. Spend some points in Sabotage, buy intel, and use armour mods that improve your breaking and entering skill. Oh and buy EMPs and use them for things you cannot break. I really believe that they SHOULDN'T be lowering the difficulty of the mini-games (save for the Hacking control glitch)

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These games pushed the boundaries of what was "allowable" content in the RPG genre. Regardless of why they worked, if nothing different hadn't been tried, all RPGs would still basically be about killing beholders in dungeons. Yet again, there is nothing to say an RPG cannot be "down-to-earth." Plus, there is still a high level of intrigue and mystery to be found in the AP world. And nevertheless, being "down-to-earth" doesn't excuse people from treating it as if it was as TPS. You might argue that it doesn't work well as a RPG, but you surely can't argue that you were confused as to it's genre after 20 minutes of play time, and then start complaining that COD4 was a better shooter. That says nothing about why the game should be treated as third person shooter. In fact, that RPGWatch was able to consider it thusly suggests they had no confusions about the gameplay mechanics at all. Ultimately their criticism is not about setting, but about the explanation/power of certain skills. This has to do with the skills themselves, not the mechanics of the RPG/levelling system. Evasion and Stealth Operative are surely immersion killing, but that doesn't mean that an RPG-like skill system is out of place. In fact, at RPG watch they even said that they would've liked a deeper skill system and stronger stealth mechanics. Maybe people should get used to the idea the mil-RPG or shooter-RPG is here to stay. In the same way that no one compares Dragon Age to Ninja Gaiden just because they both have swords, people should review this game for how is works as an RPG.

My second play through is with SMG/Shotgun. It requires a different approach -- I started using the toughness tree a bit more, but it is a lot of fun. The Shotgun is great for close quarters. Embassy, Hong Kong Triad, pretty much anywhere indoors. I also do a little trick where I do two hits of melee and then blast the shotgun. When it hits it's good damage SMG actually does all right long distance. I can take out guys on a roof or on a water tower if I want. It's GREAT for clearing a room. If you lure guys in small rooms or corridors this thing is carnage. And it's special ability (unlimited ammo for duration) just makes it more so. You waste a lot of ammo but you have a HUGE stockpile and clip The SMG and Shotgun special ammos are also awesome (continuous damage). Makes tough bosses a lot easier.

I read that review. Is the 360 version completely different? Did the guy have a pre-release version? Or was he just plain lying? I have played 1.5x through now and things like bullets going through cover have NEVER happened to me. I read that review after I played the first time and many of the issues seemed like either total fabrication or willful ignorance (i.e. ignoring the RPG element)

More than anything Alpha Protocol does have a great WORLD. It has a good story (the storytelling is a little bit uneven at times, but still good), but what really draws you in is the world. It is compelling and well constructed. This really has a feel like Vampires:Bloodlines about it -- the characters and environments are really well crafted and add to the immersion. Like Bloodlines, you really do feel as if you step into this secret world. In terms of general writing, for the most part it is good. Some of the email correspondences sometimes lack finess. The style sometimes is not very mature. But this isn't a huge draw back. The story and dialogue are all well written though. Delivery is hit and miss. The main character sometimes sounds a bit lacklustre. Sound for me is a definite hit. In terms of characterization, what Obsidian does really well is make characterization more organic. Unlike say, Bioware games, where learning about characters means hours of exposition, learning about their past, their favourite colour, their first pet's name etc., in AP you learn about characters either on the missions, as you encounter them, or through information dossiers. It suits the setting very well and makes for more plausible characters. So in terms of the content and story elements I would say it's great. Sure there are things to improve on, the basic content elements are done exceptionally well

Well, thats what sets Alpha protocol apart from other rpgs. There is simply no fantasy, no sci-fi, not even hints at magic or anything paranormal. There are already enough fantasy rpgs out there. People need to get the "traditional" rpg mindset out of their heads. I understand they were trying to do something different. But with that came a price. The most negative reviews of AP make it seem as if the author was expecting a third person shooter, and the setting is partly to blame for that. WTF? The setting is to blame for the reviewers being total idiots? If you can only judge game mechanics based on the setting of the game, you need to get a lobotomy. At the very least you shouldn't be a game reviewer. Screw creativity and trying something different. If your RPG doesn't have magic then every gaming idiot out there will think it is Crysis or something. Therefore, we should just be recycling the settings over and over because people can't tell the difference between game mechanics and settings. Heaven forbid games like Jagged Alliance, Fallout 1, Deus Ex, and yes, Alpha Protocol, dare to do something different with the RPG trope.

[quote name='L

[quote name='L

Because there were a lot of excellent reviews, and it is actually at it's core a very excellent game that does a lot of things very very well.

Can be very useful depending on your style. For stealth flashbangs/h2h are great. Otherwise, they are quite useful as crowd control.

How can anyone answer this question without knowing why it's "god awful"? To me it's not God Awful at all. It actually an excellent example of a mil-RPG, despite the few bugs I encountered. And I actually like a game where 1) lockpicking and hacking are actually kind of hard 2) this happens in realtime so you have to worry about guard paths and timings.