Spiked

Well from playing demo with Lucas, I'll say the balance between dodge and block is, well, great. Blocking drains a certain amount of focus, depending on how much the attack would damage you, while dodge animation has invincibility frames in it (one of the reasons why it shows that the developers knew what they were doing with this combat system) but it also has a bit of a "lag" after the animation , to stop you from spaming it. And it helps that the controls are perfectly responsive too, so you don't have to be afraid to use block in the heat of the battle, since you know it will work whenever you press it. I should mention that I played the demo with the gamepad, that is how I play h&s games, I played Witcher 2 with it too, for example.( PC controls really seam horrible though, they really screwed that part up, hope you'll get used to them, or they will fix them) But the thing is, dodging is always easier and safer then blocking, since it allows you to get out of the way of the attack without much risk. Successful use of block requires the study of enemy attack patterns and animations, or you will spend all the time holding block in the anticipation of the attack instead of attacking enemies. This is what playing devil may cry thought me. In it, you have the trickster style, which gives the a dash option, and it was the best style for beginners, and the royal guard style , which gave you a block option was the hardest since you had to learn all the attack patterns of all the enemies. Though you also had to time your blocks there, if you wanted to block all the damage, its not nearly as hard here, but it does require more effort then simply getting out of the way. It would be good if there are other bonuses for blocking, maybe this is where all those statistics the game has will come into play, I think retribution will deal damage back at enemies even if you block the attacks, it says so in the help section, if I'm not mistaken. One thing that was really fun, is using the sword and shield stance and rushing into group of enemies, attacking them with the sword but paying close attention to the enemies behavior and then timing the blocks. But like I said, dodging will always be easier and safer, and there is the two handed sword for groups of enemies, but this is more fun :D And yeah, form what I saw, the combat with Lucas really seams solid, all the basics seam to be there, I think it really shows that the designers are fans of the combat games like DMC, or street fighter, and simply knew what they were doing with the whole Action part of the game, all the basics seam really solid, for sure.

Sure, but what other example of a choice with a consequence can you name? I can name only one more - if you kill the cop at the Art show, he is replaced with his brother thats the same guy only with glasses. Other than that, I only remember some moral choices that never get mentioned again. I don't know about other people, but for me, just the choice is not that important, its the consequence, or even just mentioning of the choice you made that really means something and change the experience. For example, ME2 C&C was horrible, it didn't matter what choices you made in ME1 since the consequences were all the same, but the fact that the game has mentioned all the choices you made in ME1 meant a lot to me, really helped establish your character from ME1. Now, AP was completely built around the idea that all of your choices have a consequence, either by changing the story, or just altering the dialogue. Even the smallest stuff like, in what order do you do the missions in Saudi can greatly change the conversations you have with your handlers before the missions. Mina can be a completely different person depending on what she thinks of you, Heck will be angry if you don't go to him first etc. As we speak I'm on my 3rd playthrough of bloodlines, and the only difference between the 3 was the vampire clan, and the fact tht I missed the goul on my 1st playthrough. Malkavians have different dialogue, and from time to time character may mention in one sentence how your crazy. Nosferatu have to hide and sometimes people tell you how your ugly. But the story is linear, dialog choices limited to one response more often then they should be etc. C&C of AP on the other hand did wonders for me, every playthrough felt unique, and I think I started skipping dialogue only at 6th or 7th playthrough, because you never know what your going to hear, how a character is going to react in a particular situation depending on the stance, the reputation, particular thing you did he really did/didn't like, dossier etc. And for example, in ME 1 and 2, after I played with a male and a female, I started skipping almost all of the dialogue.

I know. What I wanted to say is that that the story was as linear as stories in bioware games. No real choices and no real consequences except for those two I mentioned.

Well, yeah, bloodlines is my favorite game, but you only make two choices in it, what vampire clan you want to be, and who will you ally with. I especially hated the part where you HAD to say to Lacroix that you saw Nines in front of that mansion. Now that was low, Bioware low. But, the game had other strengths so its fine. Also, why can't people understand the concept of taste? "This guy played it 3 times and still didn't like it! Thats means its bad!" or "This guy played it 2 times and liked it, that means its good!" Those are just subjective opinions, and forcing them as objective view on things is just wrong. What I would say is that game obviously has its strengths, as it is liked by some people, but also has its downsides as its disliked by others. But there are no objective opinions, not really, its just a matter of taste, preference. Also, please don't feed the trolls. Unless we develop technology that lets us see into the future, you can't form an opinion of something you only saw a small portion of.

Nope, sound dampening of six is there so you could move around freely without making any noise, unless your directly behind the enemy. But like I said, enemies can see you much easier when your standing instead of crouching, so again, stealth is about balancing all these variables.

Yeah, crouching adds like +4 to sound dampening, and obviously, greatly reduces enemies sight range. If you have the best technician armor that has sound dampening of 2, enemies will turn around and see you in the last second when you sneak up on them. And if your wearing the best stealth armor( 6 SD) enemies will turn around in the last second, but this time if you approach them while running un-crouched. So yeah, 6-2=4.

I've been thinking about stealth in this game, and after looking at the the way whole game is designed, the way stealth works actually makes sense. Basically, every approach in this game is designed to be a combination of player skill AND character skill. So for example, maxed shotgun skill isn't enough if you don't know how to use it(shot directly at the enemies at close range, wait for a critical hit to form for those in the distance), and the other way around. Or, if your really bad at mini games, you have a bunch of skills that could help you, if you are mediocre at them, you could upgrade sabotage with a couple of action points, or if your really good at them, you may not need any help. Again, a very, very nice mix of player and character skills. So now with stealth, if they just added alternative, empty paths whenever you get to a crowded area, it would be entirely based on player skill, you wouldn't need any character stealth skill. And the way AP is designed, if you want to be stealthy, you need experience with stealth, you know, patience, looking for a window of opportunity in between NPC patrols, but there are also sections where you need the abilities from the stealth line of skills if you want to remain undetected. Now, as far as I'm concerned, I just don't care, I'm fine either way. I LOVE splinter cell, but at the same time, I did enjoy what we got in AP. And really, no, you CAN'T just turn invisible and ghost your way through the whole level. Later levels of shadow operative are overpowered, but they will be unlocked in the last couple of hours of the game, and are overpowered so they could compensate for the fact that the end game is completely action oriented. But for the most part of the game, you either won't have that ability, or will have 6 or 12 second of invisibility while staying crouched, with a looong cool down period. I'm still not a huge fan of the action orientation of the game, but since all the skills are designed with this in mind, its not that bad, once you get used to it. My two cents.

I think you misunderstood me, I just mapped the abilities wheel to 1, ammo to 2 and gadgets to 3, from the commands menu of the game, so I can use the z,x,c for walking, nothing else.

You can't, left shift is for sprinting. You can use Left ALT, the button in between space and windows key. Open APInput from my documents(My Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config\) and copy this in it: Bindings=(Name="LeftAlt",Command="Axis aBaseY Speed=0.2") Then open DefaultInput from the location where your game is installed (Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config\) and then copy this in it: +Bindings=(Name="LeftAlt",Command="Axis aBaseY Speed=0.2") And there you go, when you hold the left alt key, Thorton will walk.

Yeah, that would be nice. By the way, I tried mapping walking to numbers above the WASD, 2 for forward, 1 for left, 3 for right, but it didn't register when I loaded the game, it seams like the game can't use those keys. And, where did you map the gadgets, abilities and ammo, if you use those keys for walking? edit: Never mind, you can map ammo and the rest to 1,2,3 from the menu, I just tried it out.

After playing around with different key combinations, I think I found the most seamless way of integrating walking into the game. Just set forward walking to LeftAlt, and if you want to move around just turn the mouse instead of using left or right. Here you go, just copy this in those two files, without the '+' in the APinput. +Bindings=(Name="LeftAlt",Command="Axis aBaseY Speed=0.2") Once again, big thanks to nizwiz, I've been waiting for this since the game came out. Maybe later we will find a more sophisticated way of implementing walking into the game, but this is good enough for me.

TV show burn notice reminds me a lot of Alpha Protocol. The protagonist is even called Michael, and his friend calls him Mikey.

I just tried this out, changed the speed in both ini files to 0.2 and yep, it works. Great find man, thanks a lot. Now I can look cool while sneaking, lol. I still hope we can find a way to toggle the walking like the sneaking animation. Sprint is a little bit weird, you don't have to hold down W to sprint, Mike starts running as soon as you press shift, so I don't know how they made that, its strange.

I did one playthrough roleplaying casual type of guy. Not taking things seriously, joking and flirting all the time, going on missions in casual clothing, thinking in a "kill or be killed" kind of way. So I would try to be sneaky, if I can, but if that fails, well thats just not that big of problem that shotgun and grenades can't solve. Yeah, that was fun. But playing like this on medium is about as hard as playing on hard difficulty with full armor, especially later on in the game. After that, I did a playthough with a hard core professional, cool and concentrated on the mission, not ever taking human lives, going on the missions with full gear etc. I just love roleplaying in this game.

It was the other way around, I beat the crap out of them, without much or any trouble. Epinephrine Spike + Iron Will + Fury, lets call this combo 'Steven special' for future references. For Marburg, I just incinerated his henchmen with grenades, and then gave him one Steven special and that was that. For Brayko, I gave him Steven special, then after he gets high I hide with shadow operative(so that he doesn't call his mobsters on me), while I'm hiding I use brilliance and then give him another Steven special after the effects of the coke wore off. Deng was the easies one, I just gave him one Steven special and that was that, he didn't even have time to react, he didn't even touch me. It was my 9th playthrough, and at that point I was really good at mini games so I didn't need any help, but I did have extra 10 points at the end that I didn't use for anything, so you could buy two ranks in sabotage if you want. Here is how my build looked in the end: Technical aptitude is really important because of the better healing, more endurance and brilliance. On hard, you really have to rely on fury and iron will or your dead, so being able to reset their timers is important. I guess its possible, but I didn't try it.

I don't know, shotgun+martial arts doesn't make much sense, they pretty much serve the same purpose. Just activate fury and you can kick some serious close-quarter ass in those couple for seconds, no need for shotgun. But it doesn't matter much, you can play the game any way you want, the build doesn't have to be, you know, optimal. BTW, I just finished my Chuck Norris/Ninja playthough on hard, and it was awesome! Maxed out stealth, toughness, martial arts, and 10 points in technical aptitude(brilliance) and I was unstoppable. Boy, I beat the crap out of Brayko, Marburg, Deng, you name it. Definitely one of my favorite builds. Who needs guns anyway?

Shotguns are awesome combined with gadgets. To me it seamed like shotguns are underpowered, but I just finished the game on hard difficulty as a tech specialist and it was awesome. The thing is, you shoot enemies when they are in close range regularly, but when they are far away, just wait for critical hit to form and then when you hit them, no matter how far they are, they will fall down and stay down for about 5 seconds, which is enough to run to them and stomp them, or just shoot at other enemies, or throw a grenade or whatever. Like I said, I managed to finish the whole game like this, on hard difficulty. In my opinion, of all the weapons, I like the design of shotguns the best. And I didn't even mention the incinerating bullets/shells, one of the best things in the whole game. They set enemies' clothes on fire. Lots. Of. Fun.

I totally forgot, I was playing with veteran background the last time, so its extra AP is that made the mini games so difficult probably. Silly me.

Ok, so it seams the reason why mini games were difficult for me the last time I played on hard is because I didn't use integrated security. I probably thought I didn't need it since I specialized in sabotage. I just finished another playthrough on hard and mini games with first level of breaking and entering and integrated security weren't much more difficult then on medium . I didn't even need emps. Actually, this was my paragon playthrough, I didn't kill any of the mercenaries or agents, and I spared those minor characters, but I did kill Marburg and Leland, as they orchestrated the whole thing. All this on hard, with stealth, pistol, martial arts, little bit of toughness in the end and upgraded shock traps, with a spy background. So I guess I could say that hard difficulty isn't really that big of a deal as long as you know what your doing.

Its been some time since this game is released, and bunch of us completed it more then once, or twice, or three times or...you get the picture. So, of what combination of skills is your favorite? Mine is without a doubt stealth+assault riffles. So I stealth my way through anything I can, but I also have AR when things get messy. Also, I like to use those silenced bullets for taking out guys in the distance silently. I also like to buy a couple of ranks in pistol tree, so I can line up a critical from cover, or take down two or more targets with chain shot, If I can't sneak past them, and sabotage gives you some nice things also. So all in all, I would probably split the remaining action points on those two skills. Martial arts is a great addition to stealth+AR build too, since AR isn't reliable on close distances, especially when your playing on hard.

Yes, I know(I did finish the game 6 times...so far :D) but I still find it really annoying to play that way. There are at least 5 or 6 safes, locks, computers in every mission, and with 2 EMPs per inventory slot, you could barely carry any other gadget in missions if you stock up on EMPs. But, now that I think about it...you could put 6 points in sabotage, that could allow you to hack and bypass in Saudi and two other hubs(difficult, but doable I think). Then in the last hub and in Alpha Protocol, you stock up on EMPs. Hm, I think I will do exactly this on my next playthrough.

Ok, so this is what I changed in MarteenDee's animation tweaks: MoveSpeedNormal=220 SprintSpeed=350 I think the rest is the same, and I'm really, really liking how the game feels now. Thorton isn't running like a madman everywhere, and now it seams as if there are animation transitions when walking or sneaking, he doesn't just turn around instantly. I understand some people prefer responsibility from controls, but I like it better this way. So once again, thats for the tweaks Marteen.

Hard more is really difficult, equipments is more expensive, you die after a couple of bullets, enemies have more health, but the only real problem are mini games. They are twice as hard from the start, so even if you specialize in sabotage, they will still be frikin' difficult, and darn right impossible without maxed out sabotage skill. And since this is an espionage game, you'd want all information you can get from safes and computers, is hard to just pass by them, so I only play on hard if I chose sabotage to be one of my 3 man skills.

Yes, this problem really annoys me too. At first I didn't have it, but later on, around my second, or third playhtough it started, and now I have it all the time, whenever a character is in the distance. Maybe it has something to do with the 'load the whole level and only stream textures' ini tweak? BTW, the animation tweaks are great, except for the slow walking speed, it makes crouched walk look silly. Is there a way to slow that animation down, perhaps, so that Mike makes less but longer steps, like in splinter cell? Or something? I got used to the animation, but I would mind if it could be changed somehow, to be honest. Also, one other question: can the camera angles be tweaked, so that its more to the side, and not behind Mike's back, thats so 2005. :D

I didn't see this as a problem. Mike's sarcasm and glibness allowed him to remain relatively consistent despite the various dialogue options. Unlike past RPGs, where you're often free to bounce through an array of wildly different responses like a Magic Eightball of multiple personality disorder, all three of the dialogue stances seemed like plausible facets of the same personality. Mike might be a smug bastard, but within that personality is the potential for a wide emotive range - you can picture a smug bastard going hardass or softening up, depending on the situation. The alternative would be a relatively bland and occasionally bipolar blank slate (i.e. Commander Shepard). I agree with you To. The. Letter. Good review, really.