Spiked

Hey, gotta leave stuff for the sequel. "-You're a dicey player Mr Thorton. -Oh, you don't know how I roll. -You crack horrible jokes Mr Thorton. -Would you be happier if I cracked your safe? *stare*" And so forth with crappy casino jokes. That sounds Thorton 100% suave. Bad (and sometimes sexist) puns and jokes, and a tendency to be a smartass. I found professional Thorton for now my favorite.. he still throws a couple of sarcastic remarks here and there, and yet they somehow fit the character, but when he's on mission he's perfectly concentrated on that. Well.. except when he has to manipulate someone. I don't think the suave jokes were bad, they were funny for the most part, as far as I'm concerned, but I have to say that my favorite playthrough was with the professional Thorton also. I don't know, it just felt really really good, the flow of the conversations was great, and you didn't have to listen to bunch of characters getting annoyed with you jokes. I still very much love the suave Throton, mind you. There is a nice amount of humor in the game overall, even if it is all serious business. Also, the aggressive one isn't bad either. One time Surkov was so scared of me because of my past behaviors that he pointed the gun at me at the end of The Embassy mission. Needless to say, I disarmed him, shot him in the leg and then questioned him. Jack Bauer would we proud... And I only saw that scene on my 5th playthrough. Is this game great or what? And as far as AP2 is concerned, one thing that they just *have* to implement is undercover approach. Shooting and stealth are fine, but why not give player the option of putting on a disguise and walking past enemy soldiers, at least for a couple of missions, if you played under the radar up to that point. Kinda like a reward for being covert. Also, more espionage gadgets would be nice, of course.

About stealth. Well, I do agree that there should have been more alternative routs, designed for stealth approach around levels. There were a lot of them in Saudi, but after that not so much. But, no one is forcing you to use invisibility. Sure, its easier, but you don't have to. Just put a couple of points into stealth, enough so that the skill can help you, but not enough so that it makes it unrealistic. You get like, longer awareness, 2 seconds of invisibility before you are spotted, kinda like a warning, I'm fine with that. And put the rest of the points into some other skill, that could help you when you can't use stealth, like in a wide open room full with enemies. SMGs, or grenades, or chain shot, or whatever you find more realistic then shadow operative. I did this on a a couple of my playthroughs and it was fun. I use realistic stealth when I can, and some other skill when that fails. Also, I did one playthrough in which I was almost exclusively relying on stealth skill, and that was fun too. Not realistic, but what is realistic in video games? And you can't just turn into a ghost and and breeze through a level, that skill lasts for a couple of seconds and then it takes a lot of time to recharge, so you need to use it strategically, when you really must, just like silent running. It was really fun.

The mini games are a great contribution to the gameplay once you get used to them. Sure, the controls are wonky, and you probably won't figure out on your first playhtrough that you should put those 6 AP points in sabotage, but after you do, they are a blast! I especially like hacking, because no matter how good you are at it, no matter how many of them you finished, if you are not really focused once the game starts, your screwed, and then the alarm stars, and then you have to reload because it screwed up your stealthy approach. Awesome stuff, really adds a lot to the tension. And they are also great as a mini representation of stuff like hacking and bypassing, they are actually believable, unlike mini games in Mass effect. So yeah, love them.

Any news on the walking animation? Is there a way to bind it to a new button or something?

Same thing happened to me, I did everything to make him hate me, but he still said he kinda likes me. I think I had -5 or -6 with him. Maybe its a bug.

Oh, so thats who Wen Shu is, I never figured it out. So what, Heck just hates that guy for some reason? :D

Also love the game, but also agree with this. Gadgets are way too offensive. If you max out the sabotage skill, you can hack remotely any turret or any camera, and thats cool. And plus when it comes to stealth, I'm the type of person who just likes to watch the AI patterns and then move when I see an opening, I didn't use gadgets in Splinter Cell games either so it didn't bother me much, but still, game could have had more espionage and less action. Also, if you take cover on a wall next to a door, you get an option of opening the door while you are hugging the wall. Hm, maybe a dlc that adds some fancy gadgets?

Thanks for that. Did you finish that playthrough? Did Lailand mention that in the end? That would be cool. Do you have to go into hiding, or can you reveal the real assassin, if you figure out who it is? I still don't get why he didn't betray me. Maybe because I came to him as soon as I got there, if I waited for a while, I could have gotten -1 for that. Or maybe its a bug.

No, you can't, someone else is the assassin, but Heck gives the name to the public, if he likes you, he just gives a random name, but if he dislikes you, I guess he gives your name? What did the news say, did they mention you as a suspect?

What stance did you use during conversations? I tried professional and didn't delete those files, but still he didn't betray me. So, now public thinks you killed Sung? Or tried to, depending on the choice?

Did someone here menage to piss him off enough so that he betrays you to the VCI as Sung's assassin? I tried, but only got to -5 or -6, and that was not enough. I think I had -9 or -10 with Madison when she hit me in the head and run away to Marburg, so maybe you need to have complete animosity with characters for them to take actions against you.