Grayvern

The point I was making was that the design of Alpha Protocall, as a would be hybrid action RPG, is retrograde. It has been made specifically to appeal to fans of 3rd person action games as well with very little concession to them. Therefore what I was saying does not apply to DA:O as it has not been made as a hybrid RPG. DA:O is a top down party RPG yes but it has also evolved a great deal compared to older examples of the Genre. My point being Alpha Protocall has been designed as a similar type of CRPG to Dragon Age and then been shoe horned into a different type of CRPG. It is this shoe horning that is the throwback not the actual CRPG elements themselves. My specific disappointment as I said before is that it is wholly possible to make an action CRPG that is based 1 to one on players ability with the action; ie shooter, brawler, fighter genres that is still a full featured RPG. Alpha Protocall could still have been an extremely complex and deep CRPG with the introduction of 1 to 1 shooting. The opertunity was there for people truely great at creating CRPG systems, or putting pen and paper RPG systems into CRPGS, to create an action RPG that didn't sacrifice the action or the role playing to any meaningful extent.

If you read many reviewers they do give the game a fair hearing. If you love videogames it's a dissapointment that the game does not do more to further CRPG design, especially given the lineage of the parent company. It does engender disbelief when a top agent can't shoot strait. There are any number of ways the weapon proficiency skills could have been designed to require you to spend points in them with a combat focused character while still retaining accuracy. Or even taken out altogether and replaced with other combat skills relating to all weapons. Please bear in mind this is my only complaint and keep in mind my favourite ever shooter is Stalker Call of Pripyat. So its not the laser tag COD arcade approach I want. And if you look at reviews only the Eurogamer review has bad things to say about the story, and the choice element in it, which is after all the main point of a CRPG. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant bomb gave it 3 out of 5 stars but he is going to play it again, which is a big thing for a busy reviewer to do. My point being honest critique is different from conspiracy. Finally you cannot have your cake and eat it, as a game maker you can present your game in a third or first person action perspective to help drive sales and uptake, but you cannot then justify design elements based solely in Isometric CRPG design circa 1999.