Amentep

All computer based games are going to involve targeting of some kind (otherwise you could swing a sword in front of you and hit the guy behind you). I don't see why that's an issue with AP in relation to its calculation of hits. What I've found - and I'm doing stealth/martial artist with pistols in a pinch at the moment - is that the pistol tends to work best in certain conditions. Its harder to shoot the guy across the warehouse with than if you're a few feet away. (There's also an assumption that people can't miss at point blank range when, as far as I know, they can).

Had a weird checkpoint issue - not inventory related. In the level where you're trying to stop Deng and the Assassination plot, there's a checkpoint when you enter the Chinese garden. I got killed and reloaded. I was back at the Chinese garden entrance; I turned around and the doors were open but there was no level behind me (black space and a city horizon in the background). Naturally I couldn't leave well enough alone and walked through the door and fell off the level into blackspace. Had to hard reboot the game, reloaded and the doors were still open as before (but this time I just went on through the door going forward).

I concur with this assessment of the situation.

The problem with a learn by doing system is that they typically allow you to abuse the system by "doing" something repetitively (this in particular favors spamming healing or buffs but can also devolve into whack-a-mole for melee characters as well). Not sure how to solve this problem and still have it be learn-by doing unless their is some form of "law of diminishing returns" built into the system.

I've not seen it confirmed so I think the jury is still out.

My guess is: Get the press excited → press gets the gamers excited → gamers clamor for more information → game company waits until fever pitch is reached → game company releases information to gamers → gamers divide into categories ("I'll wait and see" "Looks great, day 1 buy" "Dungeon Siege in Name Only!" etc).

Why do you say that? Because that's what the trailer looked like? Ah, I didn't get that from the trailer. What made you, in the trailer, think "2005"?

I wanted to be a part of the supernate.

Ahhh, that could be it. I thought I only had 6 ranks in Sabotage, but I might have 7 now.

Eh? I just went through a level sneaky last night and it took me two tries (first aborted, second did it). No alarms.

I wondered if the goo level was the most complete stuff they had. Dunno, but you make a fair point.

I'm not taking Diablo clone as an insult - I actually like Diablo and Diablo 2 pretty well (and someday i might actually finish Diablo 2's expansion). But Diablo is neither the beginning or ending of games (I can think of earlier isometric hack and slash games - Arcus Odyssey on the Genesis, for example, from 1991; random loot drops are par for the course with roguelikes in my experience) and I think it limits discussion to put games in the "Diablo clone" box as if they have nothing to offer that Diablo doesn't have.

Why do you say that?

I'm not sure if its more accurate, but it is a very good summary of the situation.

Looks like the goo is one particular type of enemy that they were displaying here. There was also that floating obelisk that was destroying things and the mysterious ring at the end.

I hated hacking initially, then I realized if you aborted the hacking attempt it didn't set off the alarms (yeah I was like: when I realized) so it became a lot more reasonable to do hacking.

I was intrigued at the idea of a modern day spy rpg (I still remember doing P&P spy gaming years ago. I remember my agent about to be ran over, decided to do a crazy thing and jumped on the hood and ran over the car, jumping off the back. I had a series of insane rolls to make and made them all much to the consternation of my DM. Good times). Then I heard some things that I wasn't sure about - dialogue timer for example - that made me less interested. Then when the first videos came out I began to get interested because I could see how the elements were going to work together.

Weirdly enough with my mix of hair and groomed beard, my Thorton (look wise at least) reminds me of William Petersen in Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter (an adaption of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon novel).

I've at least liked all of Bioware's games and I've at least liked all of Obsidian's games. I also think its perfectly possible to craft a thoughtful review of Alpha Protocol discussing its strengths and weaknesses without, in fact, referencing Bioware or a Bioware game.

I really don't like fidgety equipment systems. I certainly don't have the patience to check every piece of armor and rebuild multiple sets every two levels.

Maybe you should play DS, and then you will see that it is not a diablo clone. I liked Dungeon Siege, but I don't think you'll get very far arguing that it WASN'T a dungeon crawl (Diablo clone). Read my sig, I'm here for a few hours, and I already had enough discussing that LOL. Why do you guys consider hack & slash RPGs controlled with the mouse diablo clones? Dungeon Siege is unique in many ways. Because it's easy to type and everyone knows what Diablo is and how it played. And yet Dungeon Siege didn't play anything like Diablo, so typing it that way does seem a bit odd. IE to my mind Diablo is about preset classes with skill trees and randomly generated levels in a game that only has multiple characters in multiplayer Dungeon Siege had no classes and one could pick from any skill in the first one and it had a predefined map and has a party based gameplay. About all they had in common was both having action based gameplay. Because if being a "dungeon crawl" makes you a clone of Diablo then Diablo is a clone of every "dungeon crawl" that came before it (which it isn't).

I liked the trailer. I suck at FPS, so I dunno if I'll get it, but the trailer made me interested in the game.

It hasn't failed to meet mine, please quit making statements about my opinions. I played and loved Mass Effect 2, but come on this game is not Mass Effect Gaiden: Alpha Protocol. Comparing them is a useless endeavor; and given that they're vastly different games in what they're trying to do any comparison is only going to scratch the surface of the good and bad in either game. I apologize for my generalized statement. I suppose a fix to the statement would be "AP has failed to meet every game reviewer's expectations." (even then I don't think it would be right, but whatever.. foots already in mouth) Yeah, its cool I just misread what you were trying to say.

wut?

*goes back and compares the two images* Ahhh, like the belt buckles and details on the armor missing then?