Shortest RPG ever?

[Oner]

I posted a review last week, that guy needed 30 hours. Another reviewer on his twitter said something around 30 too IIRC.

And here we had one idiot on stream ignoring half the game and already everyone is ZOMGSHORT!!1!1

[xenios]

I posted a review last week, that guy needed 30 hours. Another reviewer on his twitter said something around 30 too IIRC.

And here we had one idiot on stream ignoring half the game and already everyone is ZOMGSHORT!!1!1

 

that stream was unwatchable anyways. The guy kept jiggling around the analoguepad like an idiot, never listened to the briefings and then this ridiculous looking character. Plus he was really bad at the game.

[Oner]

Exactly.

[framerate]

I watched some of that stream. He missed out on a lot of stuff by just slaughtering everybody. Plus he maxed out stealth early so he could just slit everyone's throats he came across. This is also why he died every time someone pulled a gun on him, so be careful.

 

In fact, he got his ass handed to him quite a few times by Brayko

 

 

I hope you guys enjoy the game as much as we do. I'm currently playing through Saudi Arabia on my current play through, and will hopefully get to Moscow as soon as my workload quiets down a little

[Baeus]

Already played about 4.5 hours, that's half of his time to completion apparently, and personally I'm not yet out of Saudi Arabia. So I dare playtime varies. And yeah, when my stealthy Mike has to fight in the open, he gets his ass handed to him.

 

Not to sound like a squealing fan, but love the game guys

[Alpha]

Already played about 4.5 hours, that's half of his time to completion apparently, and personally I'm not yet out of Saudi Arabia. So I dare playtime varies. And yeah, when my stealthy Mike has to fight in the open, he gets his ass handed to him.

 

Not to sound like a squealing fan, but love the game guys

Baeus ; do the game have good variety of side missions and convo with npc's that are not really important in the game? I know a dev confirmed about the side mission but i would like to know too from a common gamer .

[Baeus]

Had a bit of side mission stuff, usually as a result of buying extra intel before a mission starts, which gives you bonus objectives during a mission. Although (spoilers for the tutorial mission/zone)

When I did really well on my stealth practice/induction, it opened up a nifty little stealth side mission that got me some extra intel xp and rep. Only got pass marks on firearms and gadgets, so maybe doing well there gets you something as well

. It also seemed like I didn't need to do all the missions leading up to the final Saudi Arabian mission (though I didn't check that, did them all anyway).

 

Conversations, there were a few extra ones I didn't have to listen to (but did anyway). There are also news reports you can watch that reference you actions and other things, extra emails you can hack into to read for fun. There aren't a bunch of flavour npcs standing around in mission zones to chat to though (which sorta makes sense, since thus far everyone there is a knife-fodder terrorist ). Conversations with the main npcs can be cut short, or dragged out for more info.

Edited May 27, 2010 by Baeus

[Alpha]

Great! ...i can't wait for June 1 grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[ProtocolX]

took me about 6 hours to finish saudi mission. have to Work tomorrow or I would play more. I did do every mission in Saudi, made sure to do all the tutorials, etc. but still 6 hours and I am just really getting started is not bad at all. If each hub is about the same length, then I figure 25-30 hours for me. Nice.

[Paraclete]

Got the game this morning and I've just finished it.

 

Overall I really enjoyed, the characters and the story were well done and I don't want to spoil any of it so that's all I'll mention on them.

 

The gameplay though is such a mixed bag, once you start investing points into weapons the shooting does become a bit better but it is still really clunky and unresponsive. Basically to line up any shot you have to hold down the aim button until the reticule goes red, if you fire when its not dead on then it is likely that it is going to miss or at least it won't kill them.

 

My main gripe with the game is the minigames they make you do for hacking things, I don't know if it was because the game was made for controllers or not but the hacking minigame is awful with a keyboard and mouse. You have a set of numbers and letters on the screen that are constantly changing and then you have to match up bits of code with the ones you have at the top of the screen. To move one of the cursors to the right bit of code you use WASD and to move the other one you use the mouse. It is so slow to move both of them and this really becomes a problem later on in the game because the timers get shorter and so do the code combination. This makes them harder to see inside of the jumble of changing letters and numbers, on top of that there is also another counter at the bottom which will change where the codes are which makes it even harder to hit.

 

I know it sounds like I'm really ranting about the game but despite the negatives I really did enjoy it and I can't wait to play it again and see how I could do things differently to influence the story.

12hrs didn't rush it he said

 

Too short for me

[Kaiser Wilson]

Got the game this morning and I've just finished it.

 

Overall I really enjoyed, the characters and the story were well done and I don't want to spoil any of it so that's all I'll mention on them.

 

The gameplay though is such a mixed bag, once you start investing points into weapons the shooting does become a bit better but it is still really clunky and unresponsive. Basically to line up any shot you have to hold down the aim button until the reticule goes red, if you fire when its not dead on then it is likely that it is going to miss or at least it won't kill them.

 

My main gripe with the game is the minigames they make you do for hacking things, I don't know if it was because the game was made for controllers or not but the hacking minigame is awful with a keyboard and mouse. You have a set of numbers and letters on the screen that are constantly changing and then you have to match up bits of code with the ones you have at the top of the screen. To move one of the cursors to the right bit of code you use WASD and to move the other one you use the mouse. It is so slow to move both of them and this really becomes a problem later on in the game because the timers get shorter and so do the code combination. This makes them harder to see inside of the jumble of changing letters and numbers, on top of that there is also another counter at the bottom which will change where the codes are which makes it even harder to hit.

 

I know it sounds like I'm really ranting about the game but despite the negatives I really did enjoy it and I can't wait to play it again and see how I could do things differently to influence the story.

12hrs didn't rush it he said

 

Too short for me

 

From what I heard on average this is a 25-30 hr game so I'd call 12 hours rushing it.

[Tigranes]

We have reports of people taking 4-6 hours just to get out of Saudi Arabia. With at least 4 hubs, yeah, I'd call 12 hours lower than the average.

 

It's too early to get a reliable estimate on game length - people who're going to rush and finish it quickly will be the most vocal ones now, those taking their time... won't be done with it yet.

[Lestrade]

I play a stealth specialized char with just pistols as a Weapon, it took me 3 hours to do the first mission in Saudi Arabia alone. I tried to avoid what could be avoided, so playstyle definitely has an impact on the time needed.

 

Running and gunning would be much faster but I don't need an Espionage RPG Game to do that.

 

Stealth specialization and a Pistol

with silencer

= much fun.

[Metal_Guitar]

I play a stealth specialized char with just pistols as a Weapon, it took me 3 hours to do the first mission in Saudi Arabia alone. I tried to avoid what could be avoided, so playstyle definitely has an impact on the time needed.

 

Running and gunning would be much faster but I don't need an Espionage RPG Game to do that.

 

Stealth specialization and a Pistol

with silencer

= much fun.

 

Yes, indeed.

 

Funny, I was reading The Hound of The Baskervilles last night. Just got to the bit where Lestrade turns up.

[Starwars]

I'm guessing your mileage will vary greatly in playtime depending on whether you do stealth or guns blazing playthroughs. My friend and I took a fair amount of time to get through Saudi Arabia using stealth (we didn't get keep track). If you just blast everything I have a feeling the game might feel rather short but I might be wrong.

[dantivirus]

I imagine if I rushed it, I could do it in 7 or so but why would I? I play a game to enjoy it. I want to see everything the game has to offer. I've finished AP once and it took me about 18 hours during my playthrough. Just by the profiles alone I did not have at 100% and relationships not maxed, I will be playing again and trying different routes. There's more depth to the game than some give it credit for.

 

Now if I only had a chart or such on how to max relationships for all characters.

[AKofC]

First Mass Effect was considerably shorter.

[Iceman346]

I just finished the game, it took me about 20 hours without much rushing (read every mail I got, read the mission debriefings, listened to most of the news). The game certainly isn't the longest RPG out there, but it's not terribly short (for comparison: ME2 took me 25 hours, Dragon Age 55 hours).

 

AP certainly has it's weak points, the enemy-AI varies between fine and laughable, the hacking minigame is atrocious while the other two minigames are ridiculously easy and I'm not a big fan of the interaction point stuff instead of giving the player free roam of the levels.

 

But AP succeeds in telling an interesting story filled with interesting characters (most of which you can kill, yay ) and offering the player a lot of choice. Both regarding his playstyle and regarding the route the story takes. I certainly will play the game at least once more to try some other choices along the way.

 

The shooting gameplay isn't the most polished I've seen, but it works decent enough while sneaking is a bit more erratic (although I have to admit, that I didn't put many points in sneaking, will do that next time). On the other hand updating your various weapons and gear is a lot of fun.

 

To compare the game to it's nearest rival: For me AP is the better game than Mass Effect 2. While ME2 has a lot more polish and the shooting gameplay works better Bioware threw out most of the RPG-elements which made ME1 fun and the main storyline of ME2 is laughingly bad.

[Shinaju]

I finish my first play thru just below 8 hours. I did all side quest possible and I took a stealth gadget approach. If you go in gun blazing, you will finish this in 6. This game truly is lacking in lifespan. You might be able to try out different dialog options / handlers stuff like that, but thats just going to be another 8 hours (exluding the same stuff you went thru). 16 hours is pretty short, for 2 play through is short, and I doubt the replay value of trying different appoarch, because of them are minor.

And the endings were too short to warrant another play thru just to see them.

[Tigranes]

Forgot about this - my first playthrough took me between 15 and 20 hours, and I'm usually faster than average. I did Jade Empire in ten. This does include quite a few reloads, I think I had to try to kill Omen Deng a dozen times.

 

It's shorter than the 'big fat' RPGs like Dragon Age (which, actually, only took me ~35....), but not really a 'short' game in the grand scheme of things. Add in replayability and it stacks up well.

[Nepenthe]

We have reports of people taking 4-6 hours just to get out of Saudi Arabia.

 

That includes me. And I went through tutorial a bit faster than I should've.

[C2B]

I finish my first play thru just below 8 hours. I did all side quest possible and I took a stealth gadget approach. If you go in gun blazing, you will finish this in 6. This game truly is lacking in lifespan. You might be able to try out different dialog options / handlers stuff like that, but thats just going to be another 8 hours (exluding the same stuff you went thru). 16 hours is pretty short, for 2 play through is short, and I doubt the replay value of trying different appoarch, because of them are minor.

And the endings were too short to warrant another play thru just to see them.

 

Wait, what? Under 8 hours??????? All objectives etc.?

I just did half a speedrun and I was still well over 8.

 

Also differences aren't minor but quite heavy, actually. You can play through the game without even noticing important Plotpoints etc.

 

 

 

I smell troll.

[Kasabian]

Took me hours to get from game start to the end of Saudi Arabia, Moscow was several hours and so was Taipei, the rest I have not finished yet. I am not dragging it out I am just exploring all the content and tackling each mission with as much stealth as I can.

 

I think this proves one thing, they are not using stelth at all! Also other factors are obviously affecting gameplay speed to get the eight or nine hours completion time. They are either playing on the easiest settings or skipping all additional content like e-mails, mission caches, training missions plus the bonus training missions, hacking additional computers, additional mission objectives, cut scene dialogue. Or far more likely, they are doing all of the above.

 

For comparison sakes, it is taking me longer than Mass Effect 1 or 2 for that matter.

[Flouride]

Took me about 15-20 hours to finish my first playthrough. Tried to roleplay a stealthy spy that won't kill innocents and would try to avoid getting noticed. So reloaded quite a bit in some missions. At least for me that's enough playtime, considering that I will play it again as recruit and as a veteran so I get to see how things will go if I choose more wisely in some cases

[Libertarian]

I took 5 hours just in Saudi Arabia. Finished the game in around 20-25 hours. I spend more time in games, though.