What are you playing now?

[Nightshape]

The combat isn't that great( or bad) to be honest. The first time I played it, I didn't know about affinity and other things for combat. Rapiers are good versus zombies, swords versus humans, spears versus dragons and so on. The more you use them against the respective enemy, the better tvey become. You can infuse weapons and shields with enchantments, you can also forge your own weapons. I had no clue about this the first time. You move around freely, but the combat is turn based when you initiate it. When you are in combat mode, you can target different body parts, left/right leg and arm, body and head(human enemies). Each time you attack, your RISK meter fills up. You don't want your RISK meter to fill up too much. Why? The damage you deal goes up, but your accuracy goes down, so you want to finish battles off quickly. I haven't played any other game with a similar combat system in my 20 years of gaming, so explaining it is not easy for me(sorry). You also get spells at your disposal. There are four different "schools". Damage dealing, buffs, debuffs and healing based. Some spells gets stronger as you use them. Some spells can target multiple body parts. Then we have break arts, wich can one hit kill enemies, but you consume hp, so you want to be careful about that. What else... When you defeat a boss, you will randomly gain one better stat (str, int, hp, mp and so on). Remember that combat is menu based, but you later gain Defensive abilities and Chain abilities. You have to time a button press for these. When someone attacks you a "!" will pop up, time it and you perform your defensive ability. When you attack, you can again see a "!" and that is your chance to do a chain attack. You can assign 3 defensive and 3 chain abilities at a time. You can access your spells, abilities, break arts and items by pressing L2, (lol, PSP?).

Your limbs get hurt(can be healed with the heal spell) when fighting. Injured head, can't use magic or weaker magic. Injured feet mean slower walk/run speed.

 

Outside of combat, you progress through "rooms". Clear one and move on to another one. Some rooms have puzzles for you to solve for gaining access to optional areas or sometimes to progress the game. Some rooms have traps in them, the healing traps being a gift from above.

 

(I am betting that my explanation is confusing the hell out you, it confuses even me, but this is how the game works. )

Watching a few youtube vids is adviced.

 

If you have played other games by the "Matsuno" team, you can expect a story with many twist and turns. I'm not very good on giving story details without spoiling stuff.

 

Sounds like its worth giving a shot just because its got such a unique combat system. I'll plonk it a bit higher on the list of games to play.

 

L2 on psp can be accessed via the analogue nub thingy on PS1 games.

 

Thanks for taking the time to try and explain the mechanics, it has raised my interest.

[Mera]

I haven't done anything, and yes, it can look that bad, it depends on what colour you actually have as your source colour, grey and black are specifically very bad when it comes to dxt compression.

I was just asking because I tried to convert the image and got a better result.

Considering the savings, it does its job well enough. I only dislike when it is used to compress something it was not designed to do, like normal maps. Disgusting artifacts on NWN2 terrain come to mind.

[Nightshape]

I haven't done anything, and yes, it can look that bad, it depends on what colour you actually have as your source colour, grey and black are specifically very bad when it comes to dxt compression.

I was just asking because I tried to convert the image and got a better result.

Considering the savings, it does its job well enough. I only dislike when it is used to compress something it was not designed to do, like normal maps. Disgusting artifacts on NWN2 terrain come to mind.

 

Still nasty... I didn't convert the image.

[entrerix]

vagrant story is an awesome game, BUT it is very difficult, and very very grindy. I've never finished it because i always tire of the grinding before i get to the end (i twice have almost made it though, once got about 3/4s of the way in before hitting a new area that would require totally re-grinding my weapon affinities so i gave up)

 

still though, its a very cool and unique game, very very worth playing for a week or two

[Mera]

I didn't convert the image.

Ah, sorry.

[Labadal]

Played some Demon's Souls. Finall beat the Giant Armored Spider. 2-1 was much easier than 1-1.

[Amentep]

Am currently playing Saints Row 2 and Plants vs Zombies.

[Majek]

Dragons Age Legends ... i'm having far more fun than with DA2 and i haven't had to pay a cent.

[Kaftan Barlast]

-Alpha Protocol argument-

 

What I found especially atrocious about the graphics was the post-processing. They had a really nasty mix of edge blur and sharpening that was really awful. Must have been a derranged AD.

 

 

..like when I was doing the CG for a an ad, the client requested that we rendered the raw frames it using catmull-rom filtering. We just said "No, we're not doing that. Trust us, we're professionals" and that was it.

[Morgoth]

Alpha Protocol started development in March 2006, so they used a very early version of UE3. I just don't get why they haven't updated it to a newer version, there was plenty of time.

[Calax]

Maybe in part because Tech Support for 3rd party devs to UE3 was pathetic (according to Epic's own documents). For more information see the court case that Silicon Knights brought against Epic over the issue.

[GreasyDogMeat]

The only thing that bothered me about AP graphics were the insane texture load times. It was one thing to wait for environment textures, it looked horrible when a cutscene loaded and the characters faces looked like they came from 1999 for up to 30 seconds.

[trulez]

The only thing that bothered me about AP graphics were the insane texture load times. It was one thing to wait for environment textures, it looked horrible when a cutscene loaded and the characters faces looked like they came from 1999 for up to 30 seconds.

I'm not experiencing this issue, maybe your hardware just wasn't up to the task ?

I do agree with people who said the color scheme for AP isn't all that great, but other than that it looks fine (read: not great, but not bad).

[Lexx]

Nah, texture loading times are a common problem with AP. The game itself runs really fince on my system, but still often it took a while until the blurry mess was gone.

Edited April 14, 2011 by Lexx

[Starwars]

I had texture loading as well but it takes like max two seconds before everything is loaded properly, and that's in the bigger scenes. But texture loading has never been an issue with me personally.

 

I think AP looks fine most of the time. Technically it could be a lot better but I'm one of the people who really enjoyed the visual direction of the game, especially the characters. It's a shame that the opening areas are really the worst though, the Greybox is undeniably boring looking.

[HoonDing]

It's a common issue with sloppy console ports using UE3. Mass Effect is the same.

Edited April 14, 2011 by virumor

[Niten_Ryu]

It's a common issue with sloppy console ports using UE3. Mass Effect is the same.

 

Yeah, I just finished another Mass Effect run and texture loading times were definately notable. Just started Mass Effect 2, but don't remember if problem is still there.

[Nepenthe]

Just started Mass Effect 2, but don't remember if problem is still there.

They specifically addressed the issue in ME2.

 

FWIW, it's not just the ****ty console ports that do it, it's horrible in the original xpox versio as well.

[Nightshape]

It's a common issue with sloppy console ports using UE3. Mass Effect is the same.

 

This is one I'm not getting into PERIOD!

 

This isn't a case of sloppy porting.

[Malcador]

Always glad due to my crap eyesight and using crappy hardware for way too long, I don't notice all these graphical flaws , heh.

 

Playing Syberia still. Story is enjoyable, only complaint about it is the necessity of moving through lots of irrelevant (yet good looking) scenery too often but maybe I'm jus being fussy. Also got a nasty crashing bug in Barrockstadt.

[Minchi]

Me...Some old pc classics and hoping to try homefront when i come back from job hunting though...Right about now i'm doing my laundry and gonna go job hunting X3.

[Hell Kitty]

I remember playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and for some reason assuming the improvements in that game, where textures faded in rather than popped in, would be standard for UE3 games from then on. Then Alpha Protocol came along and proved me wrong by being 10 times worse than ME.

 

As for the graphics in AP, I thought they were merely adequate.

Edited April 14, 2011 by Hell Kitty

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

It's a common issue with sloppy console ports using UE3. Mass Effect is the same.

 

This is one I'm not getting into PERIOD!

 

This isn't a case of sloppy porting.

I always just thought it was the earlier versions of UE3 being godawful. That or the devs deciding that having textures pop in was worse than two or three more seconds of loading screen.

 

Texture popping isn't much of a problem now, UE3 has gotten much better.

[Azdeus]

Am currently playing Saints Row 2 and Plants vs Zombies.

 

Saints Row 2 i bloody brilliant. Really badly ported though in my opinion, driving with the WASD-keys is... interesting, but damn the game is fun! GTAIV might be a technically better and definetly prettier game, but it cant match up in sheer entertainment value.

 

Currently playing STALKER Call of Pripyat Complete myself, and darn it's purdy. Still fun as ever.

[Morgoth]

Finally decided to pre-purchase Portal 2. The soundtrack alone will be worth the money!