PLAY Magazine names Alpha Protocol the Most Underrated Game of the Year

[Decabo]

Considering I've beaten this game 3 times, gotten every achievement, and enjoyed it immensely, I'll agree. This is old, I realize, but this game deserves more attention.

 

http://www.play-mag.co.uk/features/top-5-m...-far-this-year/

[kdawg135]

I agree

 

Im starting a petition for sega/obsidian to reconsider and make AP 2. Clikck the link and sign

 

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/wewantap2/

[Toast]

This game does deserve more attention, yes. Positive attention at least.

I've recently started the game and I'm quite surprised how many negative reviews there are.

 

The story and characters are top notch, at least so far. And even the fights and the action aren't that bad. Certainly a lot better than I was expecting.

[MonkeyLungs]

This game does deserve more attention, yes. Positive attention at least.

I've recently started the game and I'm quite surprised how many negative reviews there are.

 

The story and characters are top notch, at least so far. And even the fights and the action aren't that bad. Certainly a lot better than I was expecting.

 

Way underrated. Game is really good fun.

[SirPetrakus]

I agree

 

Im starting a petition for sega/obsidian to reconsider and make AP 2. Clikck the link and sign

 

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/wewantap2/

Did my part.

[Jorian Drake]

This game does deserve more attention, yes. Positive attention at least.

I've recently started the game and I'm quite surprised how many negative reviews there are.

 

The story and characters are top notch, at least so far. And even the fights and the action aren't that bad. Certainly a lot better than I was expecting.

 

Way underrated. Game is really good fun.

no wonder if you consider what huge negative propaganda crusade happened against Obsidian/AP, silly people who read pre-paid reviews these days can't decide for themself what game they wish to buy/play and then decide on their own if they like it or not, I am still angry how so many people being bribed to write a negative dirt-throwing article weren't revealed. It is already stupid that some reviewers get paid for making positive biased praises but its wrong on a new level to have now even similar thing with people getting paid for writing bashing reviews

[GhostofAnakin]

I still can't believe this game didn't get more love.

 

I guess that's what happens when you don't pay off reviewers.

[Toast]

no wonder if you consider what huge negative propaganda crusade happened against Obsidian/AP, silly people who read pre-paid reviews these days can't decide for themself what game they wish to buy/play and then decide on their own if they like it or not, I am still angry how so many people being bribed to write a negative dirt-throwing article weren't revealed. It is already stupid that some reviewers get paid for making positive biased praises but its wrong on a new level to have now even similar thing with people getting paid for writing bashing reviews

 

Bribed to write negative reviews?

 

I think it's more a case of people expecting a standard shooter and not getting what they expected? 9Even though it does say rpg on the box) Plus Obsidian doesn't have the hypemachine of a Bethesda or Bioware.

[Flouride]

Bribed to write negative reviews?

 

Gaming journalists don't make much money. In the most recent edition of Pelit magazine they mentioned that a gaming journalist in UK makes about 13k euros a year. I would consider it quite easy to bribe people who make only 13k a year. Not to mention half of the damn reviews are done by more or less bad websites.

 

Why would someone bribe them to do negative reviews? Easy. It leaves a stain on the brand&developer name and thus helping their own RPG division to shine. Not to mention if there's few AAA games coming out around the same time it will give your game a nice boost if the competitors are given much less points in the reviews.

 

Did something like that happen? Who knows. It's no secret some companies throw away a lot of money at the press people via advertising and events. Not to mention give them exclusives...

[Zoraptor]

That's a bit too :tinfoil:

 

It's far more likely to be a combination of expectation unfulfilled (what is this RPG combat you speak of? I pressed A and nothing awesome happened) and it being a target that is 'OK' to bash. It also isn't helped by the low quality and fast turn around of games journalism meaning that very few would have finished the game- or, rather obviously in some cases, even made it out of Saudi- let alone replayed it.

[Jorian Drake]

That's a bit too :tinfoil:

 

It's far more likely to be a combination of expectation unfulfilled (what is this RPG combat you speak of? I pressed A and nothing awesome happened) and it being a target that is 'OK' to bash. It also isn't helped by the low quality and fast turn around of games journalism meaning that very few would have finished the game- or, rather obviously in some cases, even made it out of Saudi- let alone replayed it.

 

actually I know for a fact that reviewers get bribed, I myself also reviewed a few times for a friend of mine who works as a reviewer and as he doesn't like RPG-s or adventure games I quite often did his job in his name for a good time, he didn't had to bother with what he didn't like and I had the benefit of playing the games that interest me for free, the amount of **** that happened around the release of AP was baffling, and if you re-read the reviews of the time of the release you will see yourself how absurdly ignorant, blind and insulting most are.

 

No, I don't want to say that someone tried to bribe me personally, as I myself ended doing that (reviews in his name) about 4-5 years ago for him, but we still talk about things freely and he told me they also tried to bribe him, but while he is a lazy ass he is not a moron so he declined. Of course such things don't have any real evidence either about the fact that they were tried to be bribed or by whom, so you can't do anything against them, and in the end it is up to the people who write about the game if they do it properly or not.

 

Also, bribes can take a multitude of forms and money is just the most extreme, the usual things are little gift packages or tickets to some exclusive show/media event or a limited edition box for something.

 

The sad fact is that even without such acts most reviewers don't even bother playing the game they review and some only visit a few other review sites and wikipedia to whirl up an article so they don't have to actually work, atleast my friend "hired" me for the genres he himself disliked, "next-gen" console players instead tend to bash unsimplified things just for not being their ideal "lovechild" of a game as they don't even bother to focus on writing about genres they know about.

[kirottu]

Okay, I

[Jorian Drake]

Okay, I

Edited April 3, 2011 by Jorian Drake

[Flouride]

That's a bit too :tinfoil:

 

It's far more likely to be a combination of expectation unfulfilled (what is this RPG combat you speak of? I pressed A and nothing awesome happened) and it being a target that is 'OK' to bash. It also isn't helped by the low quality and fast turn around of games journalism meaning that very few would have finished the game- or, rather obviously in some cases, even made it out of Saudi- let alone replayed it.

 

I don't think it's much of :tinfoil:

 

Gaming industry is a huge business and with that I'm 100% sure it shares some of the corruption and shady deals pretty much every else business on this planet has. The fact that most of the reviewers don't get paid much makes it sooo much easier. Also if you look at gaming magazines and websites, most of the advertising in them are for games and movies by gaming companies / companies that own a gaming studio&movie studio. They won't write checks of 5k, that way they would actually get caught. Advertising, invitations to media events with paid tickets etc. are the way to go.

 

Even few negative reviews can make a difference, now that some of the companies are using metacritic avg score as one of the criterias to pay royalties. Not to mention the effect it has on sales and stock exchange (Homefront & THQ).

 

Maybe I'm "old" and bitter, but I'm not that naieve any longer that I expect everyone to play fairly in the sandbox.

[Zoraptor]

I'd need some very compelling evidence to believe it. Incentives- nice hotel rooms, gift packs, advertising for the websites and such, even just being able to keep the product once the review is finished or the promise of reviewing more items- for good reviews are a given as are 'punishments' for bad ones, per Gerstman.

 

Paying for bad reviews of a rival's products though? Way too little benefit, way too much trouble if you get caught, perhaps even real legal trouble depending on where you tried it. If anyone were doing that they would have to be mind bogglingly moronic.

[Purkake]

Wow, wheels within wheels man. I'm sure this goes all the way up to the world government.

[Flouride]

Wow, wheels within wheels man. I'm sure this goes all the way up to the world government.

 

You know nothing my Estonian brother. World goverment is only a puppet goverment for the cheese loving aliens that live on the moon (which is made of cheese).

[Purkake]

How do we know that their apparent affection for cheese isn't a clever rouse designed to hide their true carnivorous nature?

[ProtocolX]

Not to jump too far away from the Steven Heck expose on big game industry tied to world governments influenced by the cheese people from Planet K but . . .

 

It is sad thing that I was in the game store a while back and the conversation went to Dragon Age 2 and the whole personality tree dialog (diplo, funny, angry) and I said... yeah Alpha Protocol had that, was really well done IMO AND the game actually DID have consequences for your actions/choices.

 

This started a conversation between me, the owner/employees and a couple of customers. I pointed out how the game was actually quite good, the dialog was rich, choices were rewarding and the consequences were awesome.

 

To which I got the "Really? I saw it had horrible reviews, etc."

 

So my response was this: IF AP had come out prior to ME2, there would have been MUCH less negative reviews. If it had BIOWARE on the logo vs Obsidian it would have gotten better reviews. IF the reviewers played the game like a spy rpg vs a shooter with some dialog it would have had different reviews. IF you like RPGs and want to play a really well done Spy RPG then this game rocks. No, you cant head shot everyone just because your mouse is on the head for a tenth of a second as you click fire. BUT you can head shot with aiming, you can go through the entire areas and either stealth, stealth kill, etc. And the best part, every decision you make changes the game, in many ways. (Let an arms dealer go, and your enemies have better guns, you can get better stuff, etc.)

 

End result, one of the customers went and purchased it and the owner said he was going to give it a try.

 

But for sure it got way bad reviews considering how good it actually is. I keep hoping Obsidian can come into its own and make the games they dream about, vs what they can get funding for.

[kirottu]

I'd need some very compelling evidence to believe it. Incentives- nice hotel rooms, gift packs, advertising for the websites and such, even just being able to keep the product once the review is finished or the promise of reviewing more items- for good reviews are a given as are 'punishments' for bad ones, per Gerstman.

 

Paying for bad reviews of a rival's products though? Way too little benefit, way too much trouble if you get caught, perhaps even real legal trouble depending on where you tried it. If anyone were doing that they would have to be mind bogglingly moronic.

 

This.

 

I can believe "bribing" when their own product is in question, because no one wants to see their add next to a 4/10 score, but actually trying to sabotage rival product... potential blackslash is just too great.

[GreasyDogMeat]

I'm replaying the game and it pisses me off how the game got so much criticism for the shooting. Here is an example: Angry Joe Show Review. Watch the first minute of the review. He keeps shooting like he is playing, well, a shooter. That is not how you would play Deus Ex, VtM: Bloodlines and even to a lesser extent Mass Effect 1. He does not even give himself time before the aiming reticle starts to close in to represent an aimed shot. Hell he starts shooting so fast he doesn't even give any time for the reticle to even APPEAR. So he sits there like a fool with an angry look on his face popping shot after shot.

 

Am I the only one who understood the aiming system? Mina explains it during training. You start out a terrible shot. You can still hit your target, but you need to take a long time to aim. Once you build up your levels you will be a lethal killing machine with any weapon and it will start to feel like a shooter. Replaying the game now with a shotgun tech and I'm devastating. Even using SMGs, which I have NO skill points invested in, I can blind fire around a corner and wound/kill enemies.

 

The one thing that reviewers did get right was the horrible AI. In that same 1 minute section you see the enemies acting like utter fools. One stops fighting back altogether and another rushes forward and then just goes off for a bit. I've seen the AI break on me a few times in my current game. It is some of the worst AI I've seen in a modern game.

[Libertarian]

Well deserved. Alpha Protocol is a masterpiece despite its faults.

[rk47]

I have to say, I just picked it up on Friday last week and burned my whole weekend just to finish it right on Sunday midnight.

 

My god. Despite the technical issues and INI tweaking I had to go through to make the game tolerable (The minigame controls are slightly horrid and unacceptable for a PC version), there's a gem underneath it all.

 

It's a pity. Weapon quick-switching isn't there, even power switching paused the game despite hacking, lockpicking mini games did not pause the game in one bit, adding further to the tension. I felt the combat did not feel fluid because of that. C'mon, there's number 1 to 0 on my keyboard, I'm sure I can setup some hotkeys and make the experience more palatable.

 

It's underrated but have genuine faults. It's the sad reality when crap like Dragon Age II had so many apologists from the journalists, Alpha Protocol didn't even get much mention.

[Decabo]

I have to say, I just picked it up on Friday last week and burned my whole weekend just to finish it right on Sunday midnight.

 

My god. Despite the technical issues and INI tweaking I had to go through to make the game tolerable (The minigame controls are slightly horrid and unacceptable for a PC version), there's a gem underneath it all.

 

It's a pity. Weapon quick-switching isn't there, even power switching paused the game despite hacking, lockpicking mini games did not pause the game in one bit, adding further to the tension. I felt the combat did not feel fluid because of that. C'mon, there's number 1 to 0 on my keyboard, I'm sure I can setup some hotkeys and make the experience more palatable.

 

It's underrated but have genuine faults. It's the sad reality when crap like Dragon Age II had so many apologists from the journalists, Alpha Protocol didn't even get much mention.

 

Yeah, Angry Joe's review of this game was retarded. In addition to him spamming shots and then complaining about them not hitting, he also at one point says:

 

"If you don't think the combat is broken, start a game on Hard as a Recruit, and select pistols and machine guns. THEN tell me the combat isn't broken!"

 

Yes Joe, if you handicap yourself in every way possible, you'll get wrecked. Recruit is specifically designed to make the game harder, as is Hard mode. You'd have to be an idiot to do that, or at least a very experienced AP player.

[Alpha]

I agree AP was a good game.