Promised a dev i'd play Alpha Protocol after backing Eternity

[Dawn_]

For Montecristo .

 

Actually my biggest issue with AP was that you couldn't romance Sis (which was obviously the better choice) and that you couldn't have a gay romance in it .

Edited October 26, 2012 by Dawn_

[Hassat Hunter]

More buggy than ME2? Can't say I agree with that at all. I bought the CE of ME2 when it came out and I never experienced any bugs with that game

Played it once, and had to reload 10 times due to the game breaking.

 

5 of these the player floating up and getting stuck in an object, about 3 times that a floating platform got stuck, not allowing me forward, 1 time a cutscene triggered too early before it should, I got stuck, and 1 time the game just didn't launch a cutscene it should have.

AP, 7 plays? Not one gamebreaker...

[UncleBourbon]

I think the majority of bugs are probably rooted in the system the game is running on, be it software or hardware. Optimization can face some of the same issues. Alpha Protocol never had significant issues for me - save the occasional weirdly behaving AI - but neither did ME2 - save for the occasional collector shooting through/around cover.

[Keyrock]

Alpha Protocol is tons of fun, I plan to play it again soon. My biggest complaints about the game are the sometimes terrible enemy A.I., somewhat inconsistent stealth mechanics, and somewhat sub-par shooter mechanics (outside of some really cool skills). Still, the story is great, the game is very engaging, and the dialogue mechanic is straight up brilliant.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Keyrock

[Bloody Hypocrite]

Sad to say I haven't found the time to play it yet. I picked it up a while ago on Steam for something ridiculous like $2.75.

[Moirnelithe]

I was about to buy it when I saw that I could only play a male character. Sorry, but an RPG where I can't play a female character just isn't any fun to me.

[Kilroy_Was_Here]

One thing I didn't like was how gamebreaking the stealth skill tree was. Working from memory here, but I think the first ability you got let you see enemies outside of your LOS for a while, and the third ability made it permanent! Think Metal Gear Solid radar but overlaid on the main screen rather than seperated. It even told you which direction people were moving and their alertness level.

 

I did like the variability of the plot. What other game keeps dropping hints about how tough an enemy is, and you end up not only not fighting them, but not even encountering them? Or where having a high negative reputation with people can be more helpful than no reputation at all, or even a high reputation?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Oh yea, that was annoying for stealth players. It was way worse in deus ex:HR. The company for dhr tried to blame another company that worked on the ending as the culprit, but it was the original company that sighned off on it. One of the devs said they wanted a big action fight to make you feel you accomplished something. um...what? If you go through the game 90% with stealth, you do NOT want an action fight...grrrrr.

It's rare that a game will let you get through the final encounter without fighting something, but it clearly can be done. KotOR did it.

[Merin]

Oh yea, that was annoying for stealth players. It was way worse in deus ex:HR. The company for dhr tried to blame another company that worked on the ending as the culprit, but it was the original company that sighned off on it. One of the devs said they wanted a big action fight to make you feel you accomplished something. um...what? If you go through the game 90% with stealth, you do NOT want an action fight...grrrrr.

It's rare that a game will let you get through the final encounter without fighting something, but it clearly can be done. KotOR did it.

 

Fallout has this with the Master, too.

[Grand_Commander13]

I'm racking my brain trying to remember how you can get through KOTOR's end without a battle... I'm pretty darn sure you can't, though you can certainly shorten the battle by draining the pods yourself.

 

Really Fallout does the non-combat final encounter one better: not only can you talk your way out of it, you can finish the game without even having it.

[Volourn]

"I think the issue is people making disparaging comments without explaining why. You'll notice that many/most of the highly 'liked' comments praising games/ideas/etc around here generally include the reasons for liking those things, not just blatant fanboyism. Differing opinions that are well-reasoned/well-explained meet with a lot better response than just "it sucked, I hate it" sorts of posts."

 

Many likes are given out of randomly. I know I've received a few in the past for odd posts.

 

I've given plenty of reasons of why i feel ASP is lacklustre espciially comapred to other Obsidian titles (obviously I like Obsidian or I wouldn't have paid $250 for PE a game that doesn't even exist yet so being a random hater isn't gonna fly). Check out the old AP forums for some thoughts.

 

I'm just irked that this thread is not in the AP forum and in the PE forum. I avoid the AP forum a reason. I certainly don't want Obsidian getting the idea that AP is a popular game and use it as a sign that PE should be like it in any way. That be horrible.

[Oerwinde]

APs choice and consequence was good, and something that should be drawn from for P:E.

[Ignatius]

The game was, like... five bucks on Steam a week ago.

 

I bought it for 2 bucks, har. The game just had too much going on. It was an RPG at heart with action elements that played like an RPG more than an action game so it all just felt a bit wonky. Then there was the hacking and that killed the game for me, so I ended up only playing about an hour. I heard they had a patch to fix the hacking, maybe I'll go back to it someday, but New Vegas is really all I need for my Obsidian fill.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Ignatius

[Volourn]

"APs choice and consequence was good, and something that should be drawn from for P:E."

 

No. they should draw that friom games like NV, FO, and MOTB. Not the horrible AP which had lacklustre C&C that is overrated big time.

[Grand_Commander13]

You probably don't want to get into an argument about choices and consequences in Fallout and Alpha Protocol with someone who actually knows how both games react to your decisions, Volourn: it's an argument you'd lose.

[SunBroSolaire]

I was about to buy it when I saw that I could only play a male character. Sorry, but an RPG where I can't play a female character just isn't any fun to me.

So think of it as a stealth/action game

 

OT: I agree, AP is a fantastic game and one of the best RPGs this generation. That conversation system is in a class of its own, the RPG mechanics are great, the action and stealth are solid, and the writing is top shelf. Human Revolution could have taken a cue or two from AP in terms of player freedom and making NPC interactions interesting.

 

It's sad that it got raked over the coals so badly by the game "journalists". Especially considering the reaction ME2 got, while being worse in almost every way.

Edited October 27, 2012 by SunBroSolaire

[Volourn]

"You probably don't want to get into an argument about choices and consequences in Fallout and Alpha Protocol with someone who actually knows how both games react to your decisions, Volourn: it's an argument you'd lose. "

 

I never lose. And, now youa re trying to pretend that AP is better than FO. That makes your opinion - espciially on C&C - null and void. FO is second to none when it comes to C&C. Try again.

[Karkarov]

Yeah Alpha Protocol is a massively under rated game. It just had one problem in that some builds sucked and others were godly. Give me a character with high pistol skills and I will cremate every encounter in the game. Heck I killed the last boss in about 40 seconds.

 

It also encouraged replayability really well and even gave you a reason to gimp yourself by choosing the weakest starter "history". Because once you beat the game on that mode you then got to pick the "veteran" where you were basically Solid Snake and Sam Fisher with a dash of James Bond rolled into one and could literally break certain story choices cause you were just that bad ass.

[Tigranes]

Volourn never loses, that is absolutely correct.

 

I loved AP and still go back to it, despite its flaws. One of those games, like Divine Divinity - really unique and although I can see why people might hate it it works just great for me.

 

In fact, man, I want to play it right now.

[Tamerlane]

Volourn never loses, that is absolutely correct.

Is this one of those "the only way to win the game is to not play it in the first place" things?

[Jymm]

I picked up AP for $4.63 retail on Amazon (with Prime!) a few months back. It was definitely worth well more than I paid for it, though I am glad I didn't pay full price. There are several annoying bugs and some balance issues. And while the dialog is decent the voice acting really isn't so great. I was always amused by the emails and other written dialogs but then the same tone / content would fall flat when spoken. In general I'm a big fan of voiceover, unlike many PE backers. But I'm a big fan of _good_ voiceover. If you can't afford quality then better off with the text.

 

While tempting, I did not opt for the full beard and swamp hat. I did constant five o'clock shadow and the hooligan cap and it was also very worthy.

 

The modern-day spy theme was a good concept in a sparse genre. And the execution was close-but-not-quite. I too am sad that we won't see another.

[JFSOCC]

So far I really regret listing to reviews and not playing it when it came out. Only thing I dislike is the computer hacking, the story and atmosphere is top notch just like every other Obsidian game i've played. Now I can say I have enjoyed every game Obsidian has made, Eternity I know will be legendary!

 

The reviews do Alpha Protocol no justice. It got ripped apart for a lot of stuff that other games that scored highly also had, and the stuff it did well got glossed over as well.

 

AP has fantastic replayability because of the different ways your decisions can alter/change the way future quests play out. Unlike a lot of games that advertise it as such, in AP choices *do* matter and have actual consequences in the game.

I played it twice, once as rookie and once as veteran, I don't think it's that replayable. The game is awfully short, sometimes it really didn't make sense to make a different decision than you had on your last playthrough either, and there were some set pieces that would always occur.

[BruceVC]

I bought AP about 3 weeks ago, and I am intending to play it when I am done with Risen 2.

 

It does have some excellent reviews

[lolaldanee]

alpha protocol rocks the house!

it had all the usual obsidian problems: horrible camera movement, bad ai, unbalanced boss fights

but also all the obsidian "oh my god is this awesome"-things: great characters, unique setting, VERY different ways to play it, VERY VERY VERY different ways the story and characters react to what you do

it's a shining example of how to design a fantastic game, and horrible example how to actually program all that stuff

[GhostofAnakin]

I never lose. And, now youa re trying to pretend that AP is better than FO. That makes your opinion - espciially on C&C - null and void. FO is second to none when it comes to C&C. Try again.

 

First off, let me state I'm not comparing FO to AP -- before you decide to derail what I'm about to say into "LOLZ you think AP has more C & C than FO" and completely ignore the rest of what I'm about to say.

 

So having said that, how can you continually talk about AP not having good C&C when you've never even finished the game? You haven't seen what those consequences of your choices actually amount to as the game goes on.

 

As someone who has actually played the game father than the first Saudi mission, I *do* hope Obsidian at least looks at how the template they used in AP when coming up with how to make PE's choices and consequences matter.

Edited October 28, 2012 by GhostofAnakin