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The sane Alpha Protocol thread

VentilatorOfDoom

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bro
I sincerily
hope
youa re
right
 

Darth Roxor

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This is very annoying mainly only at the start. Later on you get used to the Bioware-styled dialogue options of

- X-TREME (up)
- Witty (left)
- Rational (right)

and usually know what to choose before even the conversation starts.

It's still stupid and I'd prefer regular dialogue trees, though.
 

Hamster

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Darth Roxor said:
This is very annoying mainly only at the start. Later on you get used to the Bioware-styled dialogue options of

- X-TREME (up)
- Witty (left)
- Rational (right)

and usually know what to choose before even the conversation starts.

It's still stupid and I'd prefer regular dialogue trees, though.

Bro
roleplaying
is a serious
buisness
decision to
headslam
or not to
headslam
must not
be rushed.
 

Grunker

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VentilatorOfDoom said:
bro youa
re a bit
harsh
why not
taking the
german
version of
the
game if
possible
?

I don't know, I just like being edgy and shit.

Also, I attended at folk high-school at the border two years ago, and the germans were all pretty shitty at english. They claimed growing up with german voice-overs and translations for everything was to blame.
 

MapMan

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Ok I played the game for a while and managed to reach first mission in Saudi Arabia. Reminds me of mass effect a lot. Ofcourse, shooting aspects are lame as fuck. Gadgets? another useless shit. I went HtH combat and insta killed everyone by crawling behind their backs and pressing a button. The dialogue system is like in mass effect. It simply sucks. I liked the idea that characters liking you too much can have negative effects just like someone disliking you might have a possitive effect. Im not sure if I'll continue to play the game. I was hoping for a real RPG but Alpha Protocol follows mass effects scheme. You get the combat parts (which are ofcourse absolutely neccesary) and the run and talk parts, that obviously sucks. Meh.
 

hoochimama

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Completed two saudi arabia missions on recruit mode, I'm hoping the game picks up after saudi arabia otherwise I'm giving up on it.

I don't like how short the dialog timer is and how often what the pc says doesn't match what I expected it to say by picking a stance. ME1 suffered from this as well but not to this degree.

There aren't any npcs I can just walk up to and choose to initiate dialog with, it's all pre and post-mission briefing.

The missions are just splinter cell lite and I don't like the levels' design, you go from target to target(target being any enemy or highlighted object you can interact with) and either do a takedown/shoot/activate it.

Combat is dull, despite having spent all my points in the pistol skill the miss rate is still too high.

So far it's even less of an rpg than mass effect 2 and nowhere near as fun.
 

SuicideBunny

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MapMan said:
The dialogue system is like in mass effect. It simply sucks.
it sucks as an rpg dialogue system, as it is designed for "immershun" and thus breaking of the core concept of rpgs, the boundaries between players and their characters, but as a dialogue system for a story driven game, it's friggin brilliant.
it creates tension and forces you to act quickly based on the information you have, kinda keeping you alert all the time.
every choice that seems totally irrelevant can actually result in something unexpected or a different path altogether, which will make perfect sense once you have all the relevant information.
i actually lost it in one of the conversation missions and killed a guy whom i suspected of drawing a gun on me, even though it was a friggin obvious story set-up for exactly that kind of reaction. first time that ever happened.

I was hoping for a real RPG but Alpha Protocol follows mass effects scheme. You get the combat parts (which are ofcourse absolutely neccesary) and the run and talk parts, that obviously sucks. Meh.
finish saudi arabia and go to rome. it has a great deal of special missions that are different. if you don't like those, then the game just isn't for you.

overall the game feels more like proof of concept for the dialogue and story systems, because the normal missions are really sucky in their design, for various reasons, but the actual implementation of the dialogue system is pretty awesome imo (despite the fact that i fucking hate thornton's voice and have the urge to strangle his voice actor every single time he says something).

but yeah, it's not much of an rpg outside of the c&c larping in conversations and the fact that combat is somewhat affected by stats, and it's not a good game due to map design fail and story plot fail kinda too.
 

hoochimama

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SuicideBunny said:
finish saudi arabia and go to rome. it has a great deal of special missions that are different. if you don't like those, then the game just isn't for you.

Just went to Rome right after Saudi Arabia, got 2-3 missions where you don't even control your character, just extended dialog sequences with a few choices thrown in. Less annoying than the splinter cell lite levels, sure, but I was never interested in Heavy Rain either.

Never gave up on an "rpg" before this, although it doesn't feel like one. I'd chalk it up to the lack of towns/npcs to talk to. Had the game's structure been different from the apartment hub->splinter cell mission thing, with actual locations for you to walk around in and npcs to engage in conversation with in order to gather intel for missions the game would already have been very different.

Right now it feels like someone just took a splinter cell game, made all the pre-mission briefing fluff text voice-acted and crippled the stealth and shooting gameplay with a a bad stats hybridization.

The dialog itself might be well written, but the characters, setting and story(at least so far, 2 out of 4 world areas) are boring to me. I never cared much for Jack Bauer/Jason Bourne/ Tom Clancy anyway, and there's no trace of 007 in it.

The fabled C&C must be nice eventually but seeing as I don't care for the characters or the factions I'm not sure they'll have that big of an impact.
 

Darth Roxor

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Okay, four more things that kinda bug me:

1. Corpse control is nearly non-existent. Sure, guards react to dead guys, but... bodies disappear pretty much after 5 seconds when you look the other way, which is ridiculous.

2. When you leave a 'zone', the guards are 'reset'. For instance, there's one big hall filled with proximity mines and a couple of guards. Before it is a short corridor, and when you enter the hall, you get a checkpoint + a performance hiccup when the game is loading up the new zone. If you trip any of the mines, the guards are alert and go after your arse, but if you leave the hall back to the corridor (so you leave the 'zone'), they're reset back to their original positions and behaviour. Also, if you go through an area and leave some enemies behind, after you leave it, they just disappear, so if you left any money bags behind, you can just go back and take it without any guards opposing you. That is, of course, unless...

3. ... the door doesn't close behind you. This is especially annoying when there are two routes, one is, for example, some storage cabinet with goodies, and the other is the 'main path' - you enter the 'main path' and suddenly BANG! the door closes behind you, and there's no means of opening it. What the fuck, these aren't even 'trapped' doors or ambushes or whatever. No, they're regulars doors that suddenly get sealed shut the moment you enter them. This also caused one gamebreaking bug for me today, when I entered one such door, but it turned out that I forgot to get one main objective. And I couldn't get back to it. Hohoho *reload back to safehouse*

4. The lack of jumping/climbing/ANYTHING is sometimes getting on my nerves. Especially because of the Fallout 3-ish artificial walls made of debris and other crap.



But on the upside, you can execute defenceless emo teenage girls! X-TREMISM!!
 

Hamster

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Repost, since that other thread got retardoed:

Finally got to playing our new favourite game. First impressions - horrible.
FFS, racofer is right, you have to choose an answer before you even finished listening to the dialogue. Timed responces in dialogue is the worst fucking bullshit next gen has brought. And to think that it is Obsidian who came up with it, not Beth or EA. Hacking minigame is also atrocious.

People keep saying that game gets better after terrible beginning, but i just don't know...
 

hoochimama

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I think the door thing is related to checkpoints, a given level/map will be divided into successive checkpoints, and once you walk through a door and reach a checkpoint you won't be able to go back through that door. Making linear levels feel more railroaded.

Reminds me of last year's drama about a sony tester who claimed Alpha Protocol felt barely rpg, and "Mass Effect felt more RPG." It seems they didn't change the game much since.
 

Zed

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My review, written partly while being drunk last night:

ALPHA PROTOCOL

Obsidian Entertainment
Obsidian has a varied reputation among RPG fans. Some people appreciate their sequels to Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic and some people think everything they make is shit. Alpha Protocol is their first game based on self-developed intellectual property, so that’s all interesting I guess.

Setting and story
The setting reminded me quite a bit of Deus Ex. Actually most of the good bits of Alpha Protocol did. Shady government programs, rivaling factions, crooked agendas, corrupted politicians, etc. You can’t really trust anyone, and while that sometimes makes some of the much-talked about choices in the game feel a little random, it keeps the story interesting with its twists and turns.
The game isn’t very long, and the actual plot isn’t really clear until a bit into the game. But I’ll try and recap the background:
An airplane gets shot down over Eastern Europe, supposedly by American missiles. You are Michael Thorton and you wake up in a lab or some shit, all drugged up. Things happen and eventually you find out you are going to work for an organization called Alpha Protocol. They’re a secret organization and- fuck it, just imagine you’re Jason Bourne or something. The first mission they send you on is related to the airplane thing and I think there was something about more missiles being circulated or something and of course arabs are involved so off you go to Saudi Arabia. I didn’t really care for the story in the beginning.
The game had a pretty weak start and it left a bitter taste that lasted for a while. It gets better later on though, when they introduce a few characters that are at least a little interesting, and you get to visit places that aren’t all sand and clay pots. By the time I had visited a couple of hubs and done a few missions I actually felt quite comfortable with the game.

Michael Shepard. I mean Thorton.
Michael Thorton is the same type of character as Shepard from Mass Effect. I even thought he had the same voice actor but I looked it up and it wasn’t the same one. Oh well. Michael can only be caucasian and male, which I personally haven’t got a problem with but there are of course people who will be disappointed that they can’t play female agents. Don’t worry though; there are lots of women in the game (a few which you can sex up!) and basically the first guy you meet is the token african-american.

Character creation
There are four basic backgrounds to choose from: Soldier, Field Agent, Tech Specialist and Freelancer. The Freelancer gets to choose all of his skills himself. The others have a couple of pre-selected skills. The different backgrounds don’t change the dialogue other than Michael saying “I’m a Field Agent” a couple times throughout the game, so they have no real impact on the choices you are able to make.
There is also a Recruit background which according to its description adds some additional challenge by removing all of your starting skills and also some new dialogue during the beginning of the game. Completing the game with the Recruit background unlocks the Veteran background which supposedly unlocks even more dialog options for the beginning of the game. I guess this is a good waste of time if you want to see some extra lines of dialogue or if you’re a 100%-completion type of player.
I chose to play as a Field Agent focusing on Hand-to-hand and Toughness. When choosing skills for my Field Agent I could sell/remove all but one of the pre-inserted skills that were in Stealth and put them into Hand-to-hand. I didn’t choose Recruit because I haven’t really got any interest in unlocking Veteran, and I didn’t realize Freelancer gave you a clean slate to start on until it was too late OH WELL.
Apart from choosing background and skills there’s nothing more to the character creation. You get to play around with your appearance later – shortly after the introduction and training session. You also get to unlock more skills later on into the game by specializing your character, but it’s barely worth mentioning because there’s a “Freelancer” type of cheat-option there as well.

Game structure
The game starts off in Saudi Arabia. This is your first hub and after you’re done with it, a few more will open up. You can jump between hubs and complete missions in any order you like. Most missions follow the same structure: Get in, do something, eventual story twist, get out. Basically like Mass Effect. A mission usually introduces a new bad guy or potential ally. Depending on what missions you have already completed (and not necessarily just within the hub you’re currently in), characters might react differently to you. Usually they just give you a comment like “Oh good job blowing that shit up mate, you know, in that other mission you just did, that was pretty cool.”
It’s obvious from the start that Obsidian put an effort into making choices and consequences. Between every mission when you get back to your hub, there’s usually some sort of recap that explains the consequences of your actions (unless they’re hidden). Most of them are stuff like people selling you new types of guns and armor, but there are also some more emotionally involving (fucking hell did I just write that?) choices to be made, with rather dire consequences. I was pretty satisfied with my ending but I could see how it could have been different if I had played my cards different and chosen other allies/enemies, which I guess could tempt some people into playing the game more than once.
The game utilizes autosaves and checkpoints. You can’t make a save based on your exact current position; you must save from your last saved checkpoint. So if you’re like me and want to reload just to see different kind of reactions from dialogue and stuff like that, you’ll probably have to go through a cutscene or two before you can try something again.

Characterization
Thorton can be a nice guy, a bad guy, a sarcastic guy, an xtreme guy and basically any type of guy you’ve ever met. He lacks consistency though. You can flip-flop however you want. Michael was sitting and chatting with this nice fella I thought would make a nice friend so I chose all the nice options but suddenly my phone rang (my actual real-life phone, derp) and the conversation timer expired and OOPS! I had suddenly told this nice fella to fuck his own face as I was talking to my brother about my newly purchased musical instrument. That’s mainly a problem with the timer and me being too stupid to pause the game, though.
Conversation options are sometimes vague, which also adds to the inconsistency problem because you never really know how much of a dick Thorton will be if you chose a “Sarcastic” response or how you will actually interrogate someone when you choose “Interrogate”.
Your character’s relationships with other characters are mostly shaped by dialogue options, but there are of course some who comment on your actions and how you solve missions. You can get either +1, +2, -1 or -2 by saying stuff or having people react to your actions. I’m not sure if I ever had people do something bad or avoid doing something good to me because I had a bad relationship with them. If I had, the game hid it pretty well.

Combat
Combat is definitely one of the weakest aspects of the game.
Playing as a heavily armored Hand-to-Hand death-machine, combat for me was mostly about sprinting up to enemies and then repeatedly tapping the E button. This combination would cause my character to jump-kick enemies so they would fall over, and then stomp them in the face. There were situations where I was pinned down and had to shoot down enemies from afar, but unless they were wielding shotguns and my camera decided to dance a jig I had no problem getting up and personal with them. My biggest problem was that enemies sometimes could shoot through walls. When you thought you were in cover you were in fact not in cover at all. I mean if you’re gonna use a cover system at least make it work properly, otherwise it’s just fail on failure.
Combat in the game feels a bit like a third-person Deus Ex mixed with a bit of Mass Effect. There’s a cover system much like in Mass Effect (which is complete shit as stated above), and the enemy combat A.I. is stupid as hell (very much like in Deus Ex). You have a health bar and an armor bar. The armor is regenerative, which makes the combat feel very popamole. Especially during the few challenging encounters you might run into – just get into cover, wait for skills and shield to regenerate, and then run out again.
There are boss battles and they feel like something from Metal Gear Solid and are stupid.

Graphics and Design
Alpha Protocol isn’t as ugly as some people claim. However it hides behind some god-awful bloom and motion blur effects. The first thing you’ll want to do is turn those effects off. Other than that it looks just fine, I think. Animation is a bit stiff but dialogue sequences are not worse than in any of Bioware’s latest titles. In combat, things can look quite fishy when enemies are running around looking into the ground or up into the ceiling for no apparent reason. I’ve noticed a few graphical glitches in the environment as well but there’s nothing that really makes you look twice.
Some characters are stereotypes and dress and act accordingly, others are a little different. You’ll meet arabs, hot red-heads, Asian politicians, disgusting eastern Europeans and all sorts of people. Environments are quite nice, but secluded. An area/mission usually starts just inside the doors or gate to the place. Since you are, when not on a mission, bound to your hub’s HQ apartment, you don’t really get to see much of the world.

Conclusion
Alpha Protocol is pretty shitty until 2-3 hours in, and then you might like it if enjoyed Mass Effect. I don’t think a lot of codexers will like it, and the people who had very high anticipation will be severely disappointed. A couple of missions stand out, but most of them follow the same formula which you’ll get tired of quite fast. I also think it’s a little bit too cinematic.
It has a very high replay value, probably at the expense of other things. The problem is you probably won’t play it more than once.

6 out of 10
 

TwinkieGorilla

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VentilatorOfDoom said:
bros tell me what to do with the computer hacking minigame. It's killing me. Worst Obsidian game ever.

you have to move the mouse first, then click left mouse. then use the w,a,d,s and hit space.

it is the most infuriating and uninspired fucking minigame i've ever seen.
 

Zed

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skill tech if you're a noob with minigames.
 

hoochimama

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Use WASD to control the text on the upper left corner and space to lock it in, use the mouse to control the text on the upper right corner and left click to lock it in. Wax on, wax off.

Zed, I think the main thing about the veteran mode is not the extra dialog options but the extra skillpoints you get. You start with every skill maxed out for that level or something.
 

Zed

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hoochimama said:
Zed, I think the main thing about the veteran mode is not the extra dialog options but the extra skillpoints you get. You start with every skill maxed out for that level or something.

A-ha. So Recruit is actually harder than Veteran then?
 

hoochimama

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Zed said:
A-ha. So Recruit is actually harder than Veteran then?

Yup, recruit is supposed to be the hardest. You start out with no skills. Most games' "new game+" unlockable modes are typically a harder difficulty mode, but I can see why they did it differently for AP.

On your second or third playthrough it might be more interesting to have a vast array of skills at your disposal so you can actually try different things/have all the options available to you instead of playing with a limited skillset again only with added difficulty.
 

VentilatorOfDoom

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hoochimama said:
Use WASD to control the text on the upper left corner and space to lock it in, use the mouse to control the text on the upper right corner and left click to lock it in. Wax on, wax off.

Yes I know WASD for the left sequence, mouse for the right duh!
The point is, it's already a problem to identify to non-moving numbers with all that flickering. It hurts my eyes. And then you have to move the sequence with the mouse, incredibly unresponsive, and zing! the numbers are somewhere else. Atrocious. And here I thought planet mining was the worst minigame ever. FFS Why do they include this shit? Brain cancer? Is there even A SINGLE ONE who likes that shit?

oh yeah taking recruit didn't help much either, how many skill points do you have normally at start? I had zero.
 

hoochimama

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I still find ME2's mining to be far worse than the hacking in this game, if you can't spot the non-moving text parts fast enough you can spend skillpoints to reduce the minigames' difficulty, whereas there was no way to speed up the mining in ME2 to an acceptable level.

Regular backgrounds give you 31 skillpoints on char creation.
 

VentilatorOfDoom

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ok reducing the shit, tech or sabotage? Because according to the vague descriptions only sabotage seems to help with hacking etc...
 

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