Now for the rest. To be honest, I nearly gave up on this game after that bug, and this would make my gameplay time in it shorter than in Oblivion with guns, but I decided to go further on and hope this shitty bug won't happen again, and that the rest of the game won't change my opinion about this game from "mediocre, but still can be fun at times" to "Banal, shit, boring."
Also, several serious plot developments in the end of this update
All Roads(and Boss Fights) lead to Rome
Here the same again.
Having no illusions nor patience to try going in stealth against such large number of enemies, at least a BRO ought to take down as many of them as possible in a discrete manner.
Screw discretion, better to just lure them and slaughter them from a position of advantage.
Flechette bullets for the pistol, the best silenced armor-piercing solution AFAIK.
The exit of this warehouse.
BINGO!
As Shaheed and his goon depart with the missiles, Thorton is advised by Westridge to take a way through the impassable hills to intercept their convoy.
Sneaking becomes useful to put him in a position of advantage.
And get the hell out of there.
A tough fight later, Thorton Shepard cautiously seeks to eliminate the coming enemies, covered by the natural landscape rather than by a sticky cover system.
After throughly running through the hills, and killing or bypassing enemies depending on which was more convenient, Thorton finally arrives at the meeting point of the convoy. But the place is busy, packing and shall deliver
Heavy resistance as expected and the first ever in this thread:
POPAMOLE BOSS FIGHT!!!
Had I been unaware of this game failures and tried to go at a full stealth approach regarding skills, I'd be really pissed off right now. But as those dumb special abilities simply made me dismiss further development on "stealth", except may for getting the intermediate "Camouflage", Thorton can Pop Moles like a BRO and won't have issues dealing with this boss.
I think this was one the dullest boss fights ever in the history of gaming.
And I didn't even have to use the sticky cover system because of the generous collision detection setup making even the tiniest diagonoal tip of a wooden crate block an assault rifle bullet, or maybe because of how much of a bad aim this boss had.
Seriously, Obsidian, you should have ignored the complaints of butthurt retards about how some of the fights in MOTB were too hard. Now we get this as a boss fight.
How do you call a game where someone managed to die at the tutorial but easily kills the first boss without even going under the risk of dying?
I'd call it a consoletard game with one of the flattest difficulty and learning curves ever. If I judged it by gameplay only or if I had a mondblut-like mindset I'd fully agree with skyway: I just didn't give up is to see where this plot ends. Hopefully it won't have a Half-life like ending.
Wait a minute? I didn't even have to climb there to finish him? I love those between combat cutscenes that ignore the player actions before their happening. At least saved the time that would be wasted to go up there.
Just to show how gold plated guns are awesome. The symbol there with the pistols and the flag beneath the rifle are mere coincidences, I swear.
And thus, Shaheed is instead of a Stryker.
[Intelligence]What sort of terrorist group would have access to the newest Amerikwan military technologies? Something is wrong about this.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... 13-iav.htm
Believe it or not, this link is relevant to the theme of this segment, because according to Alpha Protocol, the Stryker sucks and the Brass should have sticked to the M113 because in this game it can be destroyed by firing enough times with an assault rifle against its frontal armor.
But first, time to pop the weaker moles.
And while its armor can be pierced by even a fucking 5.56mm AR, the Stryker's grenade launcher can't easily destroy a pile of wooden crates and has a ridiculously low rate of fire for what should be an automatic grenade launcher. These screenshots don't convey how many grenades it took for the crate above in the pile to be destroyed.
But regardless of the fact it is possible to take it down with enough firing of the rifle, everyone knows RPGs are more efficient.
And thus, of course.
It is possible to expose yourself completely to an IFV and fire a RPG without getting killed. If things were like this(unless the crew of this AP Stryker boss was on drugs and/or drunk, but even them it doesn't explain the armor being vulnerable to assault rifle rounds) the US Army would have been raped in Iraq and end with the most humiliating defeat in its history.
And once again.
And thus, just one more shot before it is destroyed.
And thus another boss easier or at best as easy as the tutorial is defeated.
Thorton then goes check if Shaheed, who was inside the vehicle, is still alive.
Then suddenly a cutscene happens, where Halbech's G-man asks Thorton why did he kill Shaheed.
[Intelligence]This cutscene is happening in the future
[Hope]The game won't force me to kill Shaheed regardless of dialogue choices.
G-man asks Thorton why he killed the sandnigger. He answers:
And an interesting discussion proves that Halbech is really up to something, and something big. Then back to the present of the game:
Shaheed makes the typical Baaaw America is Evil speech, pissing Thorton off, who, like any EXTREME type of guy, makes the most obvious choice, asking him for information.
Shaheed refuses to give away much, but as the conversation proceeds, he finally claims to know a very shocking truth, as he tells Thorton something he never could have imagined:
:
The missiles weren't stolen! Halbech sold them to Al-Samad. As you can see from the fact there was a Halbech sattelite in the our stockpile! And from the data you collected in the prison, that your superiors definitively took as classified. Halbech is using you as a pawn to cover this up, and it could be only the tip of the Rosenberg!
: ORLY?
: YARLY. If you spare my life, but inform them you killed me to get them off me, I have a network of contacts I can use to provide you more information about this conspiracy, and Halbech will want both of us dead because you know too much from the moment you took this mission.
: NO WAI. Why would Halbech deliver weapons to you? Conspiracy, spare me this bullshit! I think you are inventing this to get rid of this situation!
: YA WAI. Why would Halbech not want to incite wars for the sake of raising their profits like all evil corporations of the Great Satan and of the Jewmasons of Zion with their fictional holocaust?
: But, I don't believe you.
: Who do you think that gave a Stryker to us? A terrorist invading Fort Knox to steal one?
: Ehm.
: Like I said, if you let me go and tell your superiors I am dead, I will gather my network of contacts, get more knowledge about Halbech dealings across the world.
: All right. There is something suspicious about this, so I'll trust you for now, but if you ever show up on the media again, I will kill you!
Then suddenly, Al Shaheed vanishes, as Westridge sends in a transmission, and Thorton lies that he killed Shaheed.
:
Congratulations Thort*bzzzzt*
: Thorton! I had to cut off Westridge transmission to warn you! You need to get out of there! NOW!
: Why?
: your position! They are from Halbech! They want to kill you because you know too much! Alpha Protocol will deny your existence, you can't go back now! RUN!!!
Couldn't bother taking the 2 MB of screenshots to detail the missiles exploding around and Thorton GTFO. Once he is far enough, he asks:
:
What is happening? Why can't I return?
: There is someone working for Halbech in Alpha Protocol, and manipulating the program to attend Halbech's interests, and Halbech is doing some serious leveraging across the world. If you go back they'll arrest you, execute you, or worse, like being raped by a multiheaded dick!
: Then what the fuck should I do? I have nowhere to go! They'll hunt me, what about Halbech?
: I've tracked several suspicious activities involving Halbech and inactive Al-Samad cells in Taiwan, Rome and Moscow. I suspect Halbech may be plotting to assassinating the president of Taiwan, support a terrorist attack in Rome and God knows what in Moscow. There are secret, abandoned havens of Alpha Protocol in these cities you could use, that not even Westridge knows about, due to the deep running layers of secrecy in the Protocols.
: But why?
: Halbech profits from war, so it would be in their interests to provoke one, even if it would be a cold war, but from the data we gathered, if their plan is like this, this conflict could go off charts.
: How exactly off charts?
: As exactly as ending with the need of drinking water from toilets to recover wounds!
: Oh my God! We need to stop this and put the responsible people to justice! My EXTREME Justice! Where should I start?
: Wherever you prefer
: All roads lead to ROME.
Before further plot, the mission details.
Time for specialization. According to 1eyedking, Operative and picking pistol to pop moles without exposing yourself from cover is the easiest choice, but it's not the most interesting one.
Instead we'll have a combat-oriented specialist with an AR. Just because I hate all the stealth special abilities and the other camouflage upgrade doesn't require specialization.
Inside the airplane, Thorton meets an investigative journalist(or maybe a spy from CIA, who knows?). Being a badass EXTREME and also a smart guy, he pretends being the son of an Oil industry mogul and dismisses all her attempts to get any sensitive information out of him. I feel this is the right way of avoiding a potential romance, so it is the best way of dealing in this cutscene with interactive dialogues.
And with this, the end of this update. There are several leads to take in Rome in any order, and the game tries hard at making them sound difficult, and potentially more than one mission, but I've displayed enough plot already.
Lets just say ahead of time two of the leads involving either invading ECHELON or a CIA outpost in Rome, and that the latter, at least according to what Mina said, will fail if you are detected or use lethal force in the mission. OH MY! HOW I WISH THAT WAS TRUE! BUT I KNOW IT WON'T BE! Since Thief II, I never saw a game that forced the player to resort to absolute stealth in a few missions.
Regardless, you can guess I'll do the CIA infiltration mission first, maybe because of a very faint, nearly nonexistant hope that indeed, it will require that.
Veredict of this Update: Like all Obsidian games, it leaves a lot to be desired on the gameplay department, and due to the consolitis and popamole gameplay, this lot to be desired becomes even greater than the average for an Obsidian game, to the point gameplay alone doesn't hold it.
But the plot on the other hand. It may be cliché spy flick, but I have a soft spot for this sort of thing(as I do for lolconspiracy themed plots like in Deus Ex), and even if the consequences aren't much relevant or notable for the popamole Quick-Time Events where you make choices, at least this game shows serious hints of having them instead of just giving flavor choices, even if most of the dialogue choices in the game belong to the latter, and not to the former.
So, because I'm not like mondblut, The average of a decent, somewhat branching story with a mostly shitty gameplay equals a mediocrity. Hopefully neither the gameplay department nor the story and C&C department will get worse from now on. The story department improved a little, and I hope I won't end disappointed by seeing no consequences on choosing a location first than the others, for example, or on skipping missions whenever possible.
tl;dr Mediocre, yes, Banal, perhaps, Boring, unless you're like mondblut, no.
I'm liking this game for what it is. But I'd rather play another Deus Ex or traditional FPS/RPG hybrid over this. I supposed Hardcore Elitists have one similarity to beggars: they can't be choosers in times of decline.