Editorial Mass Effect 2 Is Overrated

[Melcar]

Bullshit.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I find everything about this thread interesting.

Can we please, once and for all, go through what bugs Alpha Protocol had, exactly? Because I've played through the game more than five times and only one playthrough was patched. I honestly want to know what gamebreakers I've missed.

The only one I know is if you reload a checkpoint and enemies are removed from the mission. To be perfectly honest though, that's not really a bug. That's more like "oh shit, poor little kid can't play the entire mission in one go, let's make it easier for him." Yes, I'm being an asshole, but I honestly never used the checkpoint system. Never saved in the middle of a mission. Meanwhile in both Mass Effect 1 and 2 latest patch I still fall out of the map every now and then. Yesterday the problem was that I hugged the fence (of the fenced-in pathway) too closely, appeared on the other side of it and landed in darkness. Unless it's an extraordinary case, you can't judge a game by its bugs. Because every game in the world has bugs. Bugs that might even be completely exclusive to you! Aren't you so lucky?

I like Alpha Protocol because it's a game that can be played as either a shooter or a sneak 'em up. Sure, there are times when you're forced into combat, most notably the endgame, but I don't give a flying fuck. Don't tell me JC Denton never grabbed a rifle and went yeehaw on hordes of bad guys. Because he did. He totally did. And you probably toggled god mode on too, you cheater.

When it comes to the story, AP is miles ahead of its "rival". First off, there's no bullshit "we could tell you why but it's too complicated for you". AP is not complicated and I'm sure most people figured out the deal the moment Halbech was mentioned. There's beauty in such an uncomplicated, straightforward story about one lone man and his hacker love interest trying to take down a corrupt corporation and expose the obvious conspiracy even though we've all read, watched and played similar stories multiple times already.

ME isn't complicated either but it very much tries to be by acting vague and mysterious when in reality Bioware has written a story so stupid and insultingly lame it could easily be a happy meal toy.


tl;dr Alpha Protocol is great and I can tell you why.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I've played through the game more than five times

Seven times?


Here are some bugs accurately listed.
http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/9821 ... tocol.html

However, I didn't encounter many bugs either. Doesn't change the fact that Alphaturd is the first Obsidian game I regretted buying.

 

[SolipsisticUrge]

I've only played it once, but as far as I recall my Alpha Protocol playthrough was bug-free. So was my ME2 playthrough. All in all, I think I enjoyed both games equally as flawed but enjoyable.

 

[Drakron]

Because I've played through the game more than five times and only one playthrough was patched.

I will now add you to the same list Skyway is.

Oh and one bug I noticed was the VANISHING ENEMIES! Sure its a "nice bug" as it makes things so much easier, too bad there was no "automatic hacking" so I was spared from that FUCKING MINIGAME! that gets WORST as you level up because clearly we are playing a RPG for them ... at least ME2 minigames were just annoying and we could make then easier with upgrades as Alpha Protocol? NOPE! ENJOY THE HARDER MINIGAME DIFFICULTY!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Because I've played through the game more than five times and only one playthrough was patched.

I will now add you to the same list Skyway is.

Oh and one bug I noticed was the VANISHING ENEMIES! Sure its a "nice bug" as it makes things so much easier, too bad there was no "automatic hacking" so I was spared from that FUCKING MINIGAME! that gets WORST as you level up because clearly we are playing a RPG for them ... at least ME2 minigames were just annoying and we could make then easier with upgrades as Alpha Protocol? NOPE! ENJOY THE HARDER MINIGAME DIFFICULTY!

Why do you lie? There is considerable difference between having specialized in Sabotage and just having it as a regular skill you keep capped. I can't even imagine how much harder it would be if you had no points in it at all.

At the end of the day, Alpha Protocol was considerably less buggy than many Codex favourites, say, Fallout 2.

 

[Achilles]

Yeah, I never encountered any game-breaking bugs either. I did run into the vanishing enemies thing a couple of times, but that was easily fixed by reloading the checkpoint.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Because I've played through the game more than five times and only one playthrough was patched.

I will now add you to the same list Skyway is.

That boy's in good company now! :D

FUCKING MINIGAME! that gets WORST as you level up

Alpha Protocol doesn't scale to your level!

...but by the amount of action points you have.

You can check this by modifying your savegame. For example, give yourself 999 AP and see if you can hack an electronic lockpick with eight locks in one second. On a normal playthrough it's meant to make the game harder as you progress, but putting your points into sabotage helps by giving you a boost in time or "extra lives" so to speak so you don't trigger the alarm when you fail.

Still, I can see why the minigames give a lot of people a hard time. My eyes for example, they're awful, so I've screwed up on the easiest computer hacking several times because I didn't see what letters stood still. I'll usually get it right on the second try though.

I've played through the game more than five times

Seven times?

Let's say six. I don't want to put out the sky.

Here are some bugs accurately listed.
http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/9821 ... tocol.html

Alright, let's see what we've got then.

1. "getting stuck in terrain", never happened.

2. "falling through terrain, never happened". Unless we're talking about Mass Effect? Because then it totally happened. In both games. Seems to be a problem with the UnrealEngine.

3. "enemies glitching out of the level", happened once, fixes itself by reloading again or simply by going "ironman" mode and playing missions from beginning to end.

4. "boss fights bugging out so the boss doesn't fight back", never happened. Is it related to the "enemies disappear from the map" bug?

5. "missions bugging out so you can't lose them", I'm not even sure I understand this one. Is this also related to the "enemies disappear from the map" bug?

6. "missions bugging out so you can't finish them", is another one I don't understand. It'd be nice if the reviewer had described exactly what happened instead of, you know, not described what happened. Regardless, it never happened.

7. "different storyline threads created by my choices conflicting with no pre-defined resolution" is not a bug. Pay attention to the story. The idea is you're uncovering a world wide conspiracy, travelling around and finding clues before you take down Cigarette Smoking Man.

8. "the bad functionality of the dialogue fast forward option, by which you could skip to the next text block in the conversation [...] the game would play the audio of both the part I just skipped and the next part simultaneously", happened a couple of times when I'd been through the game a couple of times and needed to breeze through it fast, otherwise I'm one of those who listens to dialogue in games. It's actually one of Alpha Protocol's strengths. Good writing and excellent voice acting. This bug is probably the game's way of saying "Fuck you, you fuck, you fucking trying to skip the voice acting? Fuck you, you're gonna listen so fuck you!"

Holy shit, we're not done yet?

9. "menu system, the buttons don't do what I want them to do", the deal with choosing between ESC or right mouse button to close down menus is... well, frankly I don't give a shit. I've used ESC all my life to close game menus and I'm not going to stop now because Alpha Protocol comes along. It worked fine. Never had an issue with ESC not working. Buy another set of fingers. Maybe they're not pressing the key properly?

10. "The mouse sensitivity is...off", huh, and here I thought it was just a slider you could move in the options. Granted, the options menu is bugged and it won't save one option if you mess around in, say, "graphics" as well. What you need to do is fix your mouse, leave the options and then go into options again to fix your graphics. That sucks, I'll give you that, but it's a minor inconvenience. Alternatively you can also go into the ini-file and adjust it there.

The ini-files of Alpha Protocol, btw, is something you need to become very friendly with if you want to play the game. I suggest going to the official forums as they have stickies devoted to solving a the only thing I had trouble with, until I fixed it:

11: THE CAMERA OF DOOOOOOOM!! The camera is laggy. Fix it in the ini-file.

We now return to the Gamebanshee article.

12: "Hacking minigame"... not a bug, more an issue. No problem controlling the thing with WASD and mouse but my eyes are bad.

Three more pages and I gotta take a leak. Damn. I'll be back to finish the rest of the article off later!

Doesn't change the fact that Alphaturd is the first Obsidian game I regretted buying.

Don't worry about that. The important thing is you bought it.

 

[Excommunicator]

It makes no sense when people do the whole "let us debate about bugs and whether they are valid or not" thing. Some people get them, some don't. Those who get them have the right to complain about them in their overall experience, within reason of how serious they are. Those who don't get them have the right to judge the game by their own flawless experience.

Neither side gets the right to criticise the other for having a different experience than they did. Deal with it. Anyone who does take a defensive stance is really damn close to fanboyism, so think twice

 

[SolipsisticUrge]

It makes no sense when people do the whole "let us debate about bugs and whether they are valid or not" thing. Some people get them, some don't. Those who get them have the right to complain about them in their overall experience, within reason of how serious they are. Those who don't get them have the right to judge the game by their own flawless experience.

Neither side gets the right to criticise the other for having a different experience than they did. Deal with it. Anyone who does take a defensive stance is really damn close to fanboyism, so think twice

Agreed, except where "bugs" are defined as "interface I didn't like, design decision I didn't like, menu option I didn't set to my preference" or the like.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Or when the bugs aren't bugs at all or just issues that are easily fixed.

And no, fuck you, you have no right to complain just because you get bugs nobody else gets. Maybe that's just me though. Go away.

 

[Volourn]

"At the end of the day, Alpha Protocol was considerably less buggy than many Codex favourites, say, Fallout 2."

At the end of the daym Alpha Protocal was consirably more shitty than many Codex favorites, say, Fallout 2.
_________________

 

[dr. one]

Fallout 2 a Codex favorite?
isn´t there a ghost in there somewhere

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Fallout didn't take long to fall apart.

 

[Excommunicator]

Yeah you're right, interface "preferences" don't qualify as serious bugs (or perhaps even bugs at all)
Like I said, within reason of how serious they are, and many of those Andy listed aren't that serious, that is true. Disappearing enemies and unfinishable missions on the other hand..

 

[Xor]

Only serious bugs I remember from AP were the enemies not appearing on reload, which doesn't happen if you don't use the "reload from last save point" option and instead select the save point manually, and a bug with a moscow level that made me start that mission over again. Sure, it was annoying, but I've dealt with much worse in, say, Arcanum.

Maybe I'm just lucky, because I've never had a problem falling through terrain in any Unreal Engine game. I think I got stuck in a rock once in Mass Effect, but I remember fucking around with the console to fix that.

The minigames are annoying and I really wish they weren't in the game. To me they do nothing other than waste time. They certainly aren't fun. If I knew how to remove them, or set the scaling so they're always super easy, I would. Minigames weren't enough to prevent me from enjoying AP, though.

I did have performance issues with the game until I figured out there was a bug with the interface that wasn't saving my settings, and I had to fix that by editing an ini file. Again, annoying but not game breaking.

I do wish the game had been longer, though. Another 10 or so missions and more chances to interact with various characters would have been perfect.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Yeah you're right, interface "preferences" don't qualify as serious bugs (or perhaps even bugs at all)
Like I said, within reason of how serious they are, and many of those Andy listed aren't that serious, that is true. Disappearing enemies and unfinishable missions on the other hand..

What is this unfinishable mission business about though? Do the objectives disappear or...?