I have the game, and wanted to give a little preview, because its getting a lot of flak and I don't even understand why!
First off let me address the graphics issue. There is absolutley no problems with graphics, they look great. They aren't the best, it isn't a new standard that everyone going to attest to as a hallmark moment in 360 graphics, but they aren't bad by any means of the word. The faces are well textured, and the enviroments, and models...really the game looked fine, it looks nowhere near a PS2 game.
Now animations are a slightly different story, the in game animations are fine, running/climbing/cover/reloading, all great. When talking to others in cut scenes the lip animations are not off or wrong, but rough. They match the audio perfectly, its just the lips look a little rougher and stiffer and not as much animation between the vowels, nothing jarring, nothing no one will notice right off the bat unless you point it out, and as you keep playing the game, you literally forget it, and why wouldn't you? Its not really all that memorable to begin, nothing at all to even get worked up about. Cutscene animations are fine, sometimes a little rough, kinda like FO3, great game, but sometimes the animations could be rough, not bad or ugly or poor, just rough.
The voice acting is really good, I was impressed, this is one area where did they not slip up. The sound natural, unforced, really important due to the real time conversations, and it keeps you engaged and in them, if you provoke someone, you can hear the retaliation in their voice, if you joke with them, the jest in their voice is there. Musics fine, not a big music person, but it fits the spy/agent mood. Sound effects, great, nothing to complain about here.
Controls are your standard fare. Except changing your gadgets/weapons/abilities you have to use the D-Pad to open up each respect menu and then select from there, its a little weird, not hard to use, but it keeps the flow of the game from going where a simple in game selector would suffice like in MGS, but then again you also choose what kind of ammo you use from the menu which actually makes the D-Pad selector make sense. For example you hit UP on the DPAD to open up the weapon submenu and from there you can select one if either the two weapons you bring on a mission. (You can have more, but only bring two of your choice along), and you can select your pistol and load normal ammo into it, tranquilizer ammo, or steel core ammo (which does more damage than regular ammo) or for your assault rifle, load normal ammo, hollowed ammo (or something like that), which is silent but does less damage, and reinforced ammo (again don't remember off the top) that does more damage, but may be less accurate.
The gameplay is where this game really shines. First off you can customize the look of your character, but only their facial features, not the face itself. Which is good, a consistent character, but you can add your own flare to it. Give him a soul patch, or a full bead, half-rim glasses, or shades, shaved head, or full head of hair, change the skin tone, change the eye color, the face itself is the game. Thats as far as charatcter customization goes and all it really needs to go, I got my Michael Thorton looking to my liking in a few minutes, I was happy with the result.
Now I'd say the main features of this game is the real time conversation, which is very engaging, think of it as mass effects conversation system, but on your feet, and with immediate effects on the relationship with the character, at the current moment, and in the future. Its very satisfying, and makes the player choose what kind of agent he wants to play the game as, or what they feel is the right thing for the right situation, and the fact that its all on the spot makes it even better. You get about 4-5 seconds to come up with a response, you get the chance as soon as the person is starting their line, and you get to review the options, by the time what they are saying is done you have to one of your options selected. Usually you can either be sauve/charasmatic/joking or aggressive/serious/direct or professional/calm/polite, but its not restricted to those types, theres also a fourth kind of response either being misc/etc. or an action (say turning off the TV your videochatting with in the midddle of a conversation or shooting someone your questioning right there an then). You can be in the middle of a conversation with a hostile, maybe talk them down and lower their guard, when they least expect it shoot them in the face, or talk them up into giving up intel, or piss them off so that the make the first move or refuse to talk, its all very dynamic and sprawling, me and you can play the same scene, and have two very different outcomes, depending how what we said, the current relationship we have with the person we're talking to, and whats going on now that could have been severly affected by what you said before. Even something simple like what plan you're going to execute, creates butterfly effect with a different outcome. Someone may live or die, and depending on whether they do, you may get intel later on which affects your choices later on, which affect more and more, its a chain reaction. This isn't one of those games where you have two choices and they're different but they lead to the same thing in the end, oh no no no. You are mistaken. This even goes down to the email system, where you can reply to emails sent to you, in different ways, gathering different responses, or even maybe a reply with some bank account details so you can transfer the cash into your own account if you make them happy. They might send you back a nasty response if you piss them off, and what you say to one person might make them happy, and the other might give you the cold shoulder, each character is different and responses to toughness/suaveness/joking/professionalism/aggression/etc. in different ways.
It really makes you think on your feet. After on mission someone reveals to you there may be someone setting you up, and at that moment you have to choose between 4 people and suggest which you think might be the one screwing you over, I was surprised at what I had just learned and in 5 seconds I had to think who would it be, and the implications of accusing such a person.The other great thing about this game is the skill system. If you've ever played Deus Ex, you'll know what I'm talking about and feel right at home. The same applies for say Fallout1/2/3 or Mass Effect. You level up and get to spend points on various skills, like say Pistol skill, and putting AP points into this increases your accuracy and damage, and depending how many you put in, you eventually unlock new abilties, like critical hits with the pistol from longer ranges, or a "mark and excecute" type knock off like in Splinter Cell Conviciton. And these ablities eventually get better and more diverse as you level up a skill more. Or you could up your stealth skill, increasing your ability to be seen less easily, make less noise, and unlock abilities like running while being completely silent. Each time you play you can create your own unique specialized agent. One maybe be great at hacking/shotguns/CQC, the other specialized in toughness/gadgets/stealth, or you can have a jack of all trade with skill points in all skills, it all depends. Any abilites you earn you can use any time once by hitting LB after selecting it in the Dpad menu. Once you do you have a cooldown period until you can use one again.
There are some cool gadgets, your basic concussion/frag grenades emp grenades/shock grenades. You can mount some on walls and they get triggered when walked past or remotely activated. You can get a gadget that creates sounds to attract guards your own way.
The levels play out simple, you pick a mission from your hideout usually a swanky apartment fitted with nice furniture and a super computer. You can buy weapons and check email and buy and review intel here. You select a mission and it throws you in it. You see the objectives and you have to get there in whatever way possible you want. You can sneak in or take them all out, use different routes, hack computers along the way to get cash. For example in one mission you are confronted with a guard and go into the conversation system. If you say the right thing you can bluff and lie about you needing to be there and they let you through, you can get cocky and they'll start shooting you, you can talk to him for a bit, and then all of a sudden shoot him while hes off guard(using the "A" button interaction, the one that usually has you do something physical). It all depends.
I like how the item system works too. The agency alpha protocol doesn't give funds due to their super high secrecy and fund tracing, etc. So you have to procure funds on missions. You can hack into computers to get details to transfer funds, find suitcases or duffle bags with cash, find cash on guards you kill, or you can arrange side quests on mission where people may reward you for cash or if you just are nice to some people they might hook you up on the side. But basically you don't just get handed money after every successfully mission, you have to take care of getting the funds. Once you do you can go onto your PC and buy weapons, like different pistols, or smgs (with accuracy, damage, stability,magazine, recoil stats), armor (all with different stats, like quietness, endurance/etc.) new gadgets (like noise distractors, EMP grenades, mines, etc. etc.), Different armors have different abilities and slots for upgrades, like an undershirt that allows you to use abilities faster with shorter cooldowns. Or camo that makes guards have a harder time spotting you. You can buy upgrades to weapons, like new barrels, grips, magazines, sights, lasters, silencers, and there are multiple kinds of each kind for each type of gun, so theres a lot to buy, more than you could in one game I'd think.
I like this game a lot, if you liked SCC/Fallout/Mass Effect/Deus Ex theres no reason why you won't like this.
