Review Gamebanshee: Alpha Protocol Review

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Alpha Protocol; Obsidian Entertainment

<p>Brother None <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/98215-alpha-protocol.html" target="_blank">took a closer look</a> at Obsidian's latest "shooter-based RPG".</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alpha Protocol is a cover-based shooter with stats determining the precision of your aim, and a contracting reticule showing the need to steady your aim before shooting. This should be familiar enough to anyone who has played FPS/RPGs or cover-based shooter/RPGs. Alpha Protocol doesn't get too creative in this. There are four weapon types (pistol, SMG, shotgun, automatic rifle), each of which is uniquely fitted to a particular combat style, combat range and subtlety of approach. Add in some gadgets, from simple firebombs to proximity mines, and it's a solid enough basis.<br /><br />Despite that, the combat is not very good. It's not terrible either, but a combination of bad camera work, sub-par enemy AI, and poor variety in combat scenarios makes for a rather tepid combat experience. The game doesn't throw too many trash mob fights at you and the poor AI makes most of them a breeze, but considering the paucity in design here it's probably still too much time in combat, which is an odd thing to say for an action RPG. The poor variety in combat scenarios is a part of a fairly poor, oddly linear level design, which at times makes the game feel like a corridor shooter with a strange layout.Your lack of mobile range &ndash; you can't jump &ndash; means a foot-high fence can stop this international superspy.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>No one can pretend the flaws don't exist, but it's also a mistake to focus on them alone. I can guarantee they won't turn you off the game completely, but I can say that even with its flaws Alpha Protocol was one of the more satisfying RPG experiences I've had in years. It doesn't play it safe with the predictable blandness that has become the industry standard, instead daring to throw more choices your way than any game in recent memory. Actually challenging the player, rather than insulting his intelligence. If this sounds like something you can identify with, I would give it a shot to try and get past the game's flaws, it's definitely worth it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>update: BN decided to flipflop and *correct* himself. Now he <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>can't</strong></span> guarantee they won't turn you off the game completely...</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/98227-gb-feature-alpha-protocol-review-and-databases.html">GB</a></p>

 

[Brother None]

I can guarantee they won't turn you off the game completely, but I can say that even with its flaws Alpha Protocol was one of the more satisfying RPG experiences I've had in years.

FFS. "I can't guarantee"

*fixed*

I hate it when errors slip into the final draft. Good catch!

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Odd, I didn't find the game buggy at all. Out of 2 games I only got stuck inside a door once. Compared to ME where anytime biotics were used indoors there was a 50/50 chance of flying outside the game area, I thought AP was perfect. The mouse sensitivity wasn't bad for me and I was able to pretty reliably complete minigames, though Obsidian really should have made the sabotage skill FAR more effective in reducing minigame difficulty. I think it gives you like 2 or 3 extra seconds or something.

Otherwise I agree with pretty much everything. The game really does flow well, with all of the characters reacting in-character to your decisions and yet the game fitting to those decisions regardless of whats going on.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Didn't have any bugs either. Also Sabotage does more than gives you a few extra seconds. It actually does reduce the difficulty (for example, reduces the number of bypass lines from 10+, which is really challenging, to 8, which is manageable).

 

[Brother None]

Odd, I didn't find the game buggy at all.

Yes. And meanwhile, I've been talking to someone who can't even get the game to run, as it crashes on startup.

Look, these experiences are so wildly unpredictable that all these "but I had..." stories are kind of pointless. I acknowledge that some people will have a fairly bug-free experience in the review, tho I'd be shocked to hear someone encountering no glitches or minor bugs. If you got through it without bugs than I applaud it. But note that I usually actually consciously challenge a game to test out its bugs. I didn't need to for Alpha Protocol, it threw bugs at me like nobody's business.

I wish we had some more objective standard for bugginess. I find the average BioWare game polished, tho Mass Effect occasionally slowed down in an ugly manner. I generally find Bethesa's games buggy as hell, but most of my reviewing colleagues don't agree. *shrugs* It's a fair warning, when you boot up this game you should be prepared to struggle through bugs. Awesome if you don't, tho.

The mouse sensitivity wasn't bad for me and I was able to pretty reliably complete minigames, though Obsidian really should have made the sabotage skill FAR more effective in reducing minigame difficulty. I think it gives you like 2 or 3 extra seconds or something.

The sabotage skill is fine in my opinion, very useful as a supplemental skill. I didn't love the character system, but I thought its application was brilliant.

The minigames, particularly the hacking one, might be the only time I felt challenged by the gameplay. Combat and sneaking was a breeze. So I never felt it a waste to put points in there.

 

[Ausir]

Yes. And meanwhile, I've been talking to someone who can't even get the game to run, as it crashes on startup.

Look, these experiences are so wildly unpredictable that all these "but I had..." stories are kind of pointless. I acknowledge that some people will have a fairly bug-free experience in the review, tho I'd be shocked to hear someone encountering no glitches or minor bugs. If you got through it without bugs than I applaud it. But note that I usually actually consciously challenge a game to test out its bugs. I didn't need to for Alpha Protocol, it threw bugs at me like nobody's business.

I wish we had some more objective standard for bugginess. I find the average BioWare game polished, tho Mass Effect occasionally slowed down in an ugly manner. I generally find Bethesa's games buggy as hell, but most of my reviewing colleagues don't agree. *shrugs* It's a fair warning, when you boot up this game you should be prepared to struggle through bugs. Awesome if you don't, tho.

It certainly was less buggy for me than Fallout 3, which crashed on startup for me until I tweaked some ini files here and there. I encountered only minor (sometimes annoying) glitches, but no game-stopping bugs.

The sabotage skill is fine in my opinion, very useful as a supplemental skill. I didn't love the character system, but I thought its application was brilliant.

Technical Aptitude was the most useless skill for me.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Both Fallout 3 and Oblivion crashed every half hour for me. It was only a few months ago I learned the secret: Bethesda fucked up autosave, as long as you disable those my game ran near perfectly. But yeah, I suppose its different from everyone. It just seems that Obsidian gets huge flak for what is barely a footnote on other games that subjectively were probably as buggy or worse, just because of their track record with previous games.

I was testing character builds out, and sabotage only removed 1 node from the door bypass minigame when maxed for me (though I think this is partially do to the minigame difficulty scheme being based on how many points you have invested in skills). Compared to the other skills which give you massive bonuses, I suppose I was kind of hoping for it to make minigames a breeze as stealth and weapon skills do, rather then just give a small difficulty bonus.

Technical Aptitude was the most useless skill for me.

I can certainly agree for the most part. The skills aren't exactly well balanced, though Technical Aptitude has a ridiculously powerful 45s recharge all your powers skill you get if you specialize in it. The damage bonus is probably also really helpful, as far as I can tell the weapon damage isn't a linear scale but an exponential one. But really combat is never hard as long as you have a weapon skill, past that the skills are really just to give your character build flavor and make it unique.

 

[Felix]

Technical Aptitude alone is useless but it's useful when combine with others.

I think Mike's voice is pretty good actually, even better when he has this... :codexrage:...he barely keep in check.

About bugs

Compare

http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showforum=76

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/category/106/index

DISCUSS!!!

yes, I'm still sore a bout that particular bug in ME2 :codexrage:

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

Odd, I didn't find the game buggy at all.

Yes. And meanwhile, I've been talking to someone who can't even get the game to run, as it crashes on startup.

And I had that issue with Mass Effect.

Look, these experiences are so wildly unpredictable that all these "but I had..." stories are kind of pointless. I acknowledge that some people will have a fairly bug-free experience in the review, tho I'd be shocked to hear someone encountering no glitches or minor bugs. If you got through it without bugs than I applaud it. But note that I usually actually consciously challenge a game to test out its bugs. I didn't need to for Alpha Protocol, it threw bugs at me like nobody's business.

I wish we had some more objective standard for bugginess. I find the average BioWare game polished, tho Mass Effect occasionally slowed down in an ugly manner. I generally find Bethesa's games buggy as hell, but most of my reviewing colleagues don't agree. *shrugs* It's a fair warning, when you boot up this game you should be prepared to struggle through bugs. Awesome if you don't, tho.

So... pointing out AP's bugginess is both erratic and not unique when you specifically highlight it in your review is meaningless, because it's both erratic and not unique. Right.

 

[Fat Dragon]

TA is a good support skill, gives Brilliance and also gives extra inventory slots, and meds will heal you fully.

Only useless skill is Toughness imo, even with a gun crazy Rambo char I never bother with it.

 

[Brother None]

So... pointing out AP's bugginess is both erratic and not unique when you specifically highlight it in your review is meaningless, because it's both erratic and not unique. Right.

What? Is this supposed to make sense?

I think you're trying to say a counter-argument to complaining about bugs is that they don't happen to everyone. But that's exactly the nature of bugs, it's not a meaningful remark. The nature of any game's bugginess is erratic and different for everyone (I don't understand what you mean by "not unique"), so...does that mean reviewers shouldn't mention them because not everyone will run into them? That's ridiculous.

It certainly was less buggy for me than Fallout 3.

That's awesome. Are we going to sit around and hold hands, and compare notes on who ranks what games where in bugginess? Is it supposed to somehow convince me the bugs I encountered in Alpha Protocol don't exist?

People always frigging do this when it comes to bugs in games and I don't get it. What is the point? Awesome, you had less bugs than me. And someone else had more. Unless you can point me to an objective way of measuring bugs, what the hell is the point, in the context of reviews?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I think Mike's voice is pretty good actually, even better when he has this... :codexrage:...he barely keep in check.

Yeah, he definitely does well with the really snarky comments. It seems that his voice acter didn't really know what tone he is supposed to use for the other lines, though. Its hardly unusual for most games, it just clashes when you have a really good character on the other end of the conversation and Michael sounds dull.

What is the point? Awesome, you had less bugs than me. And someone else had more. Unless you can point me to an objective way of measuring bugs, what the hell is the point, in the context of reviews?

I think that given the reputation Obsidian has for buggy games, people are more inclined to seek out and point out bugs because they expect them to be there. Even given bugs you may encounter, I don't think it deserves so much attention simply because the game is autosaving every 10 seconds. Its not like its corrupting your game file and causing you to start over or something.

 

[Brother None]

I don't care about reputations, and you're being kind of silly. I'm not talking graphical glitches here. The game crashed every time I quit it, I fell through terrain, I had to go back to the safehouse because a mission broke, are those bugs I'm "seeking out and pointing out", or bugs so glaring I can't in good consciousness ignore them for the purpose of a review? Alpha Protocol doesn't hit any reasonable standard on polish, especially since it's such a shitty PC port. Many other games have hit similarly low levels in the past years, including Bethesda. I don't care, I'll give all of them shit for it, it's no excuse. Tendencies of my "colleagues" to give some developers a free pass and others not should not be reflected back on me, it's none of my concern. I'm not giving Obsidian a free pass just to compensate for other people's idiocy.

Even given bugs you may encounter, I don't think it deserves so much attention simply because the game is autosaving every 10 seconds. Its not like its corrupting your game file and causing you to start over or something.

Had you actually read the review before commenting, you'd have noted that in many cases the autosave-checkpoint system, which doesn't happen every 10 seconds, makes it worse. If I fall through the terrain in the middle of a boss-fight, as I did, I'll have to do the entire boss-fight again, rather than go back to a quicksave.

There's a mission goal bug in the Leningradski trainyard mission which will somehow misplace your mission goal after you to the point where the two trains constantly pass by. It happened to me, and a quick wikia check showed me its a known bug. Since the game overwrites its own autosaves, players have to go back to the safehouse, unless they manually saved somewhere along the mission.

Also bloody hell. From my review:
Does it work in a broad sense? Hard to tell. There's so much wrong with the game that it kind of stops one from being able to just focus on this gameplay element alone. Any public discussion on the game always focuses more on its big flaws than one the big experiment. So it's hard to tell if this is a design approach worth pursuing for developers. But can it work for individual players? Hell yes. This is absolutely the core strength of the game, and gamers tired of the same old bland rote of false choices and fake consequences should enjoy the heck out of this game.

And here we are again. Not talking about the awesome characters, the level of research in the game world, or the honestly highly impressive experimentation in choice and consequence. But...what? Is anyone seriously going to claim I'm misrepresenting the game by pointing out these bugs? What exactly are you even being defensive about?

This is retarded. Pisses me off. If even the Codex can't get beyond the technical design to what the developers are actually trying to accomplish.

Well..."even".

 

[Felix]

Pisses me off.

So...they succeed ?

 

[yaster]

About bugs

Compare

http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showforum=76

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/category/106/index

DISCUSS!!!

It think It may indicate that ME2 was released earlier and sold more copies...

Right or Wrong, my assumption is?




Also: while I can tell that AP is buggy I don't think the whole aspect really deserve a half of a page. From my experience and reading what other people written it's looks like it's mostly glitches, annoying and illusion breaking but hardly something that should be able change opinion of a game. A far cry from things that Troika served us on daily basis. I mean, just look at Red Dead Redemption, that game have some ridiculous glitches but nobody throw them in its face. It still can be great game with or without them. To me it all looks like cheap excuse at criticism. Easy to notice and easy to prove to be true - there are glitches and bugs, they look like this, here you go. But their importance and validity is blown out of proportion - unfortunately counter argument easily dismissed, after all different people have different opinion and something else might be important for them. Oddly Fallout 3 doesn't have bugs. Or all of sudden they do not matter.

Problematic controls, their unreliability is other thing though.

Overall: great review BN.

 

[Brother None]

Pisses me off.

So...they succeed ?

Yes.

(I have no idea what you're talking about)

A far cry from things that Troika served us on daily basis. I mean, just look at Red Dead Redemption, that game have some ridiculous glitches but nobody throw them in its face. It still can be great game with or without them. To me it all looks like cheap excuse at criticism. Easy to notice and easy to prove to be true - there are glitches and bugs, they look like this, here you go. But their importance and validity is blown out of proportion - unfortunately counter argument easily dismissed, after all different people have different opinion and something else might be important for them. Oddly Fallout 3 doesn't have bugs. Or all of sudden they do not matter.

I haven't played Red Dead Redemption. Last Rockstar game I played was GTA IV. Had I reviewed it, I'd have given it even more shit than Alpha Protocol got for being such a shitty port. Same for Fallout 3. Again, my colleagues being idiots will never influence my reviews, that's a counter-productive attitude, I'm not here to clean up their shit.

Cheap excuse at criticism is quite a hefty accusation at my basic motives. I don't suppose you'd be willing to back it up, tho'? Show how as a reviewer I have a tendency to look for flaws that aren't there? Focus on bugs when I can't find anything else to criticize? It's quite a serious accusation at my competence as a writer, so please do expand.

Also: while I can tell that AP is buggy I don't think the whole aspect really deserve a half of a page.

...Half a page?
"I'm sorry" is half a page: 4 paragraphs on bugs and glitches, 2 paragraphs on its problems as a port and mouse control, 2 paragraphs on its mouse control and mini-games, which is design, not bugs. The mouse delay problems really are weak, even if I didn't notice them beyond mini-games, I imagined a more experience PC shooter player will.

4 paragraphs in a 60 paragraph review talk about bugs. Yet here we are, pretending it's all I talked about.

Hmmmm...

...

There's no chance that when I wake up tomorrow morning this thread will actually contain useful discussion on how awesome Konstantin Brayko is or some good old-fashioned slugging about the choice and consequences?
*sighs*
Guess not...

*limps off into the distance*

 

[themadhatter114]

No bugs here, either.


Yeah, sabotage decreases the difficulty considerably. There's no way in hell I could complete a bypass with more than 8 circuits in 15 seconds, or pick a lock with 6 pins in 9 seconds, or find both codes in 5 seconds.

If you have a higher sabotage skill, the codes in the hacking mini-game are longer so they're easier to spot, plus you have more time. The bypass mini-game gives you less circuits and more time, and the lock-picking gives you less pins and more time. I didn't want to risk setting off alarms when I hardly had any sabotage skill, because after Saudi there was little chance I would complete any mini-game on the first try (except for some mission-critical ones that are automatically easier). There was no way in hell, for instance, that I could stop the bombs in the museum mission, and I had to reload an earlier save to make sure I didn't waste all of my EMPs before getting to them.

That brings me to another point. They like to say that there are no wrong choices, but you can obviously get a "Mission Failed" without dying.

MASSIVE SPOILERS

Why not have someone

Spoiler

assassinate Sung while you are trying to fight Deng if you survive long enough? Then you and Deng can both have an "Oh shit!" moment and realize you're fight the wrong guy.

Or if you don't manage to protect Surkov, he could die and then you have to find another lead to get to Brayko and any evidence against Halbech.

Or in Rome you could fail to disarm the bombs and have Madison die, but you still have evidence to use against VCI and Halbech.

Basically I think it would be cool if the game allowed you to fail at every single objective in each city, but still have some method to gather evidence to expose Halbech in the end. That way you'd get an utterly terrible news broadcast at the end, but at least some sort of satisfaction with exposing Halbech and Alpha Protocol. Then the C&C would be epic.

But, in that case, I'd get really pissed if they gave me a checkpoint right after I fucked up trying to disarm the bombs, or as soon as Surkov died at the Embassy or something, because obviously you'd still have a lot of people raging if they couldn't retry those missions.

 

[Felix]

Pisses me off.

So...they succeed ?

Yes.

(I have no idea what you're talking about)

I meant they're :smugcodex: after all

Brayko is awesome, I like how he does the job for me when I spare him and set me up with a sound system, turn up the radio, my favourite after Heck's insanity.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Both Fallout 3 and Oblivion crashed every half hour for me. It was only a few months ago I learned the secret: Bethesda fucked up autosave, as long as you disable those my game ran near perfectly

Yes. In fact I'm pretty reluctant about using auto / quicksaves in any game when there's the option to do it manually, I just don't trust the feature.

 

[yaster]

Cheap excuse at criticism is quite a hefty accusation at my basic motives. I don't suppose you'd be willing to back it up, tho'? Show how as a reviewer I have a tendency to look for flaws that aren't there? Focus on bugs when I can't find anything else to criticize? It's quite a serious accusation at my competence as a writer, so please do expand.

It wasn't meant to take you as a target. Afterall you have 3 of 4 pages consisting of what I would classify as a valid criticism.

It was a jab at what I see as general attitude in game criticism or more specific - game journalism.

 

[Xor]

Meh. It's been pretty buggy so far for me. My favorite was the one where enemies didn't respawn after reloading, but I figured out that only happened when I used "load last save".

Other than that, the characters are interesting and I'm really enjoying the extensive C&C. Not to mention the whole spy mythology, which is great.

I just really wish Obsidian would polish their fucking games.

 

[Fat Dragon]

What's funny is that when this game got delayed for close to a year Obsidian stated it was so they could polish the fuck out of it.

Yeah.

 

[Jaesun]

What's funny is that when this game got delayed for close to a year Obsidian stated it was so they could polish the fuck out of it.

Yeah.

It was delayed by SEGA, however it is unknown IF SEGA provided funding during this delay for "polish".

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I really wish Obsidian would develop good games. Man, wouldn't that be something?

We don't even get the rough gems of Troika. We instead get rough turds. I feel cheated.

 

[Ausir]

That's awesome. Are we going to sit around and hold hands, and compare notes on who ranks what games where in bugginess? Is it supposed to somehow convince me the bugs I encountered in Alpha Protocol don't exist?

People always frigging do this when it comes to bugs in games and I don't get it. What is the point? Awesome, you had less bugs than me. And someone else had more. Unless you can point me to an objective way of measuring bugs, what the hell is the point, in the context of reviews?

Not saying that they don't. Just wondering why AP was so universally panned for them, but FO3 wasn't.

And yeah, the game is pretty damn bad on some levels, but yet it succeeds so well on the levels that you mentioned in the review that it's the first game I've finished in years, let alone replayed. And I'm on my third playthrough now.