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Alpha Protocol vs Fallout: New Vegas (Avellone vs Sawyer)

Alpha Protocol or Fallout: New Vegas?


  • Total voters
    189

Duraframe300

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Recent posts in the *Obsidian should do Vampire* thread woke up an interest in me to know the general hivemind concious on this question. In response to the argument why Avellone as Lead Designer was preferable to Sawyer even though there wouldn't be any *combat* improvements it was pointed out to me that as a whole gameplay experience (outside of pure writing!) every Avellone game so far was superior to every Sawyer game.

This also would suggest Alpha Protocol was a better game / more enjoyable experience than Fallout: New Vegas.

Now both these games are very different, so my question is (and thats why theres no poll. Because words are needed). What makes Alpha Protocol a better game in what it tries to be than Fallout: New Vegas. Or do you disagree with that statement and why?

Fake Edit 1: (Personally, I actually prefer AP as well, but I'm just not that into Fallout in general. So, I'm biased. Sawyer pretty much still has to prove himself to me in Pillars)

Fake Edit 2: I like Alpha Protocol THIS much
 
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Rake

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Oct 11, 2012
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2,969
I don't consider Alpha Protocol an overal better game than F:NV. For me they are about the same level, both of them being mixed bags with some brilliant parts mixed with some baffling design decisions. Plus combat/moment to moment gameplay wsa crap in both of them.

From the two i personaly liked Alpha Protocol more since i liked the writing/characters narrative structure a lot more, and a game being linear isn't a problem for me, in fact i dislike sandboxes.
Plus i prefer the more scripted nature of Ap C&C to FNV more systemic one. And Alpha Protocol lacks filler content, which is a huge plus in my book.

As for the Avellone vs Sawyer debate, i believe Sawyer is more capable to make the final gameplay closer to his vision than Avellone who won't know how to achive what he wants to make, but Sawyer's ideas about what constitutes good gameplay are very different than my own, so that he knows what he is doing and cares about gameplay doesn't mean much to me
 
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Athelas

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6421-michael-jackson-eating-popcorn.gif
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
AP is a terrible game with decent story buried somewhere while F:NV is a passable game with wonky mechanics with good story, setting, variety and C&C (it's bigger on Choices than on Consequences, though)
 

Backstabber

Educated
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Apr 18, 2014
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Both are bad but I guess New Vegas is less bad. Wanted to vote for kingcomrade though.
 

ghostdog

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Pff another inane poll for me. It lacks the KC option Infinitron

I kinda like both games, but they both have such big faults in the same departments (action gameplay, engine) , that even if you combined the best things from both of them you'd still wouldn't get a great game. WHich is better and why ? I don't care to choose. AP aside from its excellent branching C&C visual novel narrative was a pathetic excuse of a game. NV had a competent crpg structure, marred by crappy action play and a repulsive engine to which they added even more bugs.

Obsidian. They have great talent in "designers" but they lack good programmers and a good producer.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Liked both, but the universe in Fallout: New Vegas is just better developed with more interactivity.
 

hoverdog

dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
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Both games have shit engines. What's worse, both games have bulk of their gameplays (that is, shooting) dependent on those shit engines. Both also have decent to good stories. Brotocol's got that nice choices&consequences quirk (the fact that you won't learn the whole story on one or maybe even two playthroughs) and an original setting. New Vegas is much larger, has a ton of things to do, some great quests, good faction system and high modability.
I've completed AP. Still haven't finished NV.
They're both good for what they are.


tl;dr: poll lacks kingcomrade option
 

Infinitron

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For the record, I don't think it's fair to make this an "Avellone vs Sawyer" thing. It's really more like "4 years of early Obsidian development hell and dysfunction vs Sawyer's tight ship"
 

Bleed the Man

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Ok, I've got to be one of the biggest AP apologist that exists, because I fucking love that game and i will defend it to death, but New Vegas is far, far better design wise, even if they are very different games. Alpha Protocol would benefited a lot from "banalce".

I don't know if Sawyer is a better designer than Avellone, although I do believe so (in the gameplay department at least), but for their games I see a lot more concern about how the systems work in Sawyer's games.
 

Drakron

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I don't know if Sawyer is a better designer than Avellone, although I do believe so (in the gameplay department at least), but for their games I see a lot more concern about how the systems work in Sawyer's games.

AP was a mess of development, New Vegas kinda was but I think the difference was Sawyer had FO3 assents to work with but a tight time schedule so he did what he could be done on time instead of feature creep.

Plus AP was a mess on release, on loading save it caused enemies to fail to spawn, plus it had the dumbest bullshit "scale to your level" minigame with that fucking hacking minigame, its the only instance I ever seen were you can spend points to make it easier JUST for the game to make it harder because progression, not that FO:NV was bug free on release but substantial more stable that AP.

I dont blame Avellone since I dont think it was ever *his* game, it was Chris Parker.
 

Seaking4

Learned
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Sep 4, 2014
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Fallout New Vegas is a much better game than Alpha Protocol. The conversations in AP were fun but almost everything else was kind of boring.


In response to the argument why Avellone as Lead Designer was preferable to Sawyer even though there wouldn't be any *combat* improvements it was pointed out to me that as a whole gameplay experience (outside of pure writing!) every Avellone game so far was superior to every Sawyer game.

What has Avellone been lead designer on? KotOR2, Planescape, and Alpha Protocol are the only three I can think of. I'm not counting NWN2 for either Sawyer or Avellone because of how much of a shitshow NWN2 apparently was when they started working on it. Those are three games with awful combat. I don't think IWD2 or FNV have amazing combat but FNV's is better than AP's and IWD2's is better than Planescape's.
 

Roguey

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Avellone had very little to do with AP's gameplay, that was Sega/Parker/MacLean/misc others.

If it's a narrative battle you want, it's Avellone versus John Gonzalez.

plus it had the dumbest bullshit "scale to your level" minigame with that fucking hacking minigame, its the only instance I ever seen were you can spend points to make it easier JUST for the game to make it harder because progression

Having played three times, I can confirm that spending points in sabotage does make it easier compared to spending no points. Any mandatory critical path hack will always be pretty easy regardless of skill; it's the optional ones that can get really tough. The solution for those is EMPs which only requires a one-point investment.
 
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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
What has Avellone been lead designer on? KotOR2, Planescape, and Alpha Protocol are the only three I can think of. I'm not counting NWN2 for either Sawyer or Avellone because of how much of a shitshow NWN2 apparently was when they started working on it. Those are three games with awful combat. I don't think IWD2 or FNV have amazing combat but FNV's is better than AP's and IWD2's is better than Planescape's.

KOTOR2 is really Obsidian's only true "Avellone game". But you can also count the FO:NV DLCs if you want.
 

Roguey

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Even then the person in charge of systems was Kevin Saunders. Who added level scaling. Thanks Kevin.
 
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AP has its charms but it's way worse game than NV overall, even if both of them have fuckload of flaws.
 

Seaking4

Learned
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Sep 4, 2014
Messages
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KOTOR2 is really Obsidian's only true "Avellone game". But you can also count the FO:NV DLCs if you want.

K2 has some terrible combat but lots of that was inherited by K1. Avellone sure as hell didn't fix it though. Obsidian just made the game easier and added instawin buttons after you deal with the council. I saw someone say that Knights of the Old Republic games were made purposefully easy so that the game could target a younger audience. Did anyone (at Bioware or Obsidian) ever come out and say that?

I thought Honest Hearts was good but Dead Money was bad enough to get me to stop playing FNV.
 

Azalin

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Although I LIKE ALPHA PROTOCOL THIS MUCH Ι Ι have to admit that NV was definitely a better game overall,apart from the dialogues/c&c everything else in AP ranged from mediocre to shit
 

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