Captain Shrek
Guest
Ok. So Chris Avellone takes the lead designer role for this game and delivers an above average game that disappoints on some fronts. But I guess you can blame consolization for that.
AP is a cinematic game, in a good way. There are a lot of cutscenes, that give it a movie like quality. But the VO is moderately good. Luckily the cutscenes are restricted to only storytelling/ pure dialogue regions and do not interfere with combat mostly. The gameplay reminds me of Hitman; the combat, exploration is similar and even the maps are designed in the same way with small, closed areas in mind: Airfields, Hotels, Embassies etc. I would hate to debate whether its an RPG or not as that seems to provoke unnecessary arguments. So I will stick to points I take as important.
1) RP elements: A 'Modern-day spy game' (sic). Lots of game mechanics that allows your character to be some combination of a stealthy, gun totting, groin-kicking, gadget using secret agent. There are a lot of choices in the game divided into Hard and Soft choices. Hard choices significantly impact emotional issues and political scenario. Soft choices determine small advantages/disadvantages in the battles or game world. They are actually well played out. Character advancement occurs through leveling. There are no attributes though. YOu get skill points (Action points) that are invested in skills. Further your actions in the game world define your character and give you appropriate perks. It can be fun for some to figure them out. Your character can adopt various attitudes that define their personalities. People will identify as such and thus will behave in a particular way. Essentially DA2 is a bad rip off of AP.
2) Plot: Now I am a filthy capitalist pig, so I disliked the plot. But you may actually like it if you are into this
AP is a cinematic game, in a good way. There are a lot of cutscenes, that give it a movie like quality. But the VO is moderately good. Luckily the cutscenes are restricted to only storytelling/ pure dialogue regions and do not interfere with combat mostly. The gameplay reminds me of Hitman; the combat, exploration is similar and even the maps are designed in the same way with small, closed areas in mind: Airfields, Hotels, Embassies etc. I would hate to debate whether its an RPG or not as that seems to provoke unnecessary arguments. So I will stick to points I take as important.
1) RP elements: A 'Modern-day spy game' (sic). Lots of game mechanics that allows your character to be some combination of a stealthy, gun totting, groin-kicking, gadget using secret agent. There are a lot of choices in the game divided into Hard and Soft choices. Hard choices significantly impact emotional issues and political scenario. Soft choices determine small advantages/disadvantages in the battles or game world. They are actually well played out. Character advancement occurs through leveling. There are no attributes though. YOu get skill points (Action points) that are invested in skills. Further your actions in the game world define your character and give you appropriate perks. It can be fun for some to figure them out. Your character can adopt various attitudes that define their personalities. People will identify as such and thus will behave in a particular way. Essentially DA2 is a bad rip off of AP.
2) Plot: Now I am a filthy capitalist pig, so I disliked the plot. But you may actually like it if you are into this
rich people plotting to take over the world tinfoil bullshit. [\spoiler] The plot has some depth and twists. But not many. If you are a Tom Clancy buff you can see many a things coming a mile off.
3) Characters: Characters are very well designed with clear established personalities that you can ACTUALLY put to use! Heck, some of these are quite insane (yup, double entendre to those who played it). Tragically the interaction to these is limited to certain plot elements. They do give you side quests, but it would have been very refreshing to have more of these thus giving a better opportunity to interact with them
4) World: The interactable world is divided into two sets: your safehouse(s) and the missions. You interact with the world mostly through dialogue in missions or emails. The bad thing about this is that the world i not OPEN like in Deus Ex where you had comparatively more freedom to interact with NPCs that were plot irrelevant. I don't know about you guys, but this game could have had a lot more immershun if
there were fun characters that trigger small side quests (again like in Deus Ex).
5) Combat: The combat is slightly repetitive, but on Hard difficulty its fun. The camera being a behind the ass TPS, is shit. I personally favour an FPS camera for shooters. Other problems with the camera is that its very buggy. For me it hanged at quite a few moments disorienting me completely, resulting in WTF, WHERE AM I???!!! moments. Also, the game WILL punish you if you invest in purely non-combat skills. What's a good spy who can't shoot straight and quick draw after all?
6) Minigames: There are a few interesting minigames that make the game a bit challenging. They are EASY to mid hard for non-autistic humans, but have a steep learning curve. Trust me, if you have any difficulty with them, just be patient and and you WILL soon get hang of them. I believe that one of the reasons this game failed in marketing was because it was too difficult for retards.
7) Maps: Are normally like HITMAN games. There are quite a few covers available to dodge enemy attack and believe me, you will need them time to time.
8) Health: Is fortunately non-regenerating. There is a cool down on healing... 'potions'. But you have to buy these and though they are cheap, you will not invest much in them. Also the game has plenty of opportunities to heal in missions.
9) Gear: is customizable and related to several skills you can invest points in. Good gear can become too costly and does not give VERY powerful advantages. It is functionally possible to finish the game on only the starting gear.
VERDICT:
All in all it is a good game. It has a distinct potential to become a great game. I will heavily recommended it to you all to play at least once. For the nth time I see a good game spoiled by bad publicity. I sincerely think that only retards believe that it is a poor make (excepting the bug of course, of which I encountered only a few). I suggest that when you start you take your time to learn what different things can do and how to solve minigames and surely you will enjoy it.
Negative points:
As I mentioned earlier, the Camera.
Lacks some major skills: Its a fucking spy game and there is no skill for disguises! This would have seriously given an entirely new depth to the game. Also, some skills are OVERPOWERED. And they WILL be game breaking during boss-fights.
Story: Comes from a second rate paperback.
Humour: Humourless. They don't understand that Suave should mean Bond type one liners.
3) Characters: Characters are very well designed with clear established personalities that you can ACTUALLY put to use! Heck, some of these are quite insane (yup, double entendre to those who played it). Tragically the interaction to these is limited to certain plot elements. They do give you side quests, but it would have been very refreshing to have more of these thus giving a better opportunity to interact with them
4) World: The interactable world is divided into two sets: your safehouse(s) and the missions. You interact with the world mostly through dialogue in missions or emails. The bad thing about this is that the world i not OPEN like in Deus Ex where you had comparatively more freedom to interact with NPCs that were plot irrelevant. I don't know about you guys, but this game could have had a lot more immershun if
there were fun characters that trigger small side quests (again like in Deus Ex).
5) Combat: The combat is slightly repetitive, but on Hard difficulty its fun. The camera being a behind the ass TPS, is shit. I personally favour an FPS camera for shooters. Other problems with the camera is that its very buggy. For me it hanged at quite a few moments disorienting me completely, resulting in WTF, WHERE AM I???!!! moments. Also, the game WILL punish you if you invest in purely non-combat skills. What's a good spy who can't shoot straight and quick draw after all?
6) Minigames: There are a few interesting minigames that make the game a bit challenging. They are EASY to mid hard for non-autistic humans, but have a steep learning curve. Trust me, if you have any difficulty with them, just be patient and and you WILL soon get hang of them. I believe that one of the reasons this game failed in marketing was because it was too difficult for retards.
7) Maps: Are normally like HITMAN games. There are quite a few covers available to dodge enemy attack and believe me, you will need them time to time.
8) Health: Is fortunately non-regenerating. There is a cool down on healing... 'potions'. But you have to buy these and though they are cheap, you will not invest much in them. Also the game has plenty of opportunities to heal in missions.
9) Gear: is customizable and related to several skills you can invest points in. Good gear can become too costly and does not give VERY powerful advantages. It is functionally possible to finish the game on only the starting gear.
VERDICT:
All in all it is a good game. It has a distinct potential to become a great game. I will heavily recommended it to you all to play at least once. For the nth time I see a good game spoiled by bad publicity. I sincerely think that only retards believe that it is a poor make (excepting the bug of course, of which I encountered only a few). I suggest that when you start you take your time to learn what different things can do and how to solve minigames and surely you will enjoy it.
Negative points:
As I mentioned earlier, the Camera.
Lacks some major skills: Its a fucking spy game and there is no skill for disguises! This would have seriously given an entirely new depth to the game. Also, some skills are OVERPOWERED. And they WILL be game breaking during boss-fights.
Story: Comes from a second rate paperback.
Humour: Humourless. They don't understand that Suave should mean Bond type one liners.
