Review Reviewing Alpha Protocol

[Fat Dragon]

Found a new review at 1Up, earned a B+ score.
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3179545

 

[Cassidy]

It sounds like AP is going to end up being a spectacular failure, in both sales and ratings. New Vegas is probably going to be make or break for Obsidian.

After MOTB and SOZ, Obsidian took a new direction and knew the risks of trying to make cash in a totally saturated market where their shortcomings in polish and game stability would be more noticed. Nobody will miss them if they end like that. In fact, good riddance if they are to go down due to doing the same shit EA does and failing at it market-wise rather than due to the lack of retard-appeal and hype in their latest products like Looking Glass did.

 

[Dezzy]

I was excited by the idea of a spy rpg, so this is a big letdown. (but not a huge surprise)

 

[Vibalist]

I like this sort of thing. It's always left me a little bit dismayed that the modern definition of a role playing game has been "pretty much any other kind of game, except with a lot more numbers in it." Alpha Protocol has XP and skills to level up and whatnot, but the dialogue is what has me paying attention. I don't have a lot of patience for cut-scenes, but cut-scenes where at any second I may have to make a snap decision that will determine how a good chunk of the rest of the game plays out, as well as how other characters will relate to me? That's the textbook definition of roleplaying, which doesn't enter into games all that often, and almost never in a context that doesn't involve elves.

He makes some good points. Rare to actually hear a professional reviewer talk about stuff in games I actually consider important.
And it's kind of cool he recognizes that a lot of so called rpg's haven't got anything resembling serious c&c in them.

On another note, it seems both the positive and negative reviews praise the story and c&c, while critisising gameplay and bugs. I guess whether you'll enjoy Alpha Protocol comes down to what you're looking for. I gather that if I can stand the terrible combat in Planescape and play on for the story and dialog, I can enjoy AP as well.

 

[Dyspaire]

After reading all the reviews linked so far, AP sounds exactly like every other game Obsidian has released (with the notable exception of MotB):

- Ambitious goals

- Terrible programming

- Unpolished and/or Unfinished upon release

It's hard to believe that all the creative minds behind all those great crpgs have consumed the kool-aid, listened to their 20-something marketing dept., and convinced themselves that FPS gameplay is the best way to realize role-playing.

If I can't pause the action in some way to think about my next action, it's a shooter.

If I can't see the math and the mechanics behind my actions and decisions, it's a shooter.

Every single game they've released has felt like more like a struggle against poor programming over fun gameplay; even MotB, because the NWN2 camera still sucked the whole time.

2c

 

[Hory]

NO MORE FREE RIDES FOR OBSIDIAN

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

I honestly don't understand, what were they doing for the entirety of the delay? It was supposedly done then, and they get a shit load of time to polish and test out things...and they still drop the ball all over the place.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Indeed, Jim Sterling is a very effective troll. His 2/10 review is very telling. It looks like its getting an average of between 6 and 8 from other reviewers. I'd say that is good for an RPG. RPGs don't tend to get high review scores unless they are made by Bethesda or Bioware.

 

[HanoverF]

I like how he defends his low score by saying he invented the scoring system. But I have a hard time believing he's flat out wrong.

 

[Dyspaire]

The gameplay is the thing.

I look at that row of games, left to right, (I might shuffle a few of the titles a bit), and while an argument could be made that the actual stories told throughout this lineage have remained consistent and of mostly high-quality; the gameplay most certainly descends in quality as you move along the boxes.

All great art comes stems from the artist creating what they most desire to see. Not the marketing department. Not the stockholders of the parent corporation.

I really don't know whether the 'luminaries' at Obsidian still want the same things in their art that I do. I'd love to hear someone just flat-out ask Feargus or Avellone, "Which do you enjoy playing more, Fallout or Alpha Protocol?"

 

[ghostdog]

I honestly don't understand, what were they doing for the entirety of the delay? It was supposedly done then, and they get a shit load of time to polish and test out things...and they still drop the ball all over the place.

From what I understand a big part of the delay came from the fact that they canned Brian Mitsoda and re-designed much of the game. Bad move. If there was one man in Obsidian that had experience with this kind of action RPG, it's him. Not to mention that it's rumored that they changed his more realistic approach to the genre and they went for over the top characters and story.

Also it's a real shame that Alexander Brandon left Obsidian before he had the chance to write music for this game. If it was one man that could elevate the game some notches with his electro-synth music, it's him. Too bad he spent most of his time in Obsidian writing symphonic stuff.



Bah, anyway... it seems I'll have to wait for the unoffical patches before playing this game.

 

[Lockkaliber]

lets onlu post negative reviewssss xxxxD

 

[bhlaab]

Jim Sterling is the biggest hack in a sea of hacks. Him and Tim Rogers can fellate each other in hell.

 

[Dionysus]

From what I understand a big part of the delay came from the fact that they canned Brian Mitsoda and re-designed much of the game. Bad move. If there was one man in Obsidian that had experience with this kind of action RPG, it's him. Not to mention that it's rumored that they changed his more realistic approach to the genre and they went for over the top characters and story.

No, that happened very early. The latest delay came from Sega, probably because they weren't ready to launch the game last year. It's likely that Obsidian wasn't doing much with it for the last 8 months.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Ya, I was about to say that the delay was more of a marketing move and I doubt Sega was paying them for 8 months to polish the game up. Obsidian might have had a bit of time on their own to work on it but nothing like a full team I suspect.

My guess is with New Vegas having such a quick development time most likely what happened is that the team moved to New Vegas in the Fall to help out.

This would have been answered if MCA did my interview.

 

[Aditya]

The Gamspot PC review is now up. Score 6/10 (Fair)

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/alphaprotocol/index.html

They heavily praise the C&C aspect of the game:

Many of the plot essentials are more or less static, but how you discover them and the people that join you on the journey can differ from one play-through to the next. Few games can truly make you feel as if you are having an impact on the story, but this is the one area in which Alpha Protocol delivers--and extraordinarily so.

However, they pan almost everything else, cover system, AI, weapon imbalance, stealth mechanics, graphics, animation, art and more. *sigh*

I had high hopes from this title but like almost all Obsidian games right from the beginning, the incompetent programming and horrible QA are game killers once again. If Obsidian's strength is limited to story, dialogue n characters, guys like MCA should resign and join BioWare or something and benefit RPG players who won’t need to suffer unplayable mess of Obsidian games just to experience some good branching story and interesting characters.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I love how suddenly everyone believes the hated gamespots and other shithead sites just because they're saying what you wanted to hear, BTW

 

[markec]

Gamespot and any other gaming journalist, mag or site that in the past gave Oblivion or F3 a score bigger than 5/10 has zero credibility in my book. Although Iam not really interested in AP I doubt its much worse than any AAA game which received 10/10 in last few years.

 

[Aditya]

Gamespot's conclusuions about AP are in line with Obsidian's strengths n weaknesses as evidenced in their past titles. I don't think its fabricated stuff.

However, I will be more than happy if AP sells and Obsidian can produce more quality games. Only thing is, they need to learn not to repeat same mistaken again and again in each of their titles...and need to fire their QA manager immediately.

 

[Phelot]

Yeah well, the gamespot review actually seems reasonable and well thought out without being passionate like the Destroid review that's trying to be witty or something. I just wish they'd apply this standard to their other games. DA, ME, and FO3 all getting near perfect scores is bullshit. Those games are mediocre or slightly above mediocre at best regardless of what hype or voice actors they have and their scores should reflect that.

In a 1-10 score system, 4, 5, and 6 are essentially the middle ground mediocre and there's nothing really wrong with that. It basically means, it's not for everyone, some people will hate it while others will like it but it's no were near perfect nor anywhere near terrible.

What's wrong with that?

They're saying AP is slightly above mediocre. That's not so bad, lots of games back in the day used to get that, now only games that are perhaps AA rather then AAA get it while the little guys get the "coveted" biting wit of the reviewer along with a low score.

If they could be honest, like they appear to be with AP with other games, maybe I could respect their opinion a little better, but when they give DA:O fucking 9.99999 and I play it and find out it's just allright at best, something is fucking wrong.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Gamespot's conclusuions about AP are in line with Obsidian's strengths n weaknesses as evidenced in their past titles. I don't think its fabricated stuff.

Yeah, because it's not like it's just easier to come up with imaginary flaws that everyone knows, after playing the game for 10 minutes and not receiving the review paycheck from the developer. Not to mention that 'BUGS! OH THE HORROR' is the shittiest, most overused, and most often untrue 'point' in the history of gaming journalism.


Conformist fucking retards, all of you. This is true decline of the Codex right there.

 

[markec]

Gamespot's conclusuions about AP are in line with Obsidian's strengths n weaknesses as evidenced in their past titles. I don't think its fabricated stuff.

However, I will be more than happy if AP sells and Obsidian can produce more quality games. Only thing is, they need to learn not to repeat same mistaken again and again in each of their titles...

Problem is that those "journalist" not only turn a blind eye to faults of AAA games but glorify every their element, when they get their hands on some other game they remember to be critical. For them Witcher has a shallow cliched story (which is pretty much true) but Oblivion has a immersive, complex story filled with memorable characters and dialogs.

You mean they need to earn money so that they can make another buggy game just like all before in hope that their 65th game will be different.

 

[Arem]

I worked on this game (a fact of which I am not proud). I'm not here to defend it; I agree with all these reviews.

First, a comment for the guy at Cheesecake Factory - Most devs eat in the office most days, if they do go out they tend to grab something at the food court and head back. I know the execs take long lunches, but they often use them for informal meetings as well. Most of the programmers and designers very rarely ate outside the office during the time I was on this project.

There was a ton of work put into this game. The problem is that is was a ton of undirected work, or work on things that were just stupid. The Executive Producer for the game, Chris Parker (also an owner of the company), seemed to think he was the world's greatest designer ever, and created all these absolutely shitty systems and wouldn't listen to any of the real designers or devs about things that just didn't work. And you can't exactly argue with one of the owners of the company when he doesn't want to listen. He basically took over the game and dictated exactly how everything would work (or not work, as the case may be). The other producers realized this early on and just gave up, leaving Parker to micromanage all the designers and programmers directly.

Sega also was a factor, because they kept changing the design requirements (yes they had heavy influence there), which never gave the producers and designers time to actually decide on one set of features to make and polish. The blame is still mostly Obsidian's because the execution was absolutely terrible, and it was obvious 2 years ago that this game should have been scrapped. Instead, though, they focused on adding still more features and never fixed the ones they already had. That is a recipe for tons of bugs and no polish... as is obvious.

This game was just an absolute failure of production, and it's no wonder that so many of the developers left the company, even after the 40% staff layoffs. I am still happy about some of Obsidian's other current projects, New Vegas included, because they are going pretty well. Their big unannounced project is looking great and is already much better than AP ever was, and that may end up being the game that everyone was looking for with AP.

Sega should have canceled AP instead of Aliens...

 

[Phelot]

Gamespot's conclusuions about AP are in line with Obsidian's strengths n weaknesses as evidenced in their past titles. I don't think its fabricated stuff.

Yeah, because it's not like it's just easier to come up with imaginary flaws that everyone knows, after playing the game for 10 minutes and not receiving the review paycheck from the developer. Not to mention that 'BUGS! OH THE HORROR' is the shittiest, most overused, and most often untrue 'point' in the history of gaming journalism.


Conformist fucking retards, all of you. This is true decline of the Codex right there.

It's not that bad, but I agree, bugs tend to be a throwaway argument. I never really discount my opinion over bugs unless they are REALLY game breaking, which most aren't

 

[Kingston]

All great art comes stems from the artist creating what they most desire to see. Not the marketing department. Not the stockholders of the parent corporation.

No, great artists took into consideration their audience. They don't impose their will on the viewer, but invite them in a dialogue. That's why nowadays art is shit, because while a kaleidoscope of menstrual blood might be the most fulfilling experience for the feminist that created it, it is self-indulgent shit for the viewer.

And that's why games suck today. Developers think their stories are the greatest and they impose it on us with more and more "cinematic" bullshit. They got rid of turn-based and numbers and everything else, because it all got in the way of the IMMERSION!!1one When people call their games shit, they reply that the player didn't understand what the game was about, and so the only course of action is to simplify it down some more.

And when sales are down the toilet they won't even consider their product as the reason, instead they go after the pirates, used game sales, anything and everything they can think of. Meanwhile Wii with its "casual" games sells 70+ million copies. Must be a fluke.