not at all, just felt like it was nice that we all agreed on this, showing my opinion on the subject in my box, just like you also said and did.Eri said:
Alpha protocol: worth playing?
- Thread starter Vault101
- Start date
You started off this immature little spay by changing someone's words directly. like really that's just silly and unnecessary. so they did it back to you, what did you expect? get over yourself.Eri said:
Essentialy take whatever the normal price for top grade console games are and knock $20 off it (Or pounds or Gil or whatever you foreigners use in the Northern hemisphere.)Vault101 said:
Likely it'll be cheaper than that anyway, but it's worth getting at around that price because like most Obsidian games what is there is great, it just lacked that little bit of polish.
I think you need to get over yourself. You're fighting a battle that isn't even yours to fight. I didn't quote you, nor the other guy attempting to goad me into being angry. And changing a quote wasn't immature because it wasn't some kind of "attack" on the user, he merely had a sentence I could easily re-arrange to make my point.AzrealMaximillion said:
I wasn't being a douche to anyone. You just seem to think I was. If anything, you seem a lot more offended over something I did to someone else, than the person I actually quoted. Like I already said (and you ignored), I attached no personal feelings toward what was quoted, The quote was just handy to say how I felt about the game.AzrealMaximillion said:
HERP DERP, DERAIL THE TOPIC FURTHER HERP DERP.(Seriously, take it to PMs, nobody cares)
OT:I've never had the pleasure of playing the game, but to be honest, from what certain users have been saying...I am intrigued by it now. I'll wait for the price to drop further on it and pick it up for dirt cheap. Perhaps a Steam Sale at some point in the future?
OT:I've never had the pleasure of playing the game, but to be honest, from what certain users have been saying...I am intrigued by it now. I'll wait for the price to drop further on it and pick it up for dirt cheap. Perhaps a Steam Sale at some point in the future?
Vault101 said:
The game suffers from not being everything that it could be more than any real failings. I happened to enjoy it quite a bit. It's pretty much a game about you working for a goverment agency that goes rogue (not a PMC, I have no idea where someone got that from) and then having to take on your own guys.
It follows a typical bioware mission structure, where you travel to differant cities you can do in any order to complete a number of missions. When all of the cities are complete, you can enter the endgame and finish business.
It has a lot of neat features like how the order in which you do missions actually influances what people say in other places, which is a REALLY nice touch (and I believe even Yahtzee had good things to say about this).
It's also one of those games where earning acehivements and such will give you actual in-game benefits. So playing a certain way and getting those achievements will make you better at whatever it is your choosing to do.
On the other hand the game does suffer from a number of game balance issues, with certain builds and skills being far superior to others. Some of the boss fights range from being ridiculously easy to nail bitingly frustrating depending on your combat style. The weapon choices (Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, SMG, etc...) represent fighting styles as much as anything and it pays off to master one of them rather than switching between a lot of weapons. Oddly the pistol (probably because it fits an espianage agent) winds up being one of the absolute best ways to fight, especially against bosses. A stealth/unarmed build can also pretty much act like the invisible man and run around nearly impossible to spot destroying everything.
I think Alpha Protocol suffered from the typical Obsidian bugs, combined with simply being hyped up well beyond what it delivered. The graphics for example aren't ugly, but being pushed up definatly causes the age to show in some places.
Sadly there will never be a direct sequel, because it had potential. I'm hoping for a spiritual sequel at some point however. It would be nice if say Bioware themselves was to take a crack at a similar game at some point once their plate isn't so full.
I doubt you'll be going "OMG, this is the most epic thing ever" but I think you will have fun and wind up reminding it fondly in retrospect. It's got some really nice touches in it.
I'd say it's worth it. The story isn't that great, but the amount of influence you have over it is pretty damn cool. Your actions actually matter in both the short term and the long term in this game. Hell even what profession you choose at the beginning of the game comes up in dialog every now and then. The combat isn't perfect, and it took me a little bit to get used to it (it's a bit clunky at times), but once I did I really enjoyed it. However it is true that certain character builds are superior to others, and that some builds are downright overpowered. But balance issues aside, I had fun trying out different builds and playing the game in different ways (even if some ways were a bit harder than others). I never really encountered any game breaking glitches, just graphical errors every once in a blue moon. So yeah, I say it's worth playing.
I'll give you a rundown, but first, for the record so we'll be clear about it - I fucking love it. I beat it 5 times, and it gave me more fun than Mass Effect 2.Vault101 said:
What's good:
- The story. Of course, your mileage may vary, but for me it was great. It seemed a little bit cliche at first (preventing the WWIII), but as you get down to it, it has a few good twists (not 'GENIUS!' ones, but definitely some good ones. I'm not going to spoil anything, but if you'll play it, you'll be very surprised at the end of the Taipei missions), the villain's reasoning makes sense, endings are definitely not a top class ones, but rewarding anyway.
- Choices. The true star of the game. Have you ever thought, that it sucks, the RPG games let you 'choose' one of the 2 options, but ultimately both lead to the same result? Well, AP is not like those games. I bought it on my PS3, while my pal bought it on PC, and when we compared our playthroughs, we discovered, that so may things can go differently, we immediately went back to it to see what else can we do. Of course, you'll always visit the same locations and do the same missions, but they way you approach it, what kind of help will you receive, or how big will be the enemy force you will encounter can be very different. And it's awesome. For example, the very first 'for real' mission. Goal: Catch the gun seller. When you do so, you can let him go for some money (for new weapons, armors and gadgets) and to monitor him, so he can lead you up to the bigger fish, or you can arrest him to get the info you'll want, but he'll just shut up, and you won't get anything out of it. You can also kill him, because... Well, he was kind of a bastard. Now, if you'll let him free, apart from cash you get some additional intel, which may lead you to your goal more quickly. If you'll arrest or kill him, enemy forces will be weaker in the next missions, because they just lost their arms dealer. I won't say much more, but let's just say that one little, not really plot-important arms dealer MAY be mentioned at the end of the game in the world news report which serves as a reminder of player's action and their consequences.
- Dialog tree/decision making system. It's a typical ME dialog tree, but with added timer for your each response, which is pretty cool. It adds some tension to the important decisions, when you have to make them in a blink of an eye. Sure, you may feel sometimes that you don't have enough time to respond to someone, but hey... In real life you don't wait 10 minutes before answering someone, right? It also removed Paragon/Renegade stuff, which was replaced by Suave/Aggressive/Professional answers. What's good, is that you are not bound to any of them because of getting points or whatever. Even more, if you want to charm everyone, you must figure out who likes talking with a laid out guy, and who needs some 'persuasion' to actually cooperate. Which brings me to...
- Respect/Disrespect system. This is how the system should look like in DA:O, folks. As I said, different people like different things, but if they don't like you, that doesn't mean you cannot benefit from it. Sometimes, pissing someone off completely IS the best solution (but not the only one, mind you, other methods works as well). Heck, even your mission bonus is different depending on your relationship with your handler (your helping voice via intercom). Sometimes you may want to piss your partner to get a more suitable bonus for you (unless you're a demolition expert, Darcy is the shining example of this).
- Skill system. If you liked Deus Ex's skill system, you'll love this one as well, because it's the same. At first, pistol looks like a load of crap, but as you put on your skill points in it, it suddenly becomes a really deadly weapon (especially with Chain Shot). The same with every other skill. People complained a bit, that some boss battles are impossible to beat, because you picked a stealthy guy to a fight in a flashy small room with a close combat monster, but as someone who beat the game on Hard, playing as a recruit, deliberately picking up random skills to not be really good at anything, I can tell you, there is no such as thing as 'stuck in game because of crappy skill management' here.
- The little things. For example, when you have a pen-drive with some locked databases, your handler hacks it for you if you don't have too much skills with computers. If you do, you'll be the one breaking the password. The game is full of things like that, that don't really mean anything, but it's nice to have them.
What's bad:
- Graphics. It's just sub-par. That's all that there is to say it. I didn't care about it, but I know many people do.
- AI is just dumb. I know, that I'm stealthy and stuff, but when you 'silently' take down a guard, and the very next one, standing just 5 meters away to the right in a straight line doesn't notice it, you know the coders overslept somewhere. Playing the game on hard just makes the guards more accurate, but not less stupid. It gets a bit better in an open combat. They actually try to use some cover...
- Rag doll. It's laughable. It's a problem of many, many, MANY recent games (AC:B for example). What happened? They could make great physics in 2004 (Far Cry, HL2), but they cannot now?
- Bugs. I didn't encounter many of them, but some of the people ***** really hard about it, so be warned. The game is out for over half a year now, so the game should be patched up anyway.
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Final words: Get it. The most underrated game of 2010.
Worth a look if you can find it for like $3 otherwise pass it up... the combat is glitchy, the graphics are bland and also glitchy, the story is a bit of a mess to follow, it's extremely unbalanced... but it's one of the few games that can actually boast choice as a feature...<.<
well if you REALLY look into what he's saying there are a lot of games that he's not saying are NOT worth playing just not worth getting excited over...yeah only 1 in 10,000 games for him have 0-3 things to complain about but ah it's whatever he and I have different tastes and personalities hahaVault101 said:
but ur right, we do have [to have] our own opinions (altho some gripes with some games are quite obvious and understandable)
Bioware would just fuck it all up by using their usual formula.Therumancer said:
You are the newest member of (yeah whatever) and you must assemble a rag-tag group of followers (only 2 or 3 of them you'll bother to use unless forced to by missions/quests) to prevent (bad event of the week). Along the way there will be plot twists that 99% of people who've already played a Bioware game will guess within the first hour. You will be able to romance one or two of your followers but as they'll be the usual cast of stock Bioware personality types they'll be about as interesting as soggy cardboard. The women will tend toward bitchiness and the men will tend toward mental retardation.
Did I miss anything?
Yes, it works for Bioware while they only put out a limited number of IP but expand that too much and 'interesting if somewhat formulaic' becomes 'not this shit again' very quickly.Vault101 said:
If anyone were to make a 'spiritual successor' to Alpha Protocol I'd want it to be some Eastern European dev so it would remain compelling, quirky and buggy . I like my flawed gem games.