It's actually pretty cool. I haven't finished it yet but I love how you don't really know who to trust in this game. They did a great job on the story. My only two criticisms are one, I don't really care for the opening / menu music. I'm not into hard synth stuff much. Also there's this boss fight (and I agree with yahtzee on this) where instead of letting you beat the guy, it goes to a cutscene and shows the main character firing the rocket launcher. I felt kind of denied. Those short comings aside it's decently fun, give it a try if you like a modern day "Mass Effect" type game.
For me, it was the best game of 2010, yes better than Mass Effect 2.
The timed conversations were great and add a certain element of surprise, but you do have a hint of what you are about to say.
The stealth might not be too good and there are a few glitches but nothing more than other games have.
And it has the best performance by Nolan North before Spec Ops, Stephen Heck (I don't have a PS3 so I don't know about Nathan Drake).
The best part is the choices you make have actual consequences.
And I am a Pakistani, so I really liked that for once the Arab character is not a stereotypical villain.
One thing that really bugged me about it and made me stop playing was the enemy AI. It basically had some really no-no flaws that you just can't have in a stealth-game, such as hive-mind AI (if one enemy sees you, regardless if he manages to alert others or not everyone immidiately knows where you are).
It could have been great, as it stands it felt quite unfinished.
It has shitty combat mechanics and mini-games that can be annoying as fuck at times. There's pixel skipping as well that can make it hard to aim at longer distances.
It contains some of the best RPG mechanics out of perhaps any game. The responsiveness of the dialogue system is amazing as to how you can push peoples buttons to make them act rashly, or say what they want to hear to get on their good side. The story is well written. The dialogue is well written. There are some really interesting characters that aren't one dimensional(Steven Heck, need I say more?)
I bought it on sale for like 5$ because I was being cautious, but probably would have paid more for it. I can deal with shitty combat mechanics if writing is really good, because I really like RPG stories. If you can't overlook that aspect, then the game probably is not for you.
Arif_Sohaib said:
And I am a Pakistani, so I really liked that for once the Arab character is not a stereotypical villain.
He kills a bunch of innocent civilians on a plane for the shock value. Just because he's being used as a puppet by an American spy organization and a corporation does not make him any less evil; it just makes him stupider.
It's a good game with great a great story in which choices matter and forthcoming missions and NPCs Thorton meets adapt to the player's approach and style. I've played it through 4 or more times since its release in 2010 and probably will again in the future.
It sadly falls a little short of greatness because of a few poor design choices (minigames, checkpoints, unintelligent AI, weapon selection, unbalanced and out-of-place skills, etc) and reported bugs, which I have to admit I've personally never actually encountered at all in all the playthrus (minus rare texture pop-in).
It joins the category of "flawed gems" alongside VTM: Bloodlines, Borderlands and what I'm currently playing, Sleeping Dogs. It's a shame Sega simply wrote-it-off so thoroughly, as there will never be any mods, DLCs, patches or sequels, because I think done better it would be a masterpiece.
Pro-tip: Carry 2-3 pockets worth of EMP grenades for dealing with all hacking minigames. You're welcome
I really enjoy Alpha Protocol. I like how the conversation system works and how the choices I make do make an impact on the story. I like how if I do one mission in one place a character could talk about it in another mission.
I would love to see a sequel or even see Obsidian team up with another developer to make a sequel. Like perhaps they could team up with Bioware, Bethesda, Arkane Studios, or CD Projekt Red.
Personally i enjoyed the hell out of this game. the only design decision i never understood was making smgs dual wielded...when your a spec ops/secret agent i will never understand the idea of dual wielding smgs. 2 clips later youve killed a handful of people.at close range. ugh
I played through the PC version (purchased from Steam) three times. I haven't encountered any bugs. The only 2 things that annoyed me was one needlessly difficult boss fight (described in Zero Punctuation's review of the game), and one needlessly difficult lock that required me to switch from using my gamepad to using my keyboard and mouse to solve it quickly enough.
It's one of my all time favorites and I highly recommend it, if you can bear with the problems I described and maybe some bugs that will require you to reload to a checkpoint or restart a mission (didn't happen to me, but I read some complaints).
I really tried to like this game but it was the dodgy mini games for things like hacking that annoyed me. I failed so many times at hacking simple things.
The stealth was ok, a bit annoying that it is like Chaos Theory when you are caught in which every mo' fo on the map knows your location even in pitch black
One thing that really bugged me about it and made me stop playing was the enemy AI. It basically had some really no-no flaws that you just can't have in a stealth-game, such as hive-mind AI (if one enemy sees you, regardless if he manages to alert others or not everyone immidiately knows where you are).
It could have been great, as it stands it felt quite unfinished.
Maybe that's because it's not a stealth game, but an action RPG that laughably tries to implement some stealth mechanics, failing horribly in doing so.
Anyway, I'm surprised that people think the story is good. A PMC that is secretely evil, the protagonist going rogue and getting entangled in a clusterfuck of conspiracies and motivations? Smashing concept, if it wasn't for the other 15 billion games that used this. We've seen it all before, and better.
Pro tip: Don't try to play Alpha Protocol immediately after finishing a Pacifist run on Deus Ex: HR.
Putting it mildly, the game is unrefined. Trying to ghost through is a lesson in frustration since it is very easy for NPC's to glitch and make silent progress impossible. Guards will often get stuck (their path finding seems to shut off). This is a problem when they get stuck facing the only way through an area. They can also cut their paths in half and traverse the same 2 -3 steps repeatedly.
Also, you know in Deus Ex how the NPC's have weight when they turn? This gives you a subtle visual clue when they're about to turn and gives you a split second to get into cover. Alpha Protocol's NPC's all do an immediate about face when they turn. Combine this with the previous bug and I've seen guards take two steps, about face, take two steps back, about face, repeat. Good luck sneaking past that.
And don't get me started on the cover systems.
Despite all that Alpha Protocol is a solidgood fun experience if you can get past the warts. I certainly think it does dialogue better than Deus Ex, and the ending gives a lot more closure.
Other than that, however, Deus Ex is a more complete and polished game.
It has shitty combat mechanics and mini-games that can be annoying as fuck at times. There's pixel skipping as well that can make it hard to aim at longer distances.
It contains some of the best RPG mechanics out of perhaps any game. The responsiveness of the dialogue system is amazing as to how you can push peoples buttons to make them act rashly, or say what they want to hear to get on their good side. The story is well written. The dialogue is well written. There are some really interesting characters that aren't one dimensional(Steven Heck, need I say more?)
I bought it on sale for like 5$ because I was being cautious, but probably would have paid more for it. I can deal with shitty combat mechanics if writing is really good, because I really like RPG stories. If you can't overlook that aspect, then the game probably is not for you.
Arif_Sohaib said:
And I am a Pakistani, so I really liked that for once the Arab character is not a stereotypical villain.
He kills a bunch of innocent civilians on a plane for the shock value. Just because he's being used as a puppet by an American spy organization and a corporation does not make him any less evil; it just makes him stupider.
I am not saying he isn't a villain, he isn't a 'stereotypical' villain,
he is given a chance to explain his actions and his hatred of the US which led him to shoot down the plane. He does that as a way of telling the Americans to stop trying to run his country, to stop looting his country. His entire motivation isn't the usual "Lets destroy the west for no reason" approach which most games take. The game does not shy away from saying why he does what he does and why others are so willing to join him. For the first time, I think, the political and social aspect of the war is shown instead of blaming it on religion.
I played through the PC version (purchased from Steam) three times. I haven't encountered any bugs. The only 2 things that annoyed me was one needlessly difficult boss fight (described in Zero Punctuation's review of the game), and one needlessly difficult lock that required me to switch from using my gamepad to using my keyboard and mouse to solve it quickly enough.
It's one of my all time favorites and I highly recommend it, if you can bear with the problems I described and maybe some bugs that will require you to reload to a checkpoint or restart a mission (didn't happen to me, but I read some complaints).
That fight can become needlessly easy if you talk to Stephen Heck and have a good reputation with him before it. Then check the store just before launching the mission.
I played through the PC version (purchased from Steam) three times. I haven't encountered any bugs. The only 2 things that annoyed me was one needlessly difficult boss fight (described in Zero Punctuation's review of the game), and one needlessly difficult lock that required me to switch from using my gamepad to using my keyboard and mouse to solve it quickly enough.
It's one of my all time favorites and I highly recommend it, if you can bear with the problems I described and maybe some bugs that will require you to reload to a checkpoint or restart a mission (didn't happen to me, but I read some complaints).
That fight can become needlessly easy if you talk to Stephen Heck and have a good reputation with him before it. Then check the store just before launching the mission.
On my first playthrough, I already mastered the Pistol skill and had an ability that lets me regenerate my other abilities, so the battle was easy. The problem is that it's not the same for all skill combinations (unarmed combat is very inefficient against). If you want to do your missions in a certain order or make certain specific plot choices, you won't be able to get the solution you described. Nonetheless, it's good to know, thanks.
To answer your question, I think Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was and still is one of the best stealth games ever made. Achieving 100% rating in all missions on the hardest difficulty setting was delightfully challenging. What a shame that the game went down the drain after that one, now dwelling in the sewers of bland mainstream action shooters with its latest installment Conviction
Really? That piss-easy pile of shit where you could knock out every enemy on the map without any reprecussions, linear as fuck mapdesign and bad story? Oo
Have you actually ever played a sealth'em'up before? The Splinter Cell series is in every installment worse than Alpha Protocol and in no way they can even hold the candle to the best of that genre.
I remember playing it but got bored after a certain point. What it did, has been done better (the dialogue thing was pretty cool though) and the romances were god-awful. I never got into the story, the characters never left an impression (except that Russian girl you can spare) The minigames were lame (Looking at you Hacking) the dice roll mechanics hindered the game (Thanks for shooting the guy in the shoulder after I had focused the cross-hair on his face ten yards away)
Seriously flawed, but a lot of people enjoyed it, so I can't tell you much as I never finished it, the game itself is VERY mixed in the gaming community.
Also, question, was there a difference in sneak killing them and knocking them out?
a lethal takedown would have killed them.
I never used that I would always knock them out. So I don't know if it used a different animation.
I never had a mission on a yacht. Yeah the sex scenes weren't very good they were as awkward as all hell. Especially SIE(the Russian MILF) yall fuck on a operating table while Mike was strapped down
As far as I remember, no, killing everyone has no real impact on the game over knocking them out. It's just faster and I think noisier.
And when I made the connection with Marburg's VA and Pete, it completely ruined the character for me. I just couldn't take him seriously afterwards.
OT: Pistols, man. Mother fucking pistols. Sooooooo overpowered. Headshotting people from down long hallways without the need to exit cover is just ridiculous.
And melee against bosses. Pop Fury and go to town on them, they turn to mush under your pummeling fists. Well...except for Brenko after he takes a hit of coke. Damn bastard cuts you to ribbons if you try.
Ya blew it buddy, it was on sale for like 2 bucks and a piece of string yesterday.
Was it worth it? I have no idea. I played for half an hour and I quite liked it.
And then I ran into the hacking minigame. Right now I'm debating on whether I should keep going or just deinstall and never look back again. Believe me when I say this: the hacking minigame is the most frustrating, annoying, unnecessary piece of shit I have ever seen in an RPG. How this thing got past playtesting is beyond me.
The thought that Obsidian actually believed the thing was worthy of making it into the final game actually scares me. I'm suddenly a lot less confident in Project Eternity. The minigame is so fucking bad it changed Project Eternity from a "Buy as soon as you can" to a "Lets wait what the reviews say" purchase for me.
I suspect the minigames were designed by the design team for the console version - lockpicking in particular is quite simple, and hacking is manageable as well - to a point. After a point, the hacking minigame becomes literally impossible unless you've levelled it up - but then again, that's the whole point of how Alpha Protocol works, you're not SUPPOSED to be able to do things easily, or at all, so you either have to EMP the alarm, kick down the door, or find another route.
I bloody loved the game, to some degree because I enjoy things about the game - it turns out differently depending on the order you do things in, multiple playthroughs end up yielding quite different stories, you have hilarious characters like Steven Heck, and the dialogue system a) makes itself a challenge at times because of the timer, and b) is anything but the clear-cut GOOD-EVIL dichotomy of Bioware.
It's a fun game with an unorthodox playstyle, and you have to be willing to abandon a couple preconceptions of rules of gameplay. A lot of the complaints I see about it ultimately amount to 'I hate it because it doesn't use the same rules for shooting/whatever as every other game I've ever played has.' Now, I'm not claiming that the gameplay is absolutely astounding, but it's definitely not bad, for me anyways, and the story more than makes up for it.
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