Alpha Protocol

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Overall it's not as bad as some people made it sound like (at least in its current patched state), but it's certainly not a great game either. In my humble opinion, it comes off as a poor man's Deus Ex.

Weird, I consider it to be the exact opposite.

I have played this game for two days straight and found the combat much superior to Deus Ex (not to speak of the boss battles...). There are plenty of different abilities, lots of ways to spec and most of the hybrid playstyles are pretty viable.

I am playing as a shotgun-wielding kung-fu master who stealthely obliterates his enemies. There are much more map routes which I can take and the stealth approch is much less infuriating than it was in Deus Ex. Overall, I am having lots of fun.

The plot is entertaining, but what absolutely won my heart were the shit ton of decisions I can take and which heavily influence the plot. Since you only get like 5-10 seconds to choose an option, you are going to fuck up at least one decision. Still, it's an absolutely amazing experience. Think fast and deal with the consequences.

As for bugs, during 20-30 hours play-time I have encountered only one minor glitch. An enemy got stuck in a crate and was invulnerable. A quick reload fixed it.

Overall, I am heavily recommending this game to fans of RPGs and stealth games.

That sounds a lot like my experience with it. After playing Alpha Protocol, I was unable to enjoy DE:HR and gave up on it about ten hours in. As broken as a lot of the mechanics in AP are, it was still more satisfying to play, because the story and characters were so much more engaging, and the decisions (and the way you were forced to make them) actually felt like they made a difference. Plus you could actually punch people in the face if you were standing right next to them and they saw you before you managed to choke them out. I have goddamn cybernetic implant arms. Why can't I punch this guy, you stupid asshole game?

Ahem. Anyway, yeah, surprisingly almost no bugs, just some stuff that felt unfinished/unbalanced. And despite that, I still had a great time and intend to replay it some day. It's a bit tragic that Sega owns the IP and has publicly said they have zero interest in a sequel, even though Obsidian has said they would do it and fix what went wrong with the first if they had the chance.

 

[Unia]

I know I'm late to the party for actually answering OP, but here's my two cents. I got a physical copy of the game I currently can't play because the "unintrusive one-time confirmation" DRM has suddenly denied access. This upsets me as I was thinking of doing a third play-through. I usually don't bother with multiple playthroughs. Make of that what you will.

 

[MetalDooley]

wow, and i've beat the game 7+ times already and I never knew that little tid bit...

where did you learn that? I must've missed some dossier/intel somewhere on a mission, and never realized it..

gah, see? this is where AP's strength comes in for me, there are so many damn intricate details that change the story up depending on how you respond/prepare.

Honestly no idea.It just came up in conversation with Madison.Might have something to do with the fact that I left the Rome mission until last during that playthrough.Think I did Taipei then Moscow then Rome

I might be wrong on this, but that info can be found in

Spoiler

Marburg's mansion, in a secret room in the garden right before you escape the place

Thing is though that I'd discovered that secret room on my first playthrough so I went to it on all subsequent playthroughs and collected the stuff there and that info never came up until the 4th time

That wouldn't be so much of a problem if the options given weren't so unclear and ambiguous they could mean anything. I remember this one situation where I had to get some info out of this bloke, and I picked an option that seemed rather innocent, whereupon my character socked the guy in the face. I got my info in the end, so I guess this could be considered nitpicking, but that wasn't the approach I was going for, game!

I don't see how it's unclear or ambiguous at all.Westridge tells you at the beginning of the game that it's your attitude when you say something that's important rather than what you actually say and the attitudes were perfectly clear.B was professional/by the book,Y was ruthless/tough guy,X was suave/smartass and A was special actions.Not that hard to figure out

 

[NearLifeExperience]

That wouldn't be so much of a problem if the options given weren't so unclear and ambiguous they could mean anything. I remember this one situation where I had to get some info out of this bloke, and I picked an option that seemed rather innocent, whereupon my character socked the guy in the face. I got my info in the end, so I guess this could be considered nitpicking, but that wasn't the approach I was going for, game!

I don't see how it's unclear or ambiguous at all.Westridge tells you at the beginning of the game that it's your attitude when you say something that's important rather than what you actually say and the attitudes were perfectly clear.B was professional/by the book,Y was ruthless/tough guy,X was suave/smartass and A was special actions.Not that hard to figure out

I admit nitpicking here I remember screwing up bad a couple of times, because there are actually some moments in which the game provides you options that aren't immediately clear what they do, though it is true what you say, 99% of the game it's pretty clear.

It sure is a good way to keep the player's attention, but I dunno.. having 3 (or was it 5? Can't remember) seconds to respond in conversation feels even stranger than having all the time in the world somehow.

Mind you, I haven't played the game in a long time.
I played through it once, then forgot about it, I suppose it's cool in a 'less qq more pew pew' kind of way

 

[Norrdicus]

I meant does killing or knocking them out have any effect on the game?

Uhh, aside from some exceptional cases where one of your potential future contacts will get pissed about you killing his/her men, there's only:

*You get better XP for non-lethal approach.
*You can learn some decent passives by trying not to kill people, giving you up to +35 endurance, -10% Enemy Sight Range, -20% Movement Noise and -5% Evasion Cooldown

 

[StashAugustine]

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.

Yeah, the story itself is pretty weak. The good parts are a) the writing is usually pretty good and b) you've got so much freedom to mess around with the story.

 

[aguspal]

Alpha Protocol...


Um. That one game where everything was okey I guess... but just okey, nothing impressive. I guess it was unique with the dialoge options, yeah, but it wasnt THAT impressive, as I said already.


What I mainly remember of this game is this one pistol skill, Chainshot. Overpowered much? I didnt even intended it, neither. I just thougt than the skill sounded cool. I didnt knew it was so massively OP. Oh well.

 

[The_Lost_King]

I remember that game.
When it says decsissions and consequences, it means it.
I ended up getting locked out of the best ending because I accidently killed someone I shouldn't have.

It wasn't balaanced well either. I remember I was planning on going all James Bond like, with a focus on pistols, computers, and stealth. I can't remember what computers or stealth was like, but I remember the pistol was super under powered and I was stuck with the starting one the whole time, because it cost way too much to buy a better gun.

Pistols are really good if you actually wait for the crosshairs to allight and shoot the person. Stealth was good and computers was meh and how did you not have enough money to buy a new pistol? That is why it sucked

OT: It is .39 cents on amazon for a used copy on amazon get it.

 

[triggrhappy94]

I remember that game.
When it says decsissions and consequences, it means it.
I ended up getting locked out of the best ending because I accidently killed someone I shouldn't have.

It wasn't balaanced well either. I remember I was planning on going all James Bond like, with a focus on pistols, computers, and stealth. I can't remember what computers or stealth was like, but I remember the pistol was super under powered and I was stuck with the starting one the whole time, because it cost way too much to buy a better gun.

Pistols are really good if you actually wait for the crosshairs to allight and shoot the person. Stealth was good and computers was meh and how did you not have enough money to buy a new pistol? That is why it sucked

OT: It is .39 cents on amazon for a used copy on amazon get it.

All I remember of the game was that I got locked out of the best ending, I hardly had enough money for anything, and there was a really hot emo chick.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

I remember that game.
When it says decsissions and consequences, it means it.
I ended up getting locked out of the best ending because I accidently killed someone I shouldn't have.

It wasn't balaanced well either. I remember I was planning on going all James Bond like, with a focus on pistols, computers, and stealth. I can't remember what computers or stealth was like, but I remember the pistol was super under powered and I was stuck with the starting one the whole time, because it cost way too much to buy a better gun.

Pistols are really good if you actually wait for the crosshairs to allight and shoot the person. Stealth was good and computers was meh and how did you not have enough money to buy a new pistol? That is why it sucked

OT: It is .39 cents on amazon for a used copy on amazon get it.

I started playing the game very recently and while I will agree that the balance is wonky as hell, pistols are god-tier. Killing an enemy from behind a wall with perfect accuracy in a single bullet? Bringing down bosses in seconds with chain shot?

Underpowered, I guess.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I've tried to play this game three times. The third time was recently, and I tried so bad to make myself push through, including the switch to gamepad on PC. My main issue is that movement feels so...muddy, like your feet are in quicksand, and the camera is really sensitive and wonky. Then there's the damned hacking minigame. I'm cool with the lockpicking and shit, but the computer hacking is the stupidest thing I've ever been asked to do in any game experience of any kind. I've even looked up youtube videos and it doesn't clarify it better than the tutorial itself. I love Deus Ex and HR, and I want to like this game a lot as I get the impression that things get really awesome, but damn if this many people have done multiple playthroughs I might be missing a vital component in my brain somewhere.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

Hacking
1. Glance at the two numbers (top left and right) and then just focus on the left number to begin with, and note in your head/whisper under your breath a sequence of 3-5 numbers so you can recognise it in the matrix of numbers below.

2. Scan the matrix of numbers by not focusing your eyes, just pretty much using a degree of peripheral vision to look for line of numbers that aren't flashing (look for a lack of movement) - when you find one, if part of it matches the sequence you're looking for, move that number down to overlap it exactly, otherwise move the other number down to overlap.

3. Repeat with the other number (you don't have to memorise a part of its sequence, due to the process of elimination).

(I was using PS3 so dragging the numbers was pretty simple)