Poll: Alpha Protocol 2, anyone?

[SFMB]

A week ago I browsed through my 200 game Steam catalog to find something to play and somehow I noticed Alpha Protocol on my list (maybe because it starts with an "A"), and started to play it again. Mind you, I bought it and played it about a year ago, but it still worked very well for me, even though there is little in the way of replay value. Sure, it has some bugs, still, but I don't see the negative reputation it's been given. It is a damn good game: well written and the combat and sneaking are executed very well, too. The dialog-wheel is much better than any of the Mass Effects or the like, mainly because of lack of the awkward silences while the player is making the choice (there is a timer).

The point is, for those who didn't read the fairly short text above, is: would you like to see a sequel for the game? I know I would.

 

[Altorin]

I'd play it. But they've already said no to a sequel.

It's a shame.

 

[Zhukov]

Urgh, God no.

The first game was a complete mess. Clumsy gameplay, poor RPG elements, poorly paced and convoluted story, general lack of polish and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen. Also, being made by Obsidian and all, it was loaded to the brim with bugs.

It gave the player a good feel of choice, but that's about all it had going for it.

Sega very wisely dismissed any notion of sequel.

 

[SFMB]

Yeah, it is a shame. I liked the protagonist Thornton much more than any Dragon Age or Mass Effect lead character... His dialog was good and to the point. No nonsense crap like oh-so-many "epic rpg's"...

 

[number2301]

I thought it was great, I'd love to see something similar made by Obsidian. It wasn't particularly buggy at all when I played it, the conversation system was great and the plot was quite good if a bit generic and vague at times.

The gameplay was a bit rough, but when was that ever a concern for RPGs?

 

[SajuukKhar]

Urgh, God no.

The first game was a complete mess. Clumsy gameplay, poor RPG elements, poorly paced and convoluted story, general lack of polish and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen. Also, being made by Obsidian and all, it was loaded to the brim with bugs.

It gave the player a good feel of choice, but that's about all it had going for it.

Sega very wisely dismissed any notion of sequel.

I am going to have to go with this right here.

Alpha Protocol was..... well.... crap.

Most of its mechanics were broken.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Urgh, God no.

The first game was a complete mess. Clumsy gameplay, poor RPG elements, poorly paced and convoluted story, general lack of polish and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen. Also, being made by Obsidian and all, it was loaded to the brim with bugs.

It gave the player a good feel of choice, but that's about all it had going for it.

Sega very wisely dismissed any notion of sequel.

i will say that doing anything besides pistol+sneak was highly underpowered or not worth it as a legit/fun strategy, and that the mechanics weren't that smooth, but they seriously weren't THAT bad.

and how was that the very worst dialogue system you've ever seen? do you not touch any other rpg's outside of alpha protocol? it was different, to be sure, and regardless of if i liked the timer or not it wasn't horrible,.

OT: I liked the setting and some of the characters were great, and any bugs i encountered either completely didn't matter or a simple reload from the autosave fixed it, but overall it lacked alot of polish. Still was interesting though, glad I got it after all the horrid reviews it got.

 

[Biodeamon]

as long as they tell me how i'm eating a cake in the sequel

cause currently all they tell me is that i can eat this cake like a joking smartass, a complete by-the-book hardass, or a complete evil asshole

 

[Spoonius]

Liked the interactivity between narrative elements (consequences of choices were really flexible and interesting), but everything else was fairly bland. The firearm controls were total balls.

OP, you need a "meh" option.

 

[Zhukov]

...and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen.

and how was that the very worst dialogue system you've ever seen? do you not touch any other rpg's outside of alpha protocol? it was different, to be sure, and regardless of if i liked the timer or not it wasn't horrible,.

You know that problem you sometimes encounter in the Mass Effect games where you misinterpret the little dialogue option summary and Shepard says something somewhat different to what you intended? So instead of taking a friendly jab at another character Shepard turns around and suggests that they fuck themselves with a rusty iron fence paling.

Well, Alpha Protocol takes that and turns it up to eleven because the dialogue option summaries are only one word long. For example, in the very first scene when Mina asks how you want to deal with the guard outside I chose the option labelled "Ambush" because, hey, that sounds sneaky and intelligent. Then Thorton opens his stupid mouth and says, "Hey lady, set off the alarm. That'll get their attention!" Because "Ambush" is a great way to summarise "Deliberately alert the armed guard to my presence so he rushes in and starts shooting my dumb arse."

That was bad enough, but then they went and added in a timer. That way I'm not just struggling to predict what flavour of idiocy is hiding behind each single-word summary, but I'm trying to do it while under pressure because apparently Thorton is too cool to take his time in deciding what to say.

So yeah, like I said, quite possibly the worst dialogue system I've ever encountered.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

...and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen.

and how was that the very worst dialogue system you've ever seen? do you not touch any other rpg's outside of alpha protocol? it was different, to be sure, and regardless of if i liked the timer or not it wasn't horrible,.

You know that problem you sometimes encounter in the Mass Effect games where you misinterpret the little dialogue option summary and Shepard says something somewhat different to what you intended? So instead of taking a friendly jab at another character Shepard turns around and suggests that they fuck themselves with a rusty iron fence paling.

Well, Alpha Protocol takes that and turns it up to eleven because the dialogue option summaries are only one word long. For example, in the very first scene when Mina asks how you want to deal with the guard outside I chose the option labelled "Ambush" because, hey, that sounds sneaky and intelligent. Then Thorton opens his stupid mouth and says, "Hey lady, set off the alarm. That'll get their attention!" Because "Ambush" is a great way to summarise "Deliberately alert the armed guard to my presence so he rushes in and starts shooting my dumb arse."

That was bad enough, but then they went and added in a timer. That way I'm not just struggling to predict what flavour of idiocy is hiding behind each single-word summary, but I'm trying to do it while under pressure because apparently Thorton is too cool to take his time in deciding what to say.

So yeah, like I said, quite possibly the worst dialogue system I've ever encountered.

i think the timer is subjective, i personally would rather have more time to choose but i think it helps keep the flow of the game going.

Even though I never had such a problem, and I must have seemed to always understood what they meant by it, I will agree that having more context with each option should have happened.

however, that doesn't make it the worst at all, there are tons of games out there that slap together power pointesque style text responses that are more of a drab to read/listen to than your average high school book that your required to read.

I think the one word summary was meant to be a sort of "impulse" so that you keep with the flow of the game and impulsively answer on the go rather than take your time and analyze everything out to a fine point, but ehh, different strokes i guess. Still stand that there are much worse out there and that I don't think the game should be crucified for trying something different.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Urgh, God no.

The first game was a complete mess. Clumsy gameplay, poor RPG elements, poorly paced and convoluted story, general lack of polish and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen. Also, being made by Obsidian and all, it was loaded to the brim with bugs.

It gave the player a good feel of choice, but that's about all it had going for it.

Sega very wisely dismissed any notion of sequel.

I disagree with just about every one of your asserts save the clumsy gameplay. The fact that stealth required such an investment meant most people turned it into an action game and that game was a piss poor shooter.

As far as pacing? Seemed fine to me. They set the stakes in the beginning and give you a vague idea of what you need to do to stop horror. Along the way you find out what you need to do in order to stop the horror in each case. Then you stop the horror. And convoluted story? It's an espionage game. The genre is defined by twists. And the dialog system was quite excellent given the sort of game they were going for. You made choices in a limited timeframe based on incomplete and ambiguous information. As far as bugs, personally I didn't really see any of those. The game ran perfectly fine on PC and 360 for me. Most of the problems I did see came from those poor mechanical design choices.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Yes another would be cool, BUT they need to adress every single problem with it before anyone even mentions the idea of a sequel.
Hell they might be better off just redoing it with the same title and just washing that old filth away.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I really enjoyed Alpha Protocol. The mini games were fun and challenging, there was a good sense of progression as you leveled and the dialogue mechanic is the favourite I've seen in an RPG. Rather than choosing from a pre-determined list of responses or a vague outline of what you might say, it always offers you three choices corresponding to a Bond, Bauer, Bourne style of agent. There's also the class, skill and context based options too.
It's also one of the only games where I felt my choices did something. Like if you choose to go non-lethal in the first post-training mission then you later get a free pass with the leader of the goons and some additional intel.

Sure the story wasn't brilliant and the combat was less than stellar, but that's sequels are for right? Alpha Protocol went in with some good ideas, but ultimately SEGA would rather discard the IP than letting another developer try and fix it.

I never understood why publishers and developers feel that if a game wasn't recieved with five gold stars that the IP isn't even worth looking at. Hell it didn't even do that bad, Metacritic has it down as an average 7.5, 6.9, 7.3 for users with about the same from critics. If that isn't sequel worthy then what the hell?

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Obvious console port was obvious. The two things I remember about that game besides the stupid dialog system was that gadgets were a pain in the ass to use because of awkward controls and the hacking. Good god the hacking. What was obviously designed for two stick controllers translated into precise WASD controls for one section, and an extremely sensitive to the point of frustration mouse control for the other half. I failed so many hacks because I simply could not line up the thing in time. So I guess no to AP2 unless they completely redid the whole thing

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Even with all it's flaws I loved the game. It's amazing how branching the story is. Talking with people, and the way you talk with them, buying intel, the way you finish your missions all affected the outcome of pretty much everything in a very meaningful way. Not even The Witcher could pull that off. But it came with a price of broken gameplay mechanics and a whole army of bugs and glitches.


I would love a sequel. But we can't have nice things, can we?

 

[goose4291]

Yes but as has been said earlier, sadly SEGA have said it isn't going to happen. Damn them.

 

[The Madman]

Sure, I'd love another. One of Obsidian's weaker projects all things considered but it still had some great ideas and I still like the premise. I'd give it another go.

 

[malestrithe]

Maybe if they figured out a way to make the Friend and murder routes actually impact the ending.

Otherwise, I just can't be bothered.

 

[dyre]

I liked the game despite its many, many flaws, but I think I'd only buy it if Obsidian fired its current quality control people and hired completely new ones.

and quite possibly the very worst dialogue system I've ever seen.

oh man, so much this. If you mean "choosing the 'snarky' option very possibly leads to your character shooting the other guy in the face" thing, that is.