Stolen Pixels #205: The Bullet Massage

[ravensshade]

Spoiler

You can use the sniper rifle in the other tower to defeat Darcy (still a gun, I know, but you won't get any penalty for lack of invested skillpoints) and you can sneak/run up to Lelands position... he gives up immediately after you enter the room he's in.

Spoiler

just curious did your leland shoot rockets at you? if so then i didn't find the way to him.. if he didn't then well you had a different leland then i did for the end..

 

[RelexCryo]

lolz hate it when a game does this. Just like MMO's and their single player quest chain into a force GROUP quest!

I DESPISE forced grouping. That said, I found Your article hilarious Shammus. And spot on as far as complaints go.

 

[Worgen]

oh you did not just insult the epic shoot fest that is serious sam, besides your wrong too, nothing in serious sam takes a fuck ton of shots to kill, you will just fight alot of everything that takes alot of ammo, and its bloody good times

 

[duchaked]

hahaha this was hilarious =)

I really wanna play Deus Ex but it's just too bloody old =/

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Man, the bosses in Alpha Protocol are just so inconsiderate.

Tsk, tsk Shamus. Don't you know you are supposed to play the game how they want you to and not how you want to?

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Spoiler

You can use the sniper rifle in the other tower to defeat Darcy (still a gun, I know, but you won't get any penalty for lack of invested skillpoints) and you can sneak/run up to Lelands position... he gives up immediately after you enter the room he's in.

Spoiler

just curious did your leland shoot rockets at you? if so then i didn't find the way to him.. if he didn't then well you had a different leland then i did for the end..

I'm pretty sure neither of you is actually talking about Leland - you probably mean Westridge. Leland is not exactly a fighter, he has Marberg for that (unless you've convinced him not to get involved that is).

 

[ravensshade]

I'm pretty sure neither of you is actually talking about Leland - you probably mean Westridge. Leland is not exactly a fighter, he has Marberg for that (unless you've convinced him not to get involved that is).

actually i was fighting leland stupid rockets of his.. westridge was nowhere to be found (said so on mission ending thingy)

 

[BlindTom]

Leland shot rockets at me and he was the easiest boss I faced. Why? Because I had so many points in sneaking that I was half chameleon or something.

Shadow Operative + a minute of immersion breaking jogging past all his guards = Leland's snotty blubbering face being slammed into a wall.

In fact for a stealth character that seems to be every boss in the game. Occasionally you have to stick a few mines down but Alpha Protocol's 'stealth' boils down to managing the cooldown on your invisibility spell.

EDIT:

Spoiler

You fight Wesridge instead of Leland if you side with him. Wesridge fires from a turret that leaves only his immobile head exposed so he's even more broken than Leland.

 

[Ziren]

Spoiler

You can use the sniper rifle in the other tower to defeat Darcy (still a gun, I know, but you won't get any penalty for lack of invested skillpoints) and you can sneak/run up to Lelands position... he gives up immediately after you enter the room he's in.

Spoiler

just curious did your leland shoot rockets at you? if so then i didn't find the way to him.. if he didn't then well you had a different leland then i did for the end..

I'm pretty sure neither of you is actually talking about Leland - you probably mean Westridge. Leland is not exactly a fighter, he has Marberg for that (unless you've convinced him not to get involved that is).

Spoiler

You can fight either Westridge or Leland at the end (depending on your choices). The difference is, that Westridge uses machine guns and doesn't give up immediatly when you get close enough to him. To go into their room you have to sneak/run to the opposite end of the room. There's a set of stairs on the left side. Go up to the platform and follow the right path until youreach the code panel. Open the door to make Leland cover in fear or fight against Westridge who is simply a much weaker Marburg without his machine guns

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Spoiler

You can use the sniper rifle in the other tower to defeat Darcy (still a gun, I know, but you won't get any penalty for lack of invested skillpoints) and you can sneak/run up to Lelands position... he gives up immediately after you enter the room he's in.

Spoiler

just curious did your leland shoot rockets at you? if so then i didn't find the way to him.. if he didn't then well you had a different leland then i did for the end..

I'm pretty sure neither of you is actually talking about Leland - you probably mean Westridge. Leland is not exactly a fighter, he has Marberg for that (unless you've convinced him not to get involved that is).

Spoiler

You can fight either Westridge or Leland at the end (depending on your choices). The difference is, that Westridge uses machine guns and doesn't give up immediatly when you get close enough to him. To go into their room you have to sneak/run to the opposite end of the room. There's a set of stairs on the left side. Go up to the platform and follow the right path until youreach the code panel. Open the door to make Leland cover in fear or fight against Westridge who is simply a much weaker Marburg without his machine guns

Huh. I always thought there must have been a way up to that room but I somehow overlooked it both times? Eh, chain shot did the trick either way.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

So, Alpha Protocol is officially the "cool to hate" game of the moment? I haven't played it myself and I'm willing to take everyone's word that it sucks, but the joke is getting old now. Especially in this case, where Yahtzee said the exact same thing as this comic except in text form.

5 for comedy, 0 for originality

 

[Bevvie]

So, Alpha Protocol is officially the "cool to hate" game of the moment? I haven't played it myself and I'm willing to take everyone's word that it sucks, but the joke is getting old now. Especially in this case, where Yahtzee said the exact same thing as this comic except in text form.

5 for comedy, 0 for originality

A fair point. Also, Shamus' comic features bipedal creatures with opposable thumbs. How many comics have done that before.

Perhaps we should set up some kind of guild to ensure no two webcomics write about the same game. There's like what? 10 notable releases a month? So we'll probably have to do a bit of pruning. Someone go tell Penny Arcade their comic is now about shrubs and shurb related products.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

A lot of RPG with a "sneak" skill get that wrong, as soon as you sneak up to the boss CUTSCENE! Then after the cutscene you're out of sneak and decently fucked.

 

[jabrwock]

A lot of RPG with a "sneak" skill get that wrong, as soon as you sneak up to the boss CUTSCENE! Then after the cutscene you're out of sneak and decently fucked.

Considering most of those cutscenes have you epic splattering the boss, I think however sneaky you were coming in, the guards have most definitely noticed that you offed the boss...

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

A lot of RPG with a "sneak" skill get that wrong, as soon as you sneak up to the boss CUTSCENE! Then after the cutscene you're out of sneak and decently fucked.

Considering most of those cutscenes have you epic splattering the boss, I think however sneaky you were coming in, the guards have most definitely noticed that you offed the boss...

No no, a cutscene right before the Boss.

 

[Joabbuac]

The skill system is really unbalanced....my shotgun welding stealth guy was a god...pretty much unstoppable in any situation.

 

[Snowden's Secret]

I'd say that Omen "You're in over your head" Deng probably went to the same Video Game Boss Academy as Albert "You can't hide forever!" Wesker.

 

[Miral]

Once you're behind him, it's simplicity itself to get up on the bridge and sneak up on him, and when you do, there isn't even a fight - the game just transitions to a cutscene of you jump-kicking the dude off of the bridge, there is no fight at all.

Now later boss fights like Brayko and Deng, those are exactly like you've described them (though Omen's was a cakewalk compared to Brayko, which pretty much plays out exactly like Yahtzee described it vis a vi Benny Hill-style running away), but the first "boss fight" isn't even a fight unless you screw up being stealthy.

This. Although Deng is actually pretty easy, as long as you're paying attention to his dossier (he wears body armour, so you have to use armour piercing bullets, headshots, or melee). I took him out with a combo of melee and assault rifle to the face -- didn't even use up a quarter of my ammo.

Brayko and Darcy are the only ones you can't really use stealth on, but even in Darcy's fight you can get a big advantage if you have Shadow Operative.

 

[Namewithheld]

Darcy's fight has a fucking SNIPER RIFLE hidden in a nearby tower. Lockpick into the tower, go up, then cap the grenade spamming **** trice in the face.

Done and DONE.