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BrawlMan

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For me, I remember a total of....well I guess 3 things, because the Russian lady banging my PC was a fairly unique gaming experience. It's honestly the only time in gaming I can recall a woman sexually (assaulting? I mean I did choose Agree, so I guess not) a protagonist as he's tied up on a table. So that was new I guess.

Other than that, I remember A. The thing with that merc group's owner and how he really liked me because I didn't kill his men, and was sneaky enough to avoid detection. And B. The fact that the game gave you little perks based on your playstyle, that further specialized your playstyle (the "you did a lot of sneaky takedowns, so here's a perk that makes you even harder to detect") That is literally all I remember about that game.

But, I might be a bit biased, as I genuinely don't like Obsidian's titles. Other than Tyranny, which was fun, but was still something of a chore to play through until I got to the part that wasn't me playing the servant of an asshole. Otherwise, I personally think they are highly overrated.
I don't think I played a single obsidian game. Not even once or out of curiosity. Other than Knights of the Old Republic 2. Nothing against them, but none of the games they have developed hold my interests.
 

happyninja42

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Usually when a story revolves around the plot, the characters are not as interesting, and vice versa. Alpha Protocol is one of those titles that's all about the characters. The plot is just there as something for these characters to be involved in. A reason for their existence. An opposite example would be Dragon Age 2. A cast of mostly boring characters who are there just to drive the plot that sets in motion the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
*shrugs* I guess I just have a different preference when it comes to gaming. See for me, the problem with your setup, the Characters over Plot scenario, is that I spend WAY more time in the game, dealing with the plot, than dealing with the characters. The little dialogue scenes were fairly sparse as I recall, compared to the time I'm spending running around doing shit in a plot I don't give a damn about. So the ratio of time I'm spending doing stuff I don't enjoy, on the hopes of a conversation with some npc's I like, just isn't worth the investment.

Though I just remembered a character that I did genuinely love in that game, but he was vastly underutilized, was the contact guy in Hong Kong. His introduction was hilarious if you go to him first.

You come into his place, and he's currently got a guy tied up to a chair, and is beating him yelling "Tell me where it is Lee!" (or whatever the guy's name was, I forget). He proceeds to semi-stop the interrogation to talk to you, and welcome you to Hong Kong, all the while the guy tied up is muttering through the duct tape, bloody, and looking terrified. The contact eventually goes back to beating him, pours gasoline on him, and holds out a lighter. "Ok Lee! Last chance! Tell me where they are!!" And you see Lee frantically nodding his head to the side, over to a table. The contact looks over there, and goes "Oh!! There are my keys!! Thanks Lee!!" Pockets them, and heads out of the room, leaving your character standing there completely baffled. That was hilarious, I won't lie.
 

happyninja42

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I don't think I played a single obsidian game. Not even once or out of curiosity. Other than Knights of the Old Republic 2. Nothing against them, but none of the games they have developed hold my interests.
I've played a few, but I never found them all that engaging. New Vegas, I found so boring that I stopped playing it like 3-4 times before I basically forced myself to finish it. And I had to roleplay as Dr. McNinja (not kidding, lab coat, katana, legion head wrap was closest "ninja mask" i could find) to be engaged enough to keep playing and finish it.
 

Adam Jensen

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I guess I just have a different preference when it comes to gaming.
I wasn't talking about my preference, I was merely explaining the difference between these two approaches to storytelling and how that relates to Alpha Protocol. I enjoy both. Real masterpieces are games that manage to combine an interesting story with interesting characters and engaging gameplay.
 
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BrawlMan

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And I had to roleplay as Dr. McNinja (not kidding, lab coat, katana, legion head wrap was closest "ninja mask" i could find) to be engaged enough to keep playing and finish it.
That is the name I haven't heard in a long while. Does the artist still even make comics of him anymore?
 

happyninja42

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That is the name I haven't heard in a long while. Does the artist still even make comics of him anymore?
No clue, haven't looked into his work for some time either. But I played the game so long ago, and at the time I was re-reading his stuff. Plus I think I just randomly came across a katana, and had a lab coat for the +science boost for skill checks and my brain just went ".....waaait a minute...." and that was that. Dr. McNinja run was born.
 
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Drathnoxis

Became a mass murderer for your sake
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I've called the combat in DragonAge: Origins a lot of things. Great is not one of them.
Yes, that is a bit of an understatement isn't it? Maybe 'sublime' is the word.

Thomas Was Alone

Basically an experiment in pareidolia: let's see how much humanity we can inject into a bunch of color rectangles trapped in a labyrinth by little else than the use of a nerdy British narration and a melancholy musical score. The game is all simple geometric shapes and monochromatic shading that make Sound Shapes (anothe great puzzle-platformer about basic geometry braving a death gauntlet) look like Skyrim. The puzzles themselves aren't as hard to solve as they are to figure out but the difficulty curve kicks up every other level and every new character brings a new gameplay mechanic into play. So overall it's engaging enough, and the story and characters keep things funny and interesting and endearing.
I really like Thomas Was Alone, but the story is really unmemorable to me. I replayed it around six months ago because I couldn't remember what the story was about, and now, half a year later I still can't. Something about lots of shapes coming from somewhere and doing... something. It built to some grand ending with sweeping music, but I just don't know what it entailed. Just goes to show how someone with a great voice reading to you can make anything captivating.
 
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Dalisclock

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Yes, that is a bit of an understatement isn't it? Maybe 'sublime' is the word.

I really like Thomas Was Alone, but the story is really unmemorable to me. I replayed it around six months ago because I couldn't remember what the story was about, and now, half a year later I still can't. Something about lots of shapes coming from somewhere and doing... something. It built to some grand ending with sweeping music, but I just don't know what it entailed. Just goes to show how someone with a great voice reading to you can make anything captivating.
I mean, there really isn't a story, other then the idea of an AI being born. The fact it has good narration and assigned names and personalities to the shapes was a surprisingly good move to turn a puzzle game into something people talk about for more then just the gameplay.

Almost done with spiritfarer I think. My boat population is getting really empty, pretty much everything is upgraded, I have more crops then I know what to do with and I'm about to let Bruce and Micky go. I also done a bunch of stuff for Buck and found the light ability, but I've gotten the offer to go through the everdoor myself.

Apparently there's one more spirit and I think I know where to find them but have no idea how to get to them(in a house I can't access). At this point I'm not sure if I want to bother. But yeah, Yathzee hit it on the head when he said how depressing the boat becomes when most of the spirits leave. You go from having at least a few at any given moment and running around doing stuff all the time(or not, depending on how chill you want to be) to like having pratically nobody aboard and you've got very little reason to use or even visit most of your buildings, but since they stay built once you build them(and there's no way to remove them), you have a floating ghost town on your spirit boat.

Stanley is just a heartbreaking character simply because He's the spirit of a child and most of his interactions are him thinking he's a fuck up because his mom was always yelling at him.
 
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happyninja42

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Werewolf: the Apocalypse:Heart of the Forrest demo.

It's nice. Very short, like maybe 15-20 minutes. It's just a text based adventure of the prologue leading up to what type of auspice you become when you go through your First Change. There is no real buildup in the demo, so I'm not sure if anyone who isn't already a fan of W:tA would get much out of it, but, then again, the idea that you know nothing about the Garou society is kind of a common thread in the World of Darkness, so it might fit. However at the end, when it told me what auspice I would become, it used the term from the game (Theurge, Crescent Moon), but anyone who isn't familiar would probably be like "um....ok?" It stops there, so there's not much else to it.

It does do a cool thing, in flavoring certain choices based on your stats. For example, if you make choices that reduce your Rage score to Zero, it opens up a lot of additional dialogue options that wouldn't have been available to you. As the inherent Rage born into the Garou, makes a lot of people/animals instinctively afraid of you. But with Rage zero, you can do things like have a cat rub up against you lovingly instead of hissing and running away. Getting clues from the woods around you instead of them falling silent at your presence. If you have a high Spirituality score, you get other more mystical options, etc. If you say/do things that make the NPCs like you, you get further options, etc. So it's a nice setup. It's very minimal, but, if you like Werewolf: the Apocalypse, it's a pretty fun little thing. I'm curious what it will be like when you actually have shapeshifting abilities, and access to Gifts and Rituals. But that's not developed yet so...*shrugs*
 
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SilentPony

Previously known as an alleged "Feather-Rustler"
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I'm playing the super mario 64 for switch. Its nostalgic, but boy howdy did these controls not age well. The camera is more a threat than the enemies, Mario cant seem to turn around without running, which for a platformer is pretty miserable, hitboxes are microscopic which combined with the janky 3D models and Mario's constant moving makes for a delightful experience. I had 13 lives going into that fucking penguin escort quest. I'll let you know when I finally finish it, as I ran out of lives.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Yes, that is a bit of an understatement isn't it? Maybe 'sublime' is the word.

I really like Thomas Was Alone, but the story is really unmemorable to me. I replayed it around six months ago because I couldn't remember what the story was about, and now, half a year later I still can't. Something about lots of shapes coming from somewhere and doing... something. It built to some grand ending with sweeping music, but I just don't know what it entailed. Just goes to show how someone with a great voice reading to you can make anything captivating.
I agree with you, the music and the narration sell the game. The story is about as basic as the game itself: a quest of going right and then up. I liked the characters, or rather the impressions of characters, more than the story itself as well. I thought the game did a good job as well at roughly depicting the dynamic push and pull of different personalities through puzzle solving. I lost some interest when that part of the game ended and the last 20 levels or so, creative as they get, took a more Evangelion approach to concluding the story.
 
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gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
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Holy Moly. Took over a day to finally get it right and get Watchdogs 2 from Epic Game for free and install it correctly so it plays nice with Uplay.
In less time I downloaded a Commodore 64 emulator and went to an "abandonware" webiste, learned how to use it and for the first time in about 35 years, played "Fortress of the Witch King". On a startling note, I have a lot of the most advanced gaming hardware on Earth... and this ancient abandoned game is about as much fun as I have had in a long time! Great nostalgia!

1600799390200.png
 

Trunkage

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Usually when a story revolves around the plot, the characters are not as interesting, and vice versa. Alpha Protocol is one of those titles that's all about the characters. The plot is just there as something for these characters to be involved in. A reason for their existence. An opposite example would be Dragon Age 2. A cast of mostly boring characters who are there just to drive the plot that sets in motion the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
And its still better than New Vegas with an even worse plot and pretty much no outstanding characters. How the hell do you make Felicia Day boring? The best character is Boone and that's mainly because they tried really hard not giving him a character but definitely showed something underneath all that toughness.

For me, I remember a total of....well I guess 3 things, because the Russian lady banging my PC was a fairly unique gaming experience. It's honestly the only time in gaming I can recall a woman sexually (assaulting? I mean I did choose Agree, so I guess not) a protagonist as he's tied up on a table. So that was new I guess.

Other than that, I remember A. The thing with that merc group's owner and how he really liked me because I didn't kill his men, and was sneaky enough to avoid detection. And B. The fact that the game gave you little perks based on your playstyle, that further specialized your playstyle (the "you did a lot of sneaky takedowns, so here's a perk that makes you even harder to detect") That is literally all I remember about that game.

But, I might be a bit biased, as I genuinely don't like Obsidian's titles. Other than Tyranny, which was fun, but was still something of a chore to play through until I got to the part that wasn't me playing the servant of an asshole. Otherwise, I personally think they are highly overrated.
I haven't played Tyranny yet. But yes, Obsidian is pretty over rated. The story in Pillar of Eternity isnt that much better than Skyrim. But they certainly make you walk much further for it. Being better than Bethesda is like saying Biden is better than Trump. Technically correct but doesn't remotely say its good

I like this one, because if you do your research, you know Alpha Protocol is pretty rotten well before you return. You deliberately start turning you targets against AP and start building a team to help you infiltrate. You already have some red flags pop up when talking to Parker the first time. But it has that problem of Disco Elysium. You can quite easily miss out on content, leading to a lesser experience. Not knowing that AP needs to be taken out because they literally are trying to cause WW3 would make the climax weird.
 

happyninja42

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I haven't played Tyranny yet. But yes, Obsidian is pretty over rated.
By the end, I will say I enjoyed where Tyranny was taking it's story. It's just, for me personally, I really dislike playing a bad guy. And you start out as basically the equivalent of say, Darth Vader to the Emperor, if there were like, dozens of Darth Vaders. But sort of a Darth Vader by way of promotional power. You are given a thing, that gives you some massive power, and a lot of authority, but a lot of people still give you shit. As you progress though, you genuinely become a badass. But, again, the start, you are working for a complete tyrannical dickhead. You can choose to break away (which I definitely did), and for me, that's when it became fun.

Being better than Bethesda is like saying Biden is better than Trump. Technically correct but doesn't remotely say its good
I disagree they are better then Bethesda, as at least FO 3 was stable, compared to New Vegas, which seems to be beloved these days by it's worshippers BECAUSE of how buggy it STILL is. Plus, the whole "Outer Worlds is a great game that shows Bethesda what for!" is total bullshit in my opinion, since it's nothing BUT a FO 4 clone. It's always amused me about Obsidianites, and how they shit all over Bethesda games as terrible because of their bugs, but ignore it when it comes to New Vegas. But anyway, I think Obsidian are not very good, and that Bethesda has made significantly better FO games. Most don't agree, but I don't really care. I enjoyed the Bethesda titles, I actively didn't enjoy the Obsidian ones.
 

Trunkage

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I disagree they are better then Bethesda, as at least FO 3 was stable, compared to New Vegas, which seems to be beloved these days by it's worshippers BECAUSE of how buggy it STILL is. Plus, the whole "Outer Worlds is a great game that shows Bethesda what for!" is total bullshit in my opinion, since it's nothing BUT a FO 4 clone. It's always amused me about Obsidianites, and how they shit all over Bethesda games as terrible because of their bugs, but ignore it when it comes to New Vegas. But anyway, I think Obsidian are not very good, and that Bethesda has made significantly better FO games. Most don't agree, but I don't really care. I enjoyed the Bethesda titles, I actively didn't enjoy the Obsidian ones.
Outer worlds was aggressively mediocre. And people were surprised. They shouldn't have been. It's the most Obsidian game I've ever seen
 

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To reiterate it is worth checking out the classic trilogy at least, if you’re really interested. It will give more weight and yield appreciation to some of the happenings of the reboot, and design changes.
I don't know if any of the original trilogy are available on PS4, and while I do have a PS3, I don't currently have any working controllers for it; one of them has a joystick that won't go all the way to the edges, and the other is a third-party wireless controller with noticeable input lag.
 

happyninja42

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Outer worlds was aggressively mediocre. And people were surprised. They shouldn't have been. It's the most Obsidian game I've ever seen
It's not just that it was mediocre, which I agree it was, it's that it did basically nothing different from the Bethesda model of Fallout, and yet fans were falling over themselves to circle jerk each other over how "it was going to embarrass Bethesda!! Show how a REAL fallout game should be!!" and I'm playing it, and all I see is a Fallout 4 clone. I mean they even copied the names of the feats for fuck's sake. And apparently the plot from their new DLC is just the plot of the movie Serenity (the Firefly movie), and just tons of shit they just copy pasted from other sources. So yeah, I don't see the appeal.
 
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BrawlMan

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Seriously, y'all need to get on this Speed Brawl. It's like a Sonic game, if it were a brawler and were good. Don't start with me Unleashed fans, those Werehog sections were terrible. If I wanted to play God of War, Devil May Cry, or Bayonetta, I would play those. GoW combat does not belong in a Sonic game. End off topic rant. Back on topic, this games Sonic meets Streets of Rage meets Marvel vs. Capcom meets Smash Bros. Can't recommend this game enough. If you got $20 to spare, go for it.