Editorial Alpha Protocol - Delivering on the Promise

This much is true. AP has a lot of problem, but in terms of C&C, it really can't be beat.

Poison Branko's drugs, or not. Recommend Steven Hack something and make him happy, or not.

The only real consequence is when you decided to be truthful to her at the end, or tried to lie her... And yes the choice that decided who would be at School days like boat with you at the end.

Except it has none. Ever heard of Fallout?

I'm amazed whenever I find out people actually like this, I find meaningless flavor options tedious and unnecessary. Alpha Protocol doesn't have as much as a Bioware title but still too many as it is.

But it's old and graphic sux therefore we don't care. AP is new! How dumb u can get skyway? U play old games? looololol

It's funny that people point to Fallout in order to shame AP's presumed failings. Fallout's combat was sort of tiresome to be honest, certainly not its strong point.

Edit: the same can be said of Torment, Ultima VII and Arcanum. It seems to be almost a requirement.

Like combat is the most important thing in cRPGs...

I did. It has less than AP, despite being a better RPG. Funny shit.

The way combat is done defines the game is an RPG at all, so yeah, it's pretty fucking important.

Somewhat, actually. You need to put in skill points in weapons and etc to become effective with them (except for Assault Rifles, but that's a balance issue). Everyone complains about the overpoweredness of Chain Shot, but you don't get Chain Shot unless you put points in Pistols.

The nebulous quality that we call choice & consequence could be understood as a sort of narrative-oriented metagame built upon more basic gameplay mechanics (stealth in AP, FPS in Mass Effect, turn-based combat in Fallout, and so on).

A game's underlying gameplay can be pedestrian but if the C&C is good it may still be worth it. Specially considering that decent implementations of the underlying gameplay may be comparatively abundant, while meaningful C&C is hard to find nowadays.

As an action/RPG, hence why I said that Fallout is a better RPG.

Re: Re

But then we wouldn't have anything to argue about. Are you trying to destroy this family?

There is nothing worse than AP combat. Even ME2 did it better.
So ya, AP fails at everything.

But note that combat is not what my quote was about.

I'm afraid it can be. The C&C "engine" is superb (it's a great model to follow), but the extreme linearity (and I thought that Bloodlines was bad in that area) and the mission structure, which cuts off the world and takes away your ability to make decisions outside of missions, waste that potential.

I've just finished the game. If I replay it now I will be able to make many different choices but I'll still end up playing exactly the same game and doing exactly the same shit, but some cutscenes will be different.

Alpha Protocol C&C do a great job creating a set of different mission summaries, but unfortunately they barely affect the actual gameplay, which isn't that enjoyable to begin with.

And here I was thinking you didn't touch that Bioware shit.

I've finished AP few days ago. I was playing a techie build with a specialization in Assault Rifles, highest difficulty. The only really bitchy fight was with that Russian mobster. F*** he was tough enemy. Others were sometimes hard but enjoyable. As for comparison with ME2. AP has much better combat. Enemies use grenades(which is an enormous plus - there's nothing as adrenalin injecting as seeing a grenade landing beside your alter ego), when you cover and camp the ones with shotguns tend to close in range, making random jump to the sides making difficult to shoot them. AI may not be state of art, but it's functional. Sometimes, when you sneak it may do stupid things due to bugs or bad programming, but it still is better thn ME2 cause in the latter there was no sneaking.

Bullshit.

Unlike Alpha Protocol's. Can't get enough of it.

That's deep, bro. I've never thought of it this way.

Brother! It's time to set aside our differences and purge these forums from the intellectually unclean.

There is no sneaking in AP either.There is a "make AI extremely dumb" button. Because there is absolutely no difference between what you do with that cheat off and with that cheat on - just like in Oblivion.
Apart from a very laughable animation of course.

But yeah the combat is awful - in ME the retarded console unlockables do not affect your targeting reticle as hard as they do in AP. Nothing ruins shooter so much as pseudo-"RPG" elements that are there for the sake of them being there. And critical hits - I still don't understand how holding a gun pointed at the enemy for 3-5 seconds increases its damage and precision.

And let's not go into AP boss fights. Even without a question why childish anime characters, created by some 15 years old, have mobs following them - boss fights are very consolish with bosses taking hundreds of bullets and almost look like it's another minigame.

Especially this one. No seriously what the fuck is this shit? It isn't even bad. It's beyond awful. What retard did this design? Kojima should probably take lessons at how bad you can do anime shit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRojSYNg7k0

You call a blind and deaf AI that can only follow the will of linear scripts functional?

As far as stealth goes I had no points in the skill, so every time I used it(and I used it often) it was very exciting, cause even slight error in timing could uncover me to the AI. So probably, just probably AP would be a better game without "stealth" skill entirely. As far as bosses fight I agree they were no fun, but the slaughtering of common enemies, could be and was fun. Though I must admit that I heavily relied on tech stuff. Mines, grenades in corridors, paralizers, flashbanks. It was fun and it offered so much more than ME2. As far as shooting goes, Deus Ex was the same in this regard and I don't recall people being so butthurt over it. I surely am not a specialist in firearms, but I had brief experience with them and careful aiming helps a bunch in shooting anything farther than few meters ahead.

PS. AI hasn't change much in regard of stealth for a very long time. I'm finishing my playthrough of VtM:B and it makes me wanna laugh when I stand before my enemies and they can't see me even though they are looking for me( and I have sneaking only on 7th lvl being a Venture).

Actually DX was and is criticized for it having a clunky shooting part. It wasn't a big problem simply because DX offered so much in terms of non-combat gameplay - like fully open levels or at least levels with alternative paths where character skills could be applied to unlock them/avoid combat.
In AP you are forced to fight in linear corridors and combat isn't fun

VtmB isn't a good example either. But at least it has lighting affecting enemy vision.

What stopped Obsidian from making it like in Splinter Cell at least? I mean SC isn't too complex when it comes to stealth either but it had just enough to offer in terms of it.
But not even that - with it being a "spy" setting, although right from some anime with childish conspiracies - there could've been so many possibilities to do a Hitman/Bourne "social" kind of stealth.

But eh it's silly to expect something good from Obsidian today, they absolutely lack talent and are too lazy to do better than 8 years old games.

And no invisibility spells, eh?

I'm with skyway on this. Alpha Turd is as shallow and boring as it can possibly get. About the only thing I enjoyed is that the game was short enough so you could finish the game several times in a week to see most if not all angles.

The game has absolutely no redeeming qualities to ever make me want to play again in future once you're through with it, unlike other good games like Fallout, DX, Bloodlines, Wasteland etc.. I played it several times because I'm OC, have satiated my OCD by seeing most everything the game has to offer and now I'm glad it's over. I can't even imagine to play it again in future. There's nothing to enjoy. Stupid writing, stupid missions, stupid game mechanics. Shallow story. It's such a boring, empty game.

It's just that it's simply NOT a terribly bad game like most other shit and is actually good as far as the "RP" of G goes.

I've said this before: Alpha Protocol is a true testament to that CnC doesn't make an RPG.