Alpha Protocol

[NearLifeExperience]

One thing that really bugged me about it and made me stop playing was the enemy AI. It basically had some really no-no flaws that you just can't have in a stealth-game, such as hive-mind AI (if one enemy sees you, regardless if he manages to alert others or not everyone immidiately knows where you are).

It could have been great, as it stands it felt quite unfinished.

Maybe that's because it's not a stealth game, but an action RPG that laughably tries to implement some stealth mechanics, failing horribly in doing so.

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.

 

[Krantos]

Pro tip: Don't try to play Alpha Protocol immediately after finishing a Pacifist run on Deus Ex: HR.

Putting it mildly, the game is unrefined. Trying to ghost through is a lesson in frustration since it is very easy for NPC's to glitch and make silent progress impossible. Guards will often get stuck (their path finding seems to shut off). This is a problem when they get stuck facing the only way through an area. They can also cut their paths in half and traverse the same 2 -3 steps repeatedly.

Also, you know in Deus Ex how the NPC's have weight when they turn? This gives you a subtle visual clue when they're about to turn and gives you a split second to get into cover. Alpha Protocol's NPC's all do an immediate about face when they turn. Combine this with the previous bug and I've seen guards take two steps, about face, take two steps back, about face, repeat. Good luck sneaking past that.

And don't get me started on the cover systems.

Despite all that Alpha Protocol is a solid good fun experience if you can get past the warts. I certainly think it does dialogue better than Deus Ex, and the ending gives a lot more closure.

Other than that, however, Deus Ex is a more complete and polished game.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

It has shitty combat mechanics and mini-games that can be annoying as fuck at times. There's pixel skipping as well that can make it hard to aim at longer distances.

It contains some of the best RPG mechanics out of perhaps any game. The responsiveness of the dialogue system is amazing as to how you can push peoples buttons to make them act rashly, or say what they want to hear to get on their good side. The story is well written. The dialogue is well written. There are some really interesting characters that aren't one dimensional(Steven Heck, need I say more?)

I bought it on sale for like 5$ because I was being cautious, but probably would have paid more for it. I can deal with shitty combat mechanics if writing is really good, because I really like RPG stories. If you can't overlook that aspect, then the game probably is not for you.

And I am a Pakistani, so I really liked that for once the Arab character is not a stereotypical villain.

ummm...

Spoiler

He kills a bunch of innocent civilians on a plane for the shock value. Just because he's being used as a puppet by an American spy organization and a corporation does not make him any less evil; it just makes him stupider.

I am not saying he isn't a villain, he isn't a 'stereotypical' villain,

Spoiler

he is given a chance to explain his actions and his hatred of the US which led him to shoot down the plane. He does that as a way of telling the Americans to stop trying to run his country, to stop looting his country. His entire motivation isn't the usual "Lets destroy the west for no reason" approach which most games take. The game does not shy away from saying why he does what he does and why others are so willing to join him. For the first time, I think, the political and social aspect of the war is shown instead of blaming it on religion.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

I played through the PC version (purchased from Steam) three times. I haven't encountered any bugs. The only 2 things that annoyed me was one needlessly difficult boss fight (described in Zero Punctuation's review of the game), and one needlessly difficult lock that required me to switch from using my gamepad to using my keyboard and mouse to solve it quickly enough.
It's one of my all time favorites and I highly recommend it, if you can bear with the problems I described and maybe some bugs that will require you to reload to a checkpoint or restart a mission (didn't happen to me, but I read some complaints).

That fight can become needlessly easy if you talk to Stephen Heck and have a good reputation with him before it. Then check the store just before launching the mission.

 

[Doom972]

I played through the PC version (purchased from Steam) three times. I haven't encountered any bugs. The only 2 things that annoyed me was one needlessly difficult boss fight (described in Zero Punctuation's review of the game), and one needlessly difficult lock that required me to switch from using my gamepad to using my keyboard and mouse to solve it quickly enough.
It's one of my all time favorites and I highly recommend it, if you can bear with the problems I described and maybe some bugs that will require you to reload to a checkpoint or restart a mission (didn't happen to me, but I read some complaints).

That fight can become needlessly easy if you talk to Stephen Heck and have a good reputation with him before it. Then check the store just before launching the mission.

On my first playthrough, I already mastered the Pistol skill and had an ability that lets me regenerate my other abilities, so the battle was easy. The problem is that it's not the same for all skill combinations (unarmed combat is very inefficient against). If you want to do your missions in a certain order or make certain specific plot choices, you won't be able to get the solution you described. Nonetheless, it's good to know, thanks.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

To answer your question, I think Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was and still is one of the best stealth games ever made. Achieving 100% rating in all missions on the hardest difficulty setting was delightfully challenging. What a shame that the game went down the drain after that one, now dwelling in the sewers of bland mainstream action shooters with its latest installment Conviction

Really? That piss-easy pile of shit where you could knock out every enemy on the map without any reprecussions, linear as fuck mapdesign and bad story? Oo

Have you actually ever played a sealth'em'up before? The Splinter Cell series is in every installment worse than Alpha Protocol and in no way they can even hold the candle to the best of that genre.

You're wrong in every way possible. No further comment.

 

[wintercoat]

I remember playing it but got bored after a certain point. What it did, has been done better (the dialogue thing was pretty cool though) and the romances were god-awful. I never got into the story, the characters never left an impression (except that Russian girl you can spare) The minigames were lame (Looking at you Hacking) the dice roll mechanics hindered the game (Thanks for shooting the guy in the shoulder after I had focused the cross-hair on his face ten yards away)

Seriously flawed, but a lot of people enjoyed it, so I can't tell you much as I never finished it, the game itself is VERY mixed in the gaming community.

Also, question, was there a difference in sneak killing them and knocking them out?

I never meet that mute chick in combat only in cut scene.Even when I tried become enemies against Albatross I still didn't fight her.

I've had sex with all womens(the Asian,The reporter,The one in Rome and Russian MILF)

and also one of the bad guys(the man you meet in Rome) is voiced by Peter from Diseny/Goofy movies/tv show

I just did a mission on a yacht, you fight her there, she isn't hard.

By sex, do you mean the poorly written excuse for a romance? Because I romanced Scarlet (I think that's her name) and was shocked at how bad it was.

Also, did sneak killing do anything different than if you knocked them out?

a lethal takedown would have killed them.
I never used that I would always knock them out. So I don't know if it used a different animation.

I never had a mission on a yacht. Yeah the sex scenes weren't very good they were as awkward as all hell. Especially SIE(the Russian MILF) yall fuck on a operating table while Mike was strapped down

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

I believe the Yacht is an optional mission in Russia.

The SIE chick was pretty entertaining to me (be aggressive and she likes you)

As far as I remember, no, killing everyone has no real impact on the game over knocking them out. It's just faster and I think noisier.

And when I made the connection with Marburg's VA and Pete, it completely ruined the character for me. I just couldn't take him seriously afterwards.

OT: Pistols, man. Mother fucking pistols. Sooooooo overpowered. Headshotting people from down long hallways without the need to exit cover is just ridiculous.

And melee against bosses. Pop Fury and go to town on them, they turn to mush under your pummeling fists. Well...except for Brenko after he takes a hit of coke. Damn bastard cuts you to ribbons if you try.

 

[Smiley Face]

Ya blew it buddy, it was on sale for like 2 bucks and a piece of string yesterday.

Was it worth it? I have no idea. I played for half an hour and I quite liked it.

And then I ran into the hacking minigame. Right now I'm debating on whether I should keep going or just deinstall and never look back again. Believe me when I say this: the hacking minigame is the most frustrating, annoying, unnecessary piece of shit I have ever seen in an RPG. How this thing got past playtesting is beyond me.

The thought that Obsidian actually believed the thing was worthy of making it into the final game actually scares me. I'm suddenly a lot less confident in Project Eternity. The minigame is so fucking bad it changed Project Eternity from a "Buy as soon as you can" to a "Lets wait what the reviews say" purchase for me.

I suspect the minigames were designed by the design team for the console version - lockpicking in particular is quite simple, and hacking is manageable as well - to a point. After a point, the hacking minigame becomes literally impossible unless you've levelled it up - but then again, that's the whole point of how Alpha Protocol works, you're not SUPPOSED to be able to do things easily, or at all, so you either have to EMP the alarm, kick down the door, or find another route.

I bloody loved the game, to some degree because I enjoy things about the game - it turns out differently depending on the order you do things in, multiple playthroughs end up yielding quite different stories, you have hilarious characters like Steven Heck, and the dialogue system a) makes itself a challenge at times because of the timer, and b) is anything but the clear-cut GOOD-EVIL dichotomy of Bioware.

It's a fun game with an unorthodox playstyle, and you have to be willing to abandon a couple preconceptions of rules of gameplay. A lot of the complaints I see about it ultimately amount to 'I hate it because it doesn't use the same rules for shooting/whatever as every other game I've ever played has.' Now, I'm not claiming that the gameplay is absolutely astounding, but it's definitely not bad, for me anyways, and the story more than makes up for it.

 

[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