For those who picked up Alpha Protocol for $2...

[Undead Dragon King]

When I saw that I could pick up Alpha Protocol for $2, I thought: "why the hell not?". I'm sure that quite a few of you fellow Escapists did also.

I've just finished it, and I thought that overall it was a strong game. The story is solid, if you can keep up with it, and the characters are complex, if a tad one-dimensional. Two of my personal favorites are Steven Heck and Omen Deng. On top the good character writing, some great voice actors and quite a few BioWare staples have roles. Plus, the game is perfectly happy to throw a few curve balls for those James Bond spy types who think with their dicks.

Do some skills break the game? Yes, especially Master Level Shadow Agent, just like Yahtzee pointed out. Still, I really liked the special mechanics of the weapons, excepting perhaps the shotgun.

And that knife fight crackhead boss is not one I'll forget anytime soon.


Here's the question: If you've just played it for the first time recently, what do you think of it?

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've never played it but it's under $15 for the 360 on Amazon so I may just have to pick it up with my next check...or the one after. I hear it's buggy as hell but I guess that's been taken care of through patches and, updates. I haven't played it yet but I do plan to.

 

[merck88]

I picked it up but have hardly gotten into it. I just haven't had time. The 'suave' responses are literally taken from Archer, which is awesome. How many hours did it take you to beat it?

 

[cainx10a]

I certainly enjoyed it more than Deus Ex: HR for a lot of reasons. Sure, the gameplay mechanics ain't without its flaws, but it is a pretty solid game. Steven Heck is the man!

 

[Undead Dragon King]

I picked it up but have hardly gotten into it. I just haven't had time. The 'suave' responses are literally taken from Archer, which is awesome. How many hours did it take you to beat it?

Alpha Protocol is kind of like Mass Effect 2 in that it rewards perfectionism when you're going through your missions. Cash, weapon/armor mods and valuable intel are hidden away all over the map, and it's always in your best interests to look everywhere during your missions.

Taking the perfectionist route, it's around 15-20 hours, but you can probably take a gung-ho flythrough in about 8-10.

 

[Corven]

It's one of the few times when I can actually agree with Yahtzee on something the main character is a ponce, through and through.

Gameplay wise I'm still working my way through it, not a terrible game but I'm glad I picked it up on sale.

 

[Agayek]

I've never played it but it's under $15 for the 360 on Amazon so I may just have to pick it up with my next check...or the one after. I hear it's buggy as hell but I guess that's been taken care of through patches and, updates. I haven't played it yet but I do plan to.

I played it at launch, and it was quite buggy (though reports of it were overexaggerated, in my experience). Even with the bugs though, it was definitely worth the money I spent on it. It's one of the best RPGs released in the last few years.

My only real complaint with it is that the bosses are ridiculous if you're not combat focused, and stealth is stupid broken once you get the "become silent" and "become invisible" abilities.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Pistol profinency was ridiculous, the chainshot 1 or atleast 2 shotted every boss in the game. My strategy was to shoot 1 normal criticalhit and then when he notices me i do chainshot into his head.

 

[Deadyawn]

Yeah I got it and I was enjoying it but I stopped for a while and never had the inclination to go back. My main problem was that the gameplay felt really weird to me. the gunplay was stupid at early levels as you had to stand still for a minute if you wanted to hit anything and stealth while passable really pissed me off because once your spotted by one person everyone one in the area suddenly knows where you are even if you take him down immediately. The story and dialogue was interesting and quite compelling but not enough to make me slog through the rest of the game and while the time limit on responses did make sense and helped move things along it also lead to some annoying mistakes. So yeah I haven't finished and I'm not planning on it anytime soon.

 

[Skops]

Alpha Protocol is just one of 36/100 games I have on my steam list that I have yet to even load up. I do plan on playing it, but it's a ways down. I remember hearing a lot of game breaking bugs and glitchs, and the ads for it don't exactly make me want to play it. And honestly, if it weren't 2 bucks when I bought it, I would've never have considered it's purchase.

But the positivity in this thread boosts it up a few spots on my "to play" list.

 

[Zyst]

Got it for 2 bucks, haven't played it yet but damn, 2 bucks...

 

[octafish]

I haven't played it for the first time recently, but it is one of the better RPGs that has come out in recent times. The lack of morality meter, the game-changing consequences to your decisions, and the timed conversations options are things more games should use.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

I haven't played it yet either, my backlog is quite large and I have barely got around to it recently...

 

[Najos]

I bought it and thought it was garbage. I just couldn't get past the controls or something, I dunno. Didn't make it through the first mission before giving it up for something else. Then again, I bought about 10 games during the summer sale and some of the others were awesome. I'll probably give it another shot next time I'm bored and without something new.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

The pistol is broken as. I got to the point where i was lining the targeting reticule up with dudes heads and waiting for the crosshair to turn red for a critical, and then id BLINDFIRE AND HIT THEM CRITICALLY IN THE HEAD EVERY TIME. This gun was silenced too....so yeah. Broken as shit but that dont automatically make it a bad game.

 

[Wuggy]

I got it and finished it that weekend. I agree with you, it was a surprisingly strong title with a good story. And the developers seriously thought of everything. I felt like Mass Effect (which is, for the record, one of my favourite game series' of all time) could take some pointers on how to make decisions feel unique to the player.

 

[antidonkey]

I snagged it at $2 but haven't played it yet. Even if it's god awful, which I don't think it is, it would be worth 2 dollars of entertainment.

 

[Lukeje]

It keeps silently crashing before (what I presume is) the first mission. I'm kind of glad I only paid $2 for it to be honest.

 

[Worgen]

I got it and it was pretty cool at first but then I started getting this really weird mouse stuttering in it and its just unplayable till that is fixed.

 

[Zachary Kramer]

Got it for $2 on steam after renting it on 360 and not getting into it much. I figured that it would be worth the $2 to own it. I was soo right. The patches fixed a lot, except the keyboard/mouse controls were awful, IMO. If you want to save yourselves a lot of trouble, try it with an XBox360 controller on your PC. Worked wonders for me.