What are you playing?

[Cybernetic pig]

Sounds like Human Revolution to me.

Heh, yeah most of it. Human Revolution lets me jump freely at least and lets me upgrade to spring heels.

[Jaedar]

As far as I am concerned, nobody has done third person action RPG "right" yet..

Have you played Dark Souls?

[Cybernetic pig]

As far as I am concerned, nobody has done third person action RPG "right" yet..

Have you played Dark Souls?

You didn't read all of that post before replying

[YeomanTheCastle]

Haha, one's GOTY 2010 is one's piece of shit, I guess.

Yeah, I fucking loved Alpha Protocol. I didn't really notice any bugs, and I can't remember any off the top of my head. Granted, I bought the game after it was unfucked, but still...

[Jaedar]

As far as I am concerned, nobody has done third person action RPG "right" yet..

Have you played Dark Souls?

You didn't read all of that post before replying

The part about it having no story or soundtrack confused me.

[Cybernetic pig]

They are both minimalistic. I should have been clearer.

[Jaedar]

The soundtrack is definitely very ambient and keeps in the back most of the game.

As for the story, it actually has a lot of it, and huge amounts of background lore. It just doesn't toss it in the players face or dumps 20 essays into a codex whenever you interact with something.

[Cybernetic pig]

There is often no soundtrack in most locations, it's such a shame.

What methods of storytelling are used then? I noticed inventory item descriptions, a couple of cinematics and a few NPCs. Not a lot else.

[Jaedar]

What methods of storytelling is used then?

Item descriptions and NPC's mainly. But the game never tells you things straight out. You sort of have to puzzle a lot of it out for yourself.

[Hassat Hunter]

Why does everyone hate Alpha Protocol?

Mostly people who haven't even played it AFAINotice.

Funniest example was on the Obsidian Boards some idiot came along and basically said 'Well, I haven't played the game... but you NEED to fix the following things which are broken in your game. Which I know since I read reviews!"
And then of course came with stuff like ample bugs (where?) or how aiming is completely random and you can't hit anything (which oddly, I never experienced either. Is aiming that hard?) and similar stuff like that.
While everyone who has played it I only heard positive stuff from...

[Cybernetic pig]

While everyone who has played it I only heard positive stuff from...

I've played it. It just has some really glaring flaws which justify it not being popular. Sure, it has some great things about it too: choice and consequence design in the story... umm, it's not a on rails game? <-that's me struggling, It was terribly designed and bland in my opinion. I tried to like it, I really did. Real-time action games with RPG elements has to be my go-to type of game, I've played many. This is one of few I found bad, but that's my opinion.

All you people probably just loved the flirting with the red head and other attractive ladies that get thrown at you

The game, along with Bioware's games have this feeling, I can describe it now, this feeling of a constructed world, not organic: the carelessly placed invisible walls, the prompts. the inability to perform basic actions whenever you please (Jump), the dialogue options always having four choices. Combine this with bland level design, bland soundtrack and an uninteresting story and playing just feels like a chore. The first time I experienced this feeling was with Jade Empire on the Xbox, though it did have it's quirks that I enjoyed.
As a RPG lover, It baffles me how Bioware's games are so popular. If people are hating on Alpha Protocol then they should hate on Bioware too because Alpha Protocol isn't much different from Bioware's action RPG's at all.

[Jonas]

While everyone who has played it I only heard positive stuff from...

Okay so I've played through all of the Middle East (obviously), all of Rome, all of Taiwan, and all of Moscow up until the charlie foxtrot that is the Brayko fight.

My problem with it is that there is an amazing amount of things in it that just aren't very well done. It's a stealth game, but not a very good one (the AI is not complex enough to make it interesting and you have too few stealth mechanics at your disposal). It's an action game, but not a very good one (the weapon feel is completely off, the cover system is clunky, the enemy AI is a bit random, and there's just not enough gameplay variation in the level design). It's a roleplaying game, but not a very good one (the character system is too simple and yet somehow unbalanced to the point where you can make it nearly impossible for yourself to progress further if you've created a particular build, despite the simplicity of the system).

The only aspect of Alpha Protocol that is genuinely really well done and exciting is the story and the dialogue - its nonlinearity and its level of detail and polish.

Now, there are plenty of games that are a mish-mash of individually mediocre mechanics but still somehow come together into something really cool and memorable (such as, oh I dunno, Deus Ex), but to me, Alpha Protocol just wasn't one of them. It never managed to be more than the sum of its parts, and the sum of its parts just wasn't good enough.

It's been a while since I played it but I remember it as a... a 6 out of 10. The story and writing elevates it above the median, but the fact that I couldn't complete the game because I'd split my character points between Assault Rifles and Pistols instead of going all-out on either one prevents it from ever getting higher. I really should give it another try some time, with a functioning build.

Also the animations in the whole game are just inexcusably dire

[Jaedar]

the character system is too simpleand yet somehow unbalanced to the point where you can make it nearly impossible for yourself to progress further if you've created a particular build

Not entirely sure this is an entirely bad thing. It is true AP did do it a bit bad though, shotguns and smgs are way too weak.

Also the animations in the whole game are just inexcusably dire

This is only too true though. Only the punching animation look decent.

I think the reason I liked it so much when playing it was that the writing and CnC elements elevated the game a lot, but the stealth and action elements never really felt like they detracted a lot to me(except for the boss battles. Those were horribad).

I'd split my character points between Assault Rifles and Pistols instead of going all-out on either one prevents it from ever getting higher. I really should give it another try some time, with a functioning build.

This sounds viable to me, assuming you didn't splurge too many points on other stuff. Pistols and assault rifles are the better of the weapon types.

[bobby 55]

Yeah the CnC and the game did make me feel as though I was a spy with the gathering of information, profiles, and such.

[Jonas]

This sounds viable to me, assuming you didn't splurge too many points on other stuff. Pistols and assault rifles are the better of the weapon types.

In fact I had gone all-out on Stealth and put some points into Martial Arts and whatever the lockpicking skill was. I must have attempted to beat Brayko upwards of 30-40 times, failing each attempt. I even had other people swing by and try to take him out for me, and none of them could manage it.

If at least they hadn't disabled the stealth takedown for the bosses, I would've had a pretty satisfying successful run against him after a few attempts, but no - that would've been too good game design, presumably.

I mean I'm not completely opposed to the idea of being able to screw yourself over with a character build, fuck knows it's perfectly possible to do that in Conquistador after the latest patch (start with 1 Survival skill plus don't pick any hunters: you're fucked), but at least it should become apparent pretty quickly so you can learn from your mistakes and start over. To have the point of impossibility arrive 90% through the game so I would have to put another 40 hours or so into it for a do-over is just not acceptable game design!