Alpha Protocol Discussion Here:

Status
Not open for further replies.
anonmoniker said:
Too many douchebag reviewers score based on "tolerance for issues" and not on how fun the game is. That's how games like Deadly Premonition and Infinite Space rack up mediocre scores even though they're loved by actual gamers. Most reviewers are complete failures because they operate under the moronic assumption that somehow their opinions are so important that they can write a review that covers an entire audience. This is why any bland/boring Nintendo action/adventure game is guaranteed to get a 9+. Very little for pretentious reviewers to pick at, even if the game is yawn inducing. And it's also why reviewers in aggregate only identify a 1 point difference on a 10 point scale between Supreme Commander and SC2, even though any RTS fan can tell you that if SC1 is a 9, SC2 deserves a 4 at best. I'm sick of seeing games reviewed based on how polished they are and not on how fun they are.
Click to expand...

Oh please Deadly Premonition deserves mediocre scores. There are a ton of things wrong with the game that have to effect the score. You can't score simply based on if you find a game fun. That is the mark of a terrible reviewer. A review and the score attached to it needs to reflect the ENTIRE game not just one or two elements of it.
 
Polish means everything in a game -- especially in today's standards. A game could be AWESOME but be so broken to the point that its no longer fun. If it was polished it would be amazing.
 
refraxion said:
Polish means everything in a game -- especially in today's standards. A game could be AWESOME but be so broken to the point that its no longer fun. If it was polished it would be amazing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, though sometimes a game not being polished allows it to have its own charm. However that level of charm can only have so much impact on a review. The same way you can't look at a bad movie and say its good no matter how awesomely bad it may be.
 
anonmoniker said:
Too many douchebag reviewers score based on "tolerance for issues" and not on how fun the game is. That's how games like Deadly Premonition and Infinite Space rack up mediocre scores even though they're loved by actual gamers. Most reviewers are complete failures because they operate under the moronic assumption that somehow their opinions are so important that they can write a review that covers an entire audience. This is why any bland/boring Nintendo action/adventure game is guaranteed to get a 9+. Very little for pretentious reviewers to pick at, even if the game is yawn inducing. And it's also why reviewers in aggregate only identify a 1 point difference on a 10 point scale between Supreme Commander and SC2, even though any RTS fan can tell you that if SC1 is a 9, SC2 deserves a 4 at best. I'm sick of seeing games reviewed based on how polished they are and not on how fun they are.
Click to expand...

Deadly Premonition is easily one of the worst games of this generation. No hyperbole.
 
Derangel said:
You can't score simply based on if you find a game fun. That is the mark of a terrible reviewer. A review and the score attached to it needs to reflect the ENTIRE game not just one or two elements of it.
Click to expand...

I don't care how flawed a game is as long as I find it fun. Isn't the whole point of a game that it be fun? Gaming isn't my job. It's my hobby, my pastime. I play games because I enjoy gaming. Too often games that are boring, but not really flawed (other than not being very fun) are scored well by reviewers who are maybe just too damn objective. I think many people on these forums would point to Far Cry 2 being an example. It was well reviewed, but many gamers thought it was boring.
 
refraxion said:
I think they promised too much and delivered it in a way that wasn't too polished as it could have been, blame SEGA and the deadline for that IMO.
Click to expand...

The game was meant to be released during the holiday season last year. However, SEGA decided to delay it for another 8 months, ostensibly to 'polish it'. Considering that the final product out now has absolutely zero polish, I think it's safe to assume that the game probably wasn't even playable back then. SEGA is a lousy publisher no doubt, and I expect they will fund very little post release support for this game, but the onus of this broken game lies squarely on the shoulders of Obsidian. They made an absolutely shitty game because they can't do any better. Not because they were short on time to meet a deadline.
 
spindoctor said:
The game was meant to be released during the holiday season last year. However, SEGA decided to delay it for another 8 months, ostensibly to 'polish it'. Considering that the final product out now has absolutely zero polish, I think it's safe to assume that the game probably wasn't even playable back then. SEGA is a lousy publisher no doubt, and I expect they will fund very little post release support for this game, but the onus of this broken game lies squarely on the shoulders of Obsidian. They made an absolutely shitty game because they can't do any better. Not because they were short on time to meet a deadline.
Click to expand...

You know what, you might be on to something :p
 
GregP24 said:
I don't care how flawed a game is as long as I find it fun. Isn't the whole point of a game that it be fun? Gaming isn't my job. It's my hobby, my pastime. I play games because I enjoy gaming. Too often games that are boring, but not really flawed (other than not being very fun) are scored well by reviewers who are maybe just too damn objective. I think many people on these forums would point to Far Cry 2 being an example. It was well reviewed, but many gamers thought it was boring.
Click to expand...

Thats why its always important to remember at the end of the day a review is simply an opinion and should be taken as such. A lot of people liked Far Cry 2. I have no idea why, but they do.
 
Derangel said:
Like I said earlier in the thread if a developer puts guns in the game don't make them feel bad to shoot. Being stat based doesn't automatically mean the gameplay has to be utter shit.

As for the old Fallout titles I already addressed CRPGs and why it was easy to forgive their generally bad combat mechanics. I'm not going to repeat myself.
Click to expand...

But you haven't addressed anything.

All you're saying is that you don't like a shooting mechanic that's based on statistics.

And I'm saying that if the shooting mechanic isn't based on stats then it ain't an RPG anymore. I don't see any way around this. Clearly, what you wanted was an action game with RPG elements - and Alpha Protocol was never meant to be that.

To me, you're completely ignoring that this is an RPG. You appear to have done exactly the same thing with Fallout 3 - you disliked VATS because it was a stats based solution to the shooting mechanic... the whole point of that was to prevent Fallout 3 from becoming an FPS.
 
Derangel said:
Thats why its always important to remember at the end of the day a review is simply an opinion and should be taken as such. A lot of people liked Far Cry 2. I have no idea why, but they do.
Click to expand...

Oh god don't remind me. PC Gamer gave that game a 94. I've since forgiven them for that but man did that game feel like a chore after the first few hours. And don't get me started on the story. My god.
 
WabeWalker said:
But you haven't addressed anything.

All you're saying is that you don't like a shooting mechanic that's based on statistics.

And I'm saying that if the shooting mechanic isn't based on stats then it ain't an RPG anymore. I don't see any way around this. Clearly, what you wanted was an action game with RPG elements - and Alpha Protocol was never meant to be that.

To me, you're completely ignoring that this is an RPG. You appear to have done exactly the same thing with Fallout 3 - you disliked VATS because it was a stats based solution to the shooting mechanic... the whole point of that was to prevent Fallout 3 from becoming an FPS.
Click to expand...

Your asinine assumptions are ludacris and annoying, please stop trying to fucking tell me what I do and don't want and why I do or don't like something. I've been playing games for over 20 years I think I know what I want from games better then you do. You're defending the game on the basis of "well its stat based" yes it is and thats fine. The problem is that it still feels like shit. Just because its stat based doesn't mean it needs to be shit gameplay. How the fuck is that hard to understand? If gameplay is bad, its bad, plain and simple. I've played enough games of both genres in my life to fully understand the difference between good gameplay and bad gameplay. You are trying to pull the same shit that you do in piracy arguments by dragging everything into a circle with no logic behind your arguments. Further more you are still trying to argue for a game you have not played. Where as I have put multiple hours into it.
 
Riftsaw said:
Oh god don't remind me. PC Gamer gave that game a 94. I've since forgiven them for that but man did that game feel like a chore after the first few hours. And don't get me started on the story. My god.
Click to expand...

I loved Far Cry 2.

It wasn't about the missions, per se, as much as it was about the exploration, and the quick gun fights that would take place between you and the guys you stumbled across. Both central villages, in the south and in the north, were incredibly atmospheric. I spent hours just wandering around those locations.

It was a great open world game - there was dessert and savannah and jungle and lakes and rivers... I loved every minute of it.
 
Derangel said:
Your asinine assumptions are ludacris and annoying, please stop trying to fucking tell me what I do and don't want and why I do or don't like something. I've been playing games for over 20 years I think I know what I want from games better then you do. You're defending the game on the basis of "well its stat based" yes it is and thats fine. The problem is that it still feels like shit. Just because its stat based doesn't mean it needs to be shit gameplay. How the fuck is that hard to understand? If gameplay is bad, its bad, plain and simple. I've played enough games of both genres in my life to fully understand the difference between good gameplay and bad gameplay. You are trying to pull the same shit that you do in piracy arguments by dragging everything into a circle with no logic behind your arguments. Further more you are still trying to argue for a game you have not played. Where as I have put multiple hours into it.
Click to expand...

It's obvious that you wanted the shooting mechanic to be like an FPS - just admit it! You wanted the game to be something that it was never meant to be.

You did the exact same thing with Fallout 3.

VATS was central to Fallout 3. You said it was garbage. How else could Bethesda have possibly made the shooting mechanic stats-based! There was no way around it. They HAD to implement VATS.

If they hadn't implemented VATS then Fallout 3 would've become an FPS - something that a lot of non-Fallout players actually wanted, quite frankly. Clearly, you don't like stats based resolution to shooting. That's not the game's fault.

You say that this way it's not fun. It's not fun for YOU.

Some of us liked VATS a lot. Some of us prefer to role play and build our characters based on stats.

YOU are the one who doesn't get that. Saying that the gunplay is shit - that's YOUR opinion.
 
This is getting ugly. For some reason I'm still bored enough to want to try this game, but not enough to drop half a benjamin on it. I haven't seen a game evoke such emotion in people (mostly negative) in a long time.
 
Riddleofsteel said:
This is getting ugly. For some reason I'm still bored enough to want to try this game, but not enough to drop half a benjamin on it. I haven't seen a game evoke such emotion in people (mostly negative) in a long time.
Click to expand...

We're seeing two different things then.

I'm seeing A LOT of positive comments being made about this title.

It's mostly at forums, from the gaming public, but even some of the review sites are posting reviews that are fairly positive.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/alphaprotocol
 
You may be right, but I trust player reviews more than I trust professional reviewers. Just my personal stance.
 
WabeWalker said:
We're seeing two different things then.

I'm seeing A LOT of positive comments being made about this title.

It's mostly at forums, from the gaming public, but even some of the review sites are posting reviews that are fairly positive.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/alphaprotocol
Click to expand...

Just... play the game. You haven't played it yet and you're arguing about gameplay mechanics with those of us who have been playing it this whole time.

Fact of the matter is, the combat is terrible. "But it's an RPG!!" isn't an excuse for painfully un-fun combat.
 
AceCR42 said:
Just... play the game. You haven't played it yet and you're arguing about gameplay mechanics with those of us who have been playing it this whole time.

Fact of the matter is, the combat is terrible. "But it's an RPG!!" isn't an excuse for painfully un-fun combat.
Click to expand...

+1. Sounds like justification for purchasing the game to me.
 
AceCR42 said:
Just... play the game. You haven't played it yet and you're arguing about gameplay mechanics with those of us who have been playing it this whole time.

Fact of the matter is, the combat is terrible. "But it's an RPG!!" isn't an excuse for painfully un-fun combat.
Click to expand...

Wait a minute - wtf? You want me to... play... the... game.

I bought the game last night. Now you want me to play it as well!!!!!!!!

No, but seriously, what I've posted so far has been legitimate. I haven't actually commented on the game itself... just some of these posts... like people saying that the game is being slagged by the professional reviewers, clearly it is not. That's a legitimate comment to make.
 
Well there's only 8 reviews of the PC version. The 360 version has 25 reviews and stands at 66/100 on Metacritic.
 
AceCR42 said:
Well there's only 8 reviews of the PC version. The 360 version has 25 reviews and stands at 66/100 on Metacritic.
Click to expand...

That doesn't surprise me.

I'm guessing, without having even read any of these console reviews, that a whole bunch of the reviewers named Mass Effect as a comparison.

Also, I never said that the game was being well reviewed across the board, but clearly there are a bunch of websites that have posted favorable reviews. That was the point I was making.

Sometimes I wonder if some of these people even like gaming - everybody, these days, wants to be the first person to find something wrong with a game. Not me though. I generally go in with a positive attitude.

Jesus, am I ever looking forward to actually playing this game...
 
I had a lot of issues when first installing this game, you can see my frustration earlier in this thread. However, after going into my ATI Control Center and changing all the options to "application controlled" the game is running relatively smoothly with only the annoying stuttering as it loads issue remaining.

The game is still ugly unfortunately. The mini-games are still atrocious (particularly computer and alarm hacking) and the save system still gives me a headache... but at least I can finally PLAY the game and get a feel for what it was meant to be. I'll hold off on any further reviews until I'm finished with it.
 
WabeWalker said:
It's obvious that you wanted the shooting mechanic to be like an FPS - just admit it! You wanted the game to be something that it was never meant to be.

You did the exact same thing with Fallout 3.

VATS was central to Fallout 3. You said it was garbage. How else could Bethesda have possibly made the shooting mechanic stats-based! There was no way around it. They HAD to implement VATS.

If they hadn't implemented VATS then Fallout 3 would've become an FPS - something that a lot of non-Fallout players actually wanted, quite frankly. Clearly, you don't like stats based resolution to shooting. That's not the game's fault.

You say that this way it's not fun. It's not fun for YOU.

Some of us liked VATS a lot. Some of us prefer to role play and build our characters based on stats.

YOU are the one who doesn't get that. Saying that the gunplay is shit - that's YOUR opinion.
Click to expand...

FUCK OFF!
 
How can someone so vehemently defend a game they haven't even played? People who are actually playing it say it's shit and then the person who hasn't played it proceeds to tell them that they are wrong :|
 
spindoctor said:
How can someone so vehemently defend a game they haven't even played? People who are actually playing it say it's shit and then the person who hasn't played it proceeds to tell them that they are wrong :|
Click to expand...

That pretty much sums up all his posts on every game. He'll either defend it to the death or bash it to no end, there is no middle ground. He was banned before for a reason ;).
 
Derangel said:
Nah. I tossed him on my ignore list after that. I have a low bullshit tolerance and an even lower tolerance for people trying to tell me I don't know my own tastes.
Click to expand...

And what I don't need is somebody informing me that they're a professional reviewer, as though somehow this validates their opinion.

And to clear things up, I haven't been 'defending the game'.

But if a person posts a comment saying that the consensus of opinion is that Alpha Protocol is... and I quote... 'pure garbage'... then I think I have the right to post this:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/alphaprotocol

A consensus of opinion? That means that everyone is in agreement. Clearly there's a lack of consensus with this game. I haven't been defending anything. I just think it's pure rubbish when people like Derangel start bad-mouthing games for the wrong reasons, which is exactly what he was doing.

He says he doesn't like VATS in Fallout 3, and would prefer something more action-oriented. Okay, then that makes Fallout 3 much less of a role-playing game. Some of us aren't very good at FPS games, and prefer to build our characters and allow the stats to control the shooting mechanic - how is that an invalid comment? When we play role-playing games we expect the combat to be resolved via stats.

And yeah, there's a bit of snobbery there from Derangel - he's casually dropping it into the discussion that he's a reviewer. I'm not sure why we need to know that? Honestly, I don't think we do.

(And now we're going to have to put up with the inane jokes about how he can't hear me because he has me on ignore. Get ready for it.)
 
Last edited:
Okay, I've spent an hour with Alpha Protocol, and not only do I disagree with Derangel, but I'm actually going to change my build.

I had been planning on going stealth - no way. It's guns all the way. This is EXACTLY the type of setup I was expecting and hoping for. Basically, the more points you pump into your gun skill, the easier it is to kill somebody with guns... I mean, duh.

This system rewards role-players.

Seriously, I have no idea what Derangel was talking about. He was full of rubbish. He even complained about the camera - huh? It's just like any other 3'rd person camera. Seriously, what the fuck?
 
My first critical comment though: the animation of the lead character is stiff. It reminds me of Arma 2.
 
So far I'm having fun with it, from my experience you really can't approach it like a 'standard' shooter, more along the lines of a Baldurs Gate or something of that sort.

Story is fun and at least relatively believable; dialog tree is a good mechanic which adds to the immersion, strong voice acting.

On the other hand AI is mostly crap, (granted when I'm pinned down by 5 or 6 guys It's nice when one of them decides to just hang out and let me shoot him in the face.) some minor clipping issues, mouse control goes to hell when using a gun emplacement, (sensitivity is amped up like it's on PCP.)

All in all I think most reviews are approaching it like a typical third person shooter which simply isn't going to work, I would give it a solid 7.5 to 8 at this point, (just finishing up the tutorial level(s). If they can fix the AI bugs the game will go up from there.
 
FallenMystic said:
So far I'm having fun with it, from my experience you really can't approach it like a 'standard' shooter, more along the lines of a Baldurs Gate or something of that sort.

Story is fun and at least relatively believable; dialog tree is a good mechanic which adds to the immersion, strong voice acting.

On the other hand AI is mostly crap, (granted when I'm pinned down by 5 or 6 guys It's nice when one of them decides to just hang out and let me shoot him in the face.) some minor clipping issues, mouse control goes to hell when using a gun emplacement, (sensitivity is amped up like it's on PCP.)

All in all I think most reviews are approaching it like a typical third person shooter which simply isn't going to work, I would give it a solid 7.5 to 8 at this point, (just finishing up the tutorial level(s). If they can fix the AI bugs the game will go up from there.
Click to expand...

Jesus, you get it.

That's exactly right, man. Most people ARE approaching this like they're playing a standard shooter (see above), and you just can't do that.

I would agree, as well, based on what little I've played of the game, that at least so far it's a good game, but not great. In all fairness to the game, I've barely gotten into it, and shouldn't be making that judgement yet... but this game doesn't have that feeling of greatness you get from a great game.
 
WabeWalker said:
I would agree, as well, based on what little I've played of the game, that at least so far it's a good game, but not great. In all fairness to the game, I've barely gotten into it, and shouldn't be making that judgement yet... but this game doesn't have that feeling of greatness you get from a great game.
Click to expand...

That's the feeling I got from the little I've played so far. It's good, not great. But that's fine with me. As long as it entertains.
 
GregP24 said:
That's the feeling I got from the little I've played so far. It's good, not great. But that's fine with me. As long as it entertains.
Click to expand...

Getting that here early as well. I just started right now as a raw recruit and I'm having no problems making headshots and fairly quick kills FWIW.
 
It's decent. Had to manually edit my .ini's because it was clearly designed for consoles, and I'm not sure they even tested it on PCs. I had ~10 seconds of stuttering at the start of every level and level transition while it loaded something or another (ati 4870). Those things alone makes it tough to recommend.

But once you get it started and working, the game itself is pretty enjoyable. The characters/interaction are inspired, and the plot is decent. I hated the shooting mechanics so went for a stealth/ninja assassin type, and I give Obsidian props for letting that be a viable option. There's something hilarious about going invisible and killing a roomful of guys with your pinky finger.

The gameplay did feel a lot like Mass Effect, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. At least you don't have to scan for minerals.
 
I was using the 360 controller - there's native support for it (it's one of those games that immediately detects that you've transferred over, even mid-game, and automatically brings up the corresponding 360 face buttons onscreen whenever the prompts are needed).

I switched between the 360 controller and the keyboard a couple of times, and found the controller support to be superior - but maybe that's just me, although I suspect that this game was designed with the controller in mind.

The full 360 controller support, however, is indicative to me that this isn't some port that was slapped together for the PC. Also, I haven't experienced any glitches - and I don't know what my frames are... probably well above 100.
 
Is the PDA menu where you adjust your skills with AP points being incredibly bitchy for anyone else besides me?

I have enough points to raise a skill but it seems like it doesn't even work sometimes. I pick what I want. I choose "buy next rank" and nothing happens.

What am I missing here?



awsalick said:
It's decent. Had to manually edit my .ini's because it was clearly designed for consoles, and I'm not sure they even tested it on PCs.
Click to expand...

Which .inis did you mess with and where?
 
Q-BZ said:
Is the PDA menu where you adjust your skills with AP points being incredibly bitchy for anyone else besides me?

I have enough points to raise a skill but it seems like it doesn't even work sometimes. I pick what I want. I choose "buy next rank" and nothing happens.

What am I missing here?
Click to expand...

I haven't noticed this as of yet; though I typically only update my stats between missions.
 
I only played for about an hour and a half last night - but already I'm a little bit confused.

At the beginning there was a plane crash, apparently the act of terrorists. But then there seemed to be some kind of time-jump, in which the character, three months earlier, was being held captive by his own people? He wakes up in a medical facility, where he's being trained.

I found it to be very confusing.

Also, I pumped every point I had into pistols, and one point into stealth. How do you decide where to invest your points? It's a real crap shoot. And hey, maybe that's part of the fun, not knowing what to do.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top