Alpha Protocol release date?

humanji

Is this out tomorrow? The sites I've tried say it is but there's practically no advertisements of it anywhere except in magazines. And there's feck all reviews which is usually a bad sign, although the reviews that there's been seemed to have been relatively good (though not spectacular).

What little hope I had for this is quickly fading.

rizzla

Yep, it's out tomorrow.

Gunmonkey

Review embargo till tomorrow afternoon according to Eurogamer http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/new-pal-releases-roundup-28th-may-2010 Hope its not a sign of a shoddy game, was hoping to pick it up tomorrow afternoon

The Freeman

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Review embargo till tomorrow afternoon according to Eurogamer http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/new-pal-releases-roundup-28th-may-2010 Hope its not a sign of a shoddy game, was hoping to pick it up tomorrow afternoon

here is what i found earlier on monkey.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/xbox-360/2010/05/27/alpha-protocol-review/3

not looking good in fairness

calex71

Had my suspicions about this as much as I wanted it to be good and usually a review embargo is the sign of a bad game, and slightly underhanded on the publishers part I feel.

Might get this when it hit's the bargain bin but no way I'll be coughing up 50 bucks for it.

torrestorres

I did come across a user review on gamespot. Make of that what you wish

Difficulty: Hard
Time Spent: 10 Hours or Less
The Bottom Line: "Disastrous"

There are no words for just how awful this game is, but Ill try. First let me say the premise for this game was very exciting the ideas that were floating around over at Obsidian were all really great. Thats the last time you'll see the word great. Every single idea that looked so promising has been executed in half ass'd fashion. The controls are clunky at best the Charators are boring and bland and worsed of all they are all over the place with how the talk to you. They might be being nasty to you and then follow it up with can you do them a flavour, or being flirty then moody then back to flirty for no real reason what so ever. The level design is as linear as you can get, something that might be fine for a FPS but not for an RPG.

The visuals are at best dated at worst just pure lazy art design by obsidian.

The AI is also broken as sneaking up behind someone is more trouble than walking up to them from the front or side. If you disable the alarms while in combat they just go back to patroling whether you're attacking them or not. For close quarters combat enemies will pull out guns and shoot the crap out of you while you try to button mash a hand to hand takedown, but whats worse is sometimes they will run from good cover right up to while you shoot them.

The shooting is also problematic as it presents itself as a shooter, but its more like an rpg where you slowly take down a health bar. So shooting in the head does as much damage as shooting in the big toe.

I could go on and on but I cant be bothered anymore so Ill end by saying that sega need to get out the software market as anything they put their name to of late has been terrible, and the worst thing about that is that they have been really good IPs that could have been great such as this or AvP.

Overall he gave it a 1/10

Sephiroth_dude

Anyone bother to get this?

Helix

i really really really liked it tbh

Mr. K

Presently, the 360 and PS3 versions stand at 69 and 71 respectively. I might pick this up cheap sometime, but a demo would be nice!

Helix

surprised at the poor reviews, i thought it was great... though i didnt finish it

humanji

I can kind of understand the poor reviews. I think the game in general is pretty good. The RPG elements are great and the conversations can be a lot of fun (especially when you pick the wrong choice when chatting someone up!).

But the missions themselves kind of let the game down. I thought people were just exagerating when they said the graphics were like a PS2 game, but they really are. The animations switch between really good and god awful. The controls can be incredibly frustrating such as when you're in a shoot out and the camera decides to randomly flick around and show the ceiling. The cover system sometimes decides not to work and the enemies are thick as pigsh*t.

But despite all that, I'm still enjoying it. If you get a chance to buy it cheap or rent it, then I'd recommend it. But it's not really worth the high price of a new copy.

Sephiroth_dude

Eurgamer gave it

7/10

Helix

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Eurgamer gave it

7/10

fairly sure thats what itll be getting from me when i get round to finishing it tbh

humanji

Yeah, that sounds about right. If it was polished, it'd be a great game. As it is, it's a good game that is lacking in some areas.

tman

Mr. K wrote: »

Presently, the 360 and PS3 versions stand at 69 and 71 respectively. I might pick this up cheap sometime, but a demo would be nice!

followed by

Helix wrote: »

surprised at the poor reviews, i thought it was great... though i didnt finish it

followed by

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Eurgamer gave it

7/10

followed by

Helix wrote: »

fairly sure thats what itll be getting from me when i get round to finishing it tbh

Make up your mind or stick to your guns, Helix:p

Helix

huh?

7/10 is a bloody good score

Mr. K

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-alpha-protocol/100743

Looks a bit messy...

tman

Ah, don't mind me, I'm just nitpicking...
It has received average scores of 69 & 71 so far, but the order of the posts quoted made it look like you think that's a vastly different score to 7/10

Stev_o

This game is woeful. Gameplay is completely broken, stealth just doesn't work full stop and the hacking gameplay is just unnecessary complicated. Character movement is the worst iv ever dealt with and don't even get me started on the shooting mechanics. Huge disappointment.

Helix

the hacking was a real pain at first i thought actually yeah, way more complicated than it needed to be

wayne040576

I got it for the pc yesterday. I've only played the opening to the game but I've found the controls very annoying. I still haven't found a good mouse sensitivity setting for it. The default is too slow and if I put it up, I end up walking into walls or suddenly facing the wrong direction.

There are 3 hacking minigames, setting off alarms and picking locks aren't too bad but hacking the computers is a pain in the arse. You look at a screen full of randomly changing characters and have to pick out 2 7 or 8 character strings from it. By the time you move down to select, the timer is up and has rejumbled them again :mad:. Took me ages just to do the one in the tutorial.

I don't really care about the shooting being off as it works like an RPG with all shots depending on a dice roll to determine the outcome. A bit like the first mass efect although nowhere near as refined.

humanji

I kind of like the hacking minigame. It's really hard to see the numbers sometimes and it adds to the tension.

The game really opens up once you get out of the starting section in Saudi Arabia. Although the story is fairly linear (in that it lets you pick what order to do the missions), it still feels like it's your choices that are opening up the new missions and areas.

The action parts aren't particularly good, but if you play it all using stealth, it makes it a ot better I think. The shootouts just tend to be a matter of staying where you are and waiting for them to walk into the open.

I'm loving how the missions aren't all the same. Minor

I loved meeting one of the bad guys in a cafe in Rome and had to see how much info I could get out of him, and trying to act cool even though his men surrounded me.

Also, how you act in missions also affects how others see you, depending on whether you kill everyone, just incapacitate everyone or don't get spotted at all. The more I play this, the more I'm loving it.

Venom

Obsidian releasing lame crap like this is pretty worrying considering their making the next Fallout game

VenomIreland

Venom wrote: »

Obsidian releasing lame crap like this is pretty worrying considering their making the next Fallout game

Yeah, if they don't mess up the gameplay and just give us the good ol' storytelling like in Fallout and Fallout 2, I'll be happy.

humanji

Venom wrote: »

Obsidian releasing lame crap like this is pretty worrying considering their making the next Fallout game

Well wasn't this game made by only a small part of the company because the rest of them are working on Fallout?

Plus Fallout Vegas is practically Fallout 3 with a few gameplay changes and a different story, and story is what Obsidian are good at.

Captain Chaos

humanji wrote: »

Well wasn't this game made by only a small part of the company because the rest of them are working on Fallout?

Plus Fallout Vegas is practically Fallout 3 with a few gameplay changes and a different story, and story is what Obsidian are good at.

But they were working on AP for years before they were offered the Fallout job by Bethesda.

I don't know about them being good with the story, look at KOTOR 2, but then again they were rushed with that game but Bioware had the guts of it built form them.

With Fallout, Bethesda have all the ground works done really, Obsidian just have to tweak it to their needs and try not to make a mess of it. I'm sure Bethesda will be keeping an eye on them.

humanji

Well they were working on Alpha Protocol but didn't it get stalled for a while, while team members were moved from project to project?

And in fairness to Kotor2, the main story arc had promise, but as you said was rushed, but the subplots and character stories were fantastic. I always felt that that was their strong point. It was the actual "game" part that let them down, which can be a problem when making games is what you do. :P

DarkJager

Picked this up yesterday for the 360. Within 15 minutes of playing the game, I wanted to take it straight back. The controls felt clumsy, the graphics seemed to be popping in and out, and the tutorial level was dire. Then I started a mission in Saudi Arabia and was wondering why not one bullet out of the 15 I fired had hit the enemy. Turned it off in disgust.

So I went back online and was surprised by the swinging of reviews. Some hated it (destructoid gave it 2/10) while others were awarding high scores. I was curious about this, so I decided to give it 2 hours of playing to redeem itself. And thankfully I did.

Some points I noticed which sorted out some of these initial problems:

Turning on Motion Blur in the options gets rid of the popping graphics.
Adjusting the sensitivity of the look controls makes it much easier to navigate.
Accuracy of your shots is determined by the skills (e.g Mass Effect 2) and the size of the reticule.

It's a game where the first level will make or break your experience of it, its that bad. Push through that, and the game certainly starts looking promising. I've gone from wanting to return it to the shop to wanting to see what happens next, just after giving it a bit of time to get going. Hopefully that's an indicator this game might not be as bad as the reviews its getting.

cableguy.ie

It's in the deal in gamestop only 15 euro when you trade in certain games (doesn't actual say which games the usual)

DarkJager

Having played another 2 hours of this today, its definitely picked itself up and is actually quite fun once you get used to it. I like the fact that every single action you take has consequences, it adds a real depth to the story. Also getting used to the combat now that I've boosted a few of my skills.

One gripe I have which I don't think will be resolved by the games end is the character you play as. Michael Thorton has to be the most dickheaded secret agent ever - I don't think this game can pull off a second miracle and make me like him. He's smug, he doesn't sound in the slightest bit dangerous (which is made even worse when he's "threathening" someone) and he just doesn't feel like a bad-ass. I worry everytime he starts talking to someone that they'll say something to make him cry.

uberpixie

Finished my first play through on recruit: reall enjoyed the game. Granted it has it's flaws but once you upgrade your stealth and a weapon skill the game really opens up.

As regards the issues people have being whinging about....

Stealth works fine, a couple of ranks and a bit of patience and you can ninja it up plenty. Silent running along with Evasion (passive skill with a long cooldown which gives you a 2 second grace of stealth if spotted by an enemy) really allow you to take the piss..

The pistol is leathal: it is one of the easiest weapons to kill bosses with once you have chainshot, chainshot at it highest rank allows 6 shots on target, so you can kill up to 6 agents if you get all headshots or just shoot a boss 6 times in a row in the head... The pistol once you start using it from cover and aiming long enough for critical hits will kill a baddie in one headshot of severely fcuk him up, tis rubbish as a run and gun weapon, but taking your time from cover with it is VERY effective.

Hacking: spend 3 points and buy the very first rank in sabotage... it will allow you to use EMP greneades to hack instead of having to go through the mini game. Just stock up on EMP and anytime you see a PC hit the E key, job done and no alarms.....

I am now on my second play through as a Veteran class. Playing through the game on recruit makes the game at the start a little harder due to the fact you start with no ranks in anything but unlocks Veteran class after you beat the game.

Veteran = 3 ranks in EVERY skill and you can unassign all the skill points and reapply as you see fit at the very start of the game. Makes a 2nd playthrough much easier and fun.

I am going through the game again and being pretty much the biggest coque imaginable. Most of my contacts hate me which is having interesting effects on the game to say the least, I am also taking no prisoners and it is nice to see the little effects this has. Nothing earth shattering but it def is making my life more difficult to day the least .