Alpha Protocol.

[Egan]

Just got my copy of Obsidian's new Spy RPG. Anyone else played it yet?

I'm literally 10 minutes into the first level/tutorial so far but not massively impressed. It feels kind of dated and VERY consoley - Which i guess is par for the course with RPG's these days. The unarmed combat seems pleasantly thumpy and crunchy but the hacking sub game is very bad indeed. Haven't really played it enough so far to have any more profound opinions than those.

[Spike88]

From what I've heard and read, the dialogue, story, and minigames are awesome, but the combat is horrible. Apparently your guns do not hit based on your aiming, but more so on a random dice roll. Also the AI is also apparently really bad.

[TteFAboB]

Got it, did 3 play-throughs so far.

The gameplay is so-so. Not bad, but far from great, though in this day and age I suppose being above awful, bug-ridden and unplayable is worth a praise...

The story, however, is a most impressive display of RPG implementation. Every action has a consequence, and they've got every little corner covered. However you play, you will get one coherent storyline, from start to finish; a believable character, a believable story. If your actions are insane and incoherent, they got that covered as well and the world will react with surprise and confusion.

In this criteria it beats Mass Effect and any other Bioware game by a large, nearly immeasurable margin (including Dragon Age). Every little thing you do in Alpha Protocol matters and has an effect, unlike the effects of your actions in Mass Effect, which aren't massive at all, besides from the few main decisions in the main quest line. And by effect I don't mean only character reactions, but entirely different missions, paths, encounters.

So I must urge all you story or RPG players out there to try Alpha Protocol to the end, not for the gameplay, which is quite poor, but to see, most refreshingly, quality story-telling in a game. If it had proper quality gameplay as well this would have been the RPG of the century.

[onelifecrisis]

I'm almost tempted to buy this game just to support future development of similar games, but from what I've read there are just too many bugs at the moment. Also, Yahtzee's description of the dialogue system ("trousers") was off-putting. In any case I hope BioWare have taken notice of what's been done in AP, and perhaps realised that their smoke and mirrors are not fooling anyone anymore.

[CaptHawkeye]

It's a lot better than the fatty nerd journalists in the game industry give it credit for.

Sure the combat is heavily RPG based, but for some reason, that's only *bad* when Alpha Protocol does it and not Ass Effect or KoToR right? :lol: Bioware gets automatic worship for making D&D games OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Yeah the game is buggy. But it's only bad when Alpha Protocol does it...and not when, like Red Dead Redemption does it? :lol: Oh right Rockstar game REVIEWS MUST HAVE MORE NERD JIZ.

The dice roll thing I keep hearing about and let me say this about it.

IT'S A FLAT OUT LIE. Playing the game me and my friends have never ONCE seen a bullet magically fly through someone and not hit them. If a silly "roll to hit" mechanic is there, then it is most definitely not as obnoxious as Morrowind's system was. But hey Bethesda game automatic 10/10 lol.

Alpha Protocol isn't perfect, it's got some flaws and its broken in plenty of places. But the industry is savaging it for the dumbest reasons. Pretty much every reason the journalists hate AP boils down to "WAAAHHH IT'S NOT SPLINTER CELL!!!! I DON'T LIKE CHANGE!"

Don't worry though, i'm sure all the reviewers will be back to complaining "games don't innovate" in a year or so.