Alpha Protocol

People like the story and characters of AP? Really? What single, interesting human trait did you learn about any character? I just met a bunch of cliches, from insane CIA guy to gruff spy guy to mute spy punk girl to uncomfortably sexually forward military girl. And I learned almost nothing about any of them. I certainly didn’t care about any of them (except good ol’ Heck).

Also, the story doesn’t change based on your actions, (or it does, but very minutely) you rather just see different facets of the same story. Which isn’t nothing, but isn’t as interesting, either. (again, though, how could anyone possibly care about the story?)

And, as NuclearWinter says, most of the game is spent playing through mostly terrible gameplay missions.

Oh, and remember how everyone here shits on Deus Ex HR because “you can sneak to the boss battles but then you have to fight the bosses!” Remember how AP does the exact same thing? Only worse?

Yeah but you specialize in pistols and the boss fights are over in two seconds so it’s no big deal.

People who find them bad seem, in my experience, to be expecting 1:1 aiming and stealth that’s perfect from the start when this is an RPG and character stats meaningfully affect performance. I’ll grant you it never really becomes exceptional at action gameplay, but I found it pretty satisfying through multiple playthroughs with different builds, and by the end you’re a god amongst mortals, as you should be in an RPG.

To me the gameplay wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t great but it was ok. Of course I’m not a big player of 3rd person shooters so perhaps I just don’t know any better. From the perspective of a mostly RPG player it was good in that my progression through the skill tree did have spots at which I had to make decisions about what to take. For that matter I liked the progression in abilities; they weren’t really exciting but I did feel like I got stronger during the game while still keeping to a real world paradigm.

Overall I can recognize its not a perfect game and still love it because its come as close as anything I’ve seen to what I view as the holy grail of RPGs; a world that responds to player actions. Who you are and what you do changes the gameplay in interlocking ways. You’re right that its more a change in how you see the story than a real change in the story but its still more than other games.

For what its worth I found the story stereotypical but I enjoyed some of the characters (Mia, the sniper/photographer, and Albatross (really wanted to know more about him and G22)). I didn’t like Heck at all.

One of the big problems is that the enemy AI is too flakey. There have been many times where I’m standing right in front of of the enemy and they don’t react to me at all. It is probably the worst I’ve noticed in a game with stealth play. It’s bad enough to take you out of the moment. So far I’ve pressed on through about 13 missions so far (went to Russia next). The thing that keeps me playing so far is the amount of people that like the game and the fact that missions are generally pretty short. I don’t know if I’m just bad at recognizing where I can use stealth, but so far there has been a lot of combat even though my intention is to be stealthy.

That behavior happened in my game if I reloaded a saved game in the middle of a scenario. The game doesn’t seem to handle reloading save games very well and I noticed AI bugs like that. My solution is to try to play through a level from beginning to end instead of reloading from the middle of levels. But that’s probably the reason why I’ve only finished 2 missions after Saudi Arabia.

I think I died in 2 or so missions, so I didn’t reload in most of the missions. Since they are usually not that long they are easy to get through in 1 sitting.

The gameplay was still bad even at the end of game when your character stats are upgraded, and no amount of stats can fix things like the bad encounter design and janky AI.

I admired its ambition and desperately wanted to like it (and did like it in some respects). The story was enjoyable enough to finish, if somewhat forgettable. The setting and reactivity greatly appealed to me and I still have a good amount of respect for some of what it accomplished. So I feel kind of bad about being so down on the game, but at no point did I actually enjoy the gameplay.

To each their own, I guess. I don’t agree that it was ever bad, though it was never amazing either.

The combat’s more or less just like Mass Effect 1 in that it feels more like an RPG intended to resemble an action game rather than an actual action RPG. Works better if you think of your pointing your reticle vaguely in the direction of the enemy and letting the dice rolls decide what happens in the background. Little room for player skill to compensate for low stats, and there’s not much point to playing it like a shooter any more than playing Elder Scrolls combat like a fighting game or something. Ultimately, these games proved too incongruous to most people I think because shooters are so universal that there is really not much gained by trying to abstract the combat the way these games tried to do.

Yeah, I think that’s exactly it. (And I think Bioware’s attempt to switch to non-abstracted shootery was a dismal failure because they’re decent RPG designers and terrible shooter designers. But ah well. The later Mass Effects are a classic example of games I enjoyed despite, not because of their gameplay.)

I’m currently on my 2nd play through, in while Mike is a total psychotic. Sooooo funny so far.

Yeah, you don’t really see the reactivity until the 2nd playthrough, since not everything is lampshaded in nice color coded red or blue highlights

Restarted a game for a new let’s play on recruit, doing the psychotic again. Tooooooo god damned funny.

I recently started playing this again too. I really don’t know why.

Because it’s amazing, kinda like comfort food too.

I guess so, at least on the second part. I think it’s a solid game but not amazing to me, not by a long shot. But it is cool how much variability you can have in replays.

For me, AP was a game that got better every time I replayed it. Part of that was actually getting used to the wonky controls and feel of the game. By the 2nd time through it, you’re used to it enough where it doesn’t really detract from the gamplay. By the 3rd playthrough, I had completely bought into it and all of that stuff disappeared. That’s when the game really became fun for me. The story and characters were decent enough to keep my interest, especially when you chose some of the more confrontational stances. There was something really satisfying about playing both a super goody two shoes, and couldn’t care less miscreant.

AP will always be on my list of games I enjoyed way more than I should have, and played many more times than I ever thought I would. It’s sort of like your favorite bad movie that you watch 10 times.

I actually didn’t really enjoy my first play through that much, because of all the kerfufffle with the UI and mechanics, and I’m not even sure why I played through it the 2nd time, but it was then that I was hooked. I took a completely different approach on the 2nd playthrough, both in answers and in spec choices…it really did feel like a different game. Running through as a shotgun toting, heavy investment in hit points and martial arts is just an entirely different game than going through it stealth/pistol.

Since i bought a 1TB SSD I’ve been going through my steam backlog and installing a number of games. I recall starting AP in 2010 and quitting it at some point, tried playing this again last night and I think there’s a game in here I’d enjoy but I am having a really hard time getting past the controls. Splinter Cell Blackllist really spoiled me.

I’ve not yet played Blacklist, so maybe that’s why I had no issues with the controls, really.

But really, have you met Stephen Heck yet? OMG, if you do one thing, keep playing until you get to Taipei so you can meet him first thing. He’s the best. EVER.