Kunikos
1602
Tim_N
1603
Not to be outdone, gamersgate have dropped their price to $7.50 as well if anybody cares. http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-ALP/alpha-protocol I care because in Aus steam has it for $12.50.
I bought it for $7.50 from Target. So HAH!, you silly digital copy people. ;)
Ergo
1605
I just bought it from Steam for $7.50.
That’s what I was waiting for. It’s a buy and now it’ll sit there until I get to it. For that price, it’s bound to be worth the money even if it comes across as fair in quality.
pilonv1
1607
I didn’t even know there was a first patch. Still a great game.
Yeah I picked it up for that price…have no idea what it plays like but the developer + theme + price make it bound to be worth it.
I’m sincerely thinking about it, except my backlog (which is significant) and the very poor reviews (6/10 at Gamespot) are holding me back.
The backlog is one thing, the reviews are flat out wrong.
The game isn’t that long either. You can get through it in a reasonable amount of time. It’s a steal at $7.50
Are the reviews really that wrong? Look, I like the stuff Obsidian tried to do in this game and I applaud their attempt, but for many the game was really subpar.
The reviews for the most part missed the point. It’s all been beat to death throughout this very thread and others, but the main idea is that if you spend 9/10 of your review negatively comparing it to Gears of War and bitching about the graphics you had the wrong person reviewing it (as Edge did). You might as well ask me to review the next Madden game knowing full well I’m going to rely on comparisons to genres and titles it superficially resembles because I don’t have much context for what it’s supposed to be doing.
It’s a solid 7/10 for people who like action RPGs in broad terms, and an 8-9/10 for people that are solidly behind Obsidian doing its branching quest paths/consequences things because they are the only ones advancing the genre in that direction at any level of mainstream work.
It depends on expectations and what your in it for. If you like making choices and seeing results and can stomach RPG combat in the guise of a 3rd person cover shooter; it’s kind of amazing, forgive a few clunky bits as this is Obsidian. If you are expecting an RPG-lite stealth action game, or something closer to Mass Effect 2, prepare for disappointment.
Also it’s mini-games really put Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 to shame.
Reviewers vastly overstate how buggy it is and how bad the combat is. The combat may not be as smooth as an actual third person shooter like gow, but it is certainly many times better than a game like oblivion. I also did not encounter that many bugs playing it on pc. This is a product of the undeserved bad reputation obsidian has among reviewers who don’t play rpgs.
Reviewers also generally ignore the strides alpha protocol has made in advancing the rpg genre by pioneering new levels of things like choices and consequences and user influenced story.
I finished just the first mission (Nasri the arms dude) but I rather like it. I suck at the hacking minigame–I can’t process those flashing numbers very well–but I really dig the story telling and the combat is pretty decent. It’s reminiscent, to me, of the old Lara Croft games from the 90s. The graphics are fine for what it is, and while the console-ish feel put me off initially, I’m getting the hang of it. I have a 360 controller but I’ve never actually used it on the PC. The only parts of the UI that annoy me are the hacking minigame (the mouse is imprecise, oddly enough) and sometimes dialog selections aren’t calibrated to the mouse exactly the way I like it, but I’m getting used to that too.
For less than eight bucks, I’ve already got my money’s worth.
The mouse is very wonky without a lot of tweaking (including having strange effects on camera scrolling, at least on my PC). I strongly recommend at least giving it a try with the 360 controller, as that actually solved most of my problems with minor glitches and control issues. I ended up preferring the 360 version in the end, because loadscreens were better than the PC troubleshooting aspect which was still at its embryonic stage when I was playing it. I’m sure it’s better now.
I’ve said as much before, but I’ll say again - try the mouse and keyboard controls first. I did not experience any problems myself except for input being off center in the hacking minigame (which was clearly designed for gamepad, but can certainly be adjusted to and can be fairly trivially skipped with a minor skill/gadget investment as long as you’re comfortable with other minigames). The problems you are describing, and that some other people have noted, seem to me to be some sort of bug or glitch, possibly system dependent and certainly not universal, rather than a fundamental issue with the design of the PC controls.
I did try. And now I’ll try again as I inevitably reinstall and do what is probably a fifth or sixth playthrough. Dammit.
Dang, I’d only be on my fourth playthrough. I haven’t done the “jackass with a shotgun who kills everyone” playthrough.
