An Hour With... Alpha Protocol
We had hoped to bring your our Alpha Protocol WIT by now, but a series of unfortunate circumstances means that it's much delayed. You might even have your own Thoughts to Wot below. So here is a description of the first hour or two, which isn't a very pretty sight. I'm absolutely sure things much [...]
Author: John Walker Category: RockPaperShotgun Alpha Protocol An-Hour-With feature Publish Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 11:30:44 +0000
We had hoped to bring your our Alpha Protocol WIT by now, but a series of unfortunate circumstances means that it's much delayed. You might even have your own Thoughts to Wot below. So here is a description of the first hour or two, which isn't a very pretty sight. I'm absolutely sure things much improve after this, especially now I have the game in a state in which I can play it at all. So yes, this is especially negative. No, this absolutely is NOT our review of Alpha Protocol, and anyone who says it is gets a dead arm.
come on Obsidian, this is quite pathetic. How can they get this so wrong? I am lamenting my $50 now, unless they pushed out some accidental alpha build or something...
I bought it for PS3 in Tesco not seeing a PC version, then got home and saw it on Steam. At the time I was annoyed, but I'm rather less so now.
NWN2 was a good game, not loved by all, but not bad by any means. Certainly the most enjoyment I've had in a D&D rulebook-based game, seeing all those spells I'd only read about or seen in sprite form for years, like Delayed Blast Fireball go off in real-time made me quite moist.
buzzmong wrote:It's Obsidian. Afaik they've not actually managed to release a finished and polished game yet.
KOTOR2 (ok, not all their fault) and NWN2 being the two biggest examples.
No they haven't, but in both cases it wasn't entirely their fault, as with NWN 2 they also were forced to rush the game out early. If they release AP in this state then they're hopeless.
There's "forced to rush out" and then there's "how long does it take you to make three games?". The evidence suggests more than seven years. While they're not the biggest outfit, you can kind of understand the publishers wanting to get something on the shelves. Sadly it hurts their reputation every time - while there is some great stuff within those games, you're just left wondering "what if?"
Yeah I know, that's why I'm saying if they're screwing this one up in the same way then it's obviously a trend. The game still hasn't unlocked for me yet so I have no first hand experience, but this game seems to be janky and such even on the PC. Some will say they saw it coming, but I honestly thought they could pull it off.
I just finished the game. I will probably write a proper review at work tomorrow. At a glance though my thoughts are:
++Great character interaction, you actually have to figure out how people will respond as the game doesn't broadcast it
+Good story, generic but well executed
+It at least feels like Obsidian didn't have to cut parts of the story because of time
+Stealth is rewarded with an insta-kill/KO option, relieving much of the combat anxiety
---Clunky controls, making combat outside of using Chain Shot frustrating
-Almost random AI, impossible to judge
-Annoying hacking minigame, just what the hell they were thinking?
An Hour With... Alpha Protocol
