Alpha Protocol

[EastCoasthandle]

Game: Alpha Protocol
DLC: Unknown
Duration: Unknown
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Sega
Engine: Unreal 3
Release Date: June 1, 2010
Genre: Action RPG
Modes: Single Player, third-person perspective
Video: Trailer

This is an RPG, FPS game that involves your character to solve a US conspiracy against him. This game uses s check point system in order to save your progress. Also, there are plenty of weapons to use but being an RPG you have to unlock how to use them through gaining Advancement Points. You also have to gain certain abilities levels as well. One ability is an old favorite called bullet time. But they call it slow motion.

This game does come with some dialog were you can gain points by using the correct attitude. You can choose from three different attitudes when dialogging with NPCs.

 

[Hybrid_theory]

I had a look of the review on game trailers. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-alpha-protocol/100742
The idea of rpg espionage is cool. But like it said in the video, bad combat is shitty. its a huge part of the game, needs to be good

 

[EastCoasthandle]

a tired dev @ May 28th 2010 2:37PM

I worked on this game (a fact of which I am not proud). I'm not here to defend it; I agree with all these reviews.

First, a comment for the guy at Cheesecake Factory - Most devs eat in the office most days, if they do go out they tend to grab something at the food court and head back. I know the execs take long lunches, but they often use them for informal meetings as well. Most of the programmers and designers very rarely ate outside the office during the time I was on this project.

There was a ton of work put into this game. The problem is that is was a ton of undirected work, or work on things that were just stupid. The Executive Producer for the game, Chris Parker (also an owner of the company), seemed to think he was the world's greatest designer ever, and created all these absolutely ****ty systems and wouldn't listen to any of the real designers or devs about things that just didn't work. And you can't exactly argue with one of the owners of the company when he doesn't want to listen. He basically took over the game and dictated exactly how everything would work (or not work, as the case may be). The other producers realized this early on and just gave up, leaving Parker to micromanage all the designers and programmers directly.

Sega also was a factor, because they kept changing the design requirements (yes they had heavy influence there), which never gave the producers and designers time to actually decide on one set of features to make and polish. The blame is still mostly Obsidian's because the execution was absolutely terrible, and it was obvious 2 years ago that this game should have been scrapped. Instead, though, they focused on adding still more features and never fixed the ones they already had. That is a recipe for tons of bugs and no polish... as is obvious.

This game was just an absolute failure of production, and it's no wonder that so many of the developers left the company, even after the 40% staff layoffs. I am still happy about some of Obsidian's other current projects, New Vegas included, because they are going pretty well. Their big unannounced project is looking great and is already much better than AP ever was, and that may end up being the game that everyone was looking for with AP.

Sega should have canceled AP instead of Aliens..."

Found this on another forum. Not sure how true it is but if this was from a developer, ouch!
source

 

[olithereal]

Looks very average to me. Idea is cool though.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Their big unannounced project is looking great and is already much better than AP ever was, and that may end up being the game that everyone was looking for with AP.

Dammit, now I don't want to try it.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Anyone care to guess what this unannounced project maybe?

 

[fenurch]

Played it yesterday for a while and its average. Didn't really fancy it myself but its really not too bad.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Played it yesterday for a while and its average. Didn't really fancy it myself but its really not too bad.

Thanks for the heads up. Any problems with the game itself ala Prototype?

 

[MilkyWay]

I really wanted this title but now i heard it doesn't deliver very well, promising and has some cool ideas and features but not a good game overall.

Sad really as i thought it would be a cool Mass Effect rip off.

Interesting i want to find out what the other title is now

 

[Hybrid_theory]

Thanks for the heads up. Any problems with the game itself ala Prototype?

Prototype didnt have problems
Not for me anyway

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Prototype didnt have problems
Not for me anyway

Many people had problems with prototype that were never fixed:
-game wouldn't start unless you disabled something in the Device manager
-gamepad wouldn't work correctly
-some couldn't get the correct resolution to work
-IQ problems
-etc

 

[TVman]

alpha protocol = a waist of bittorrent bandwith !!! it really is that bad

 

[LittleLizard]

AFAIK is basically a mass effect but instead of aliens and space, you get spies and normal guns.

It was developed Obsidian Entretainment (Basically Bioware for low budget projects).

I am not downloading it yet but i may give it a shot. If in the first two hours i got bored more than three times, then not worth it.

 

[lyndonguitar]

alpha protocol = a waist of bittorrent bandwith !!! it really is that bad

also DLing right now..

IS THIS GAME REALLY BAD? i thought it was a mass effect + splinter cell?

I know Obsidian Entertainment is a sequel killer.but now Obsidian now sucks Overall if this game is really bad and a mass effect wannabe

 

[TVman]

also DLing right now..

IS THIS GAME REALLY BAD? i thought it was a mass effect + splinter cell?

I know Obsidian Entertainment is a sequel killer.but now Obsidian now sucks Overall if this game is really bad and a mass effect wannabe

mass effect dialog + splinter cell world = alpha protocol !!! the story is good BUT its horrible visuals,bad gameplay and horrendous controls make this game unplayable. then again it is just MY opinion

obsidian has some very talanted people who can make up very interesting storys but no talent or skill do make it a good game.that is very unfortunate

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It reminds me of the original Deus Ex.


The good:
-There's a lot of replayability here (lots of dialogs/choices).
-It's pretty fun.
-It's stable.

The bad:
-Missing character transition animations (changing directions, for example).
-Graphics are pretty pitiful.
-Severe lag whenever the game is caching a new area.
-Display options appear to have no effect on anything (appearance nor performance).
-It has several bugs (like having to have space bound for hacking).


As it stands, I'd give it 7/10. Some patching could bring that up to at least 8/10.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

In game video

 

[digibucc]

you hit it though ford - deus ex was all i kept thinking.

why do the graphics have to be old
why is 3 (machina) TBA?
why does this game (alpha protocol) just make me want to play deus ex. it's no good on it's own.

why does this game have just enough good ideas to make it sound awesome, and then have you look dumbfounded once the menu loads and you can tell from that alone you've been screwed.
I was actually waiting for this game for awhile, looking forward to it. big mistake. the only redeeming value is that the idea and what they tried to do was cool. that's it. it was a pile of crap otherwise.

 

[AsRock]

AFAIK is basically a mass effect but instead of aliens and space, you get spies and normal guns.

It was developed Obsidian Entretainment (Basically Bioware for low budget projects).

I am not downloading it yet but i may give it a shot. If in the first two hours i got bored more than three times, then not worth it.

Could not agree more they messed up NWN2 but sure it was ok but it was no were near as good as NWN1

Any thing what Obsidian Entertainment can do Bioware do 100's of times better.

 

[lyndonguitar]

Could not agree more they messed up NWN2 but sure it was ok but it was no were near as good as NWN1

Any thing what Obsidian Entertainment can do Bioware do 100's of times better.

Just like KOTOR 1 and 2

 

[fenurch]

EastCoastHandle - Haven't encountered any problems so far but then again, I'm not too keen on the game so I don't really play it that much. Anyhow, I'm running it on 1920x1080 max so optimisation is pretty swell.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I almost got it beat. Pretty good game but I think my biggest gripe about it is aiming sensitivity. It is too low while running around and too high when aiming. I've had to use the +/- sensitivity buttons on my mouse a lot and I haven't had to do that in any game until now.

If they fixed all the bugs, it would be a 9/10 game easy. As it stands, 7/10. Currently, I think it is worth beating three times (professional recruit, suave veteran, and aggressive soldier).

There are tons of crosses, double crosses, and triple crosses. The plot is pretty damn hard to predict.



Edit: Playing through a second time. I already encountered three substantial changes from the first time through I didn't expect.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I finished three times now and probably won't play it for a long time again (most likely will at some point though). The spoiler below contains a list of characters and what interaction method they prefer (along with notes on some). I recommend not looking at it until after you beat it once:

Spoiler

Those with nothing in the Like column have such a brieft interaction that it really carries no weight.

Name|Like|Notes
Albatross|Right|Hates Left
Brayko
Championchik
Darcy|Right
Grigori|Left|Up makes him fearful of you. Up will make guards attack you at the embassy.
Heck|Left|The first two dialogs with him, do Up for +4
Hong Shi|Right|Hates Left
Jibril Al-Bala
Leland|Right|He got away and Westridge was in his place when I did Left (not sure if that's a coincidence or not)
Madison|Left|Up will trigger attack
Marburg|Right|hates Left; he will attack if he is angry enough at you and you use the dossier option in battle with him
Mina|Right|Kill dancers in Moscow, CIA agents in Rome, or Taiwan police for -1 each
Nasari
Omen
Parker|Right
SIE|Up|She also likes Left (maybe more-so than Up)
Scarlet|Right
Shaheed|Right
Sis|Left
Sung
Surkov|Right|Up will trigger attacks
Westridge|Up|Not 100% on that. It seems like he liked Right too.

Remember the Dossier option! You can either get more information out of them by using it or make enemies behave in ways they wouldn't otherwise. If it shows up, it is probably a good idea to take it.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I was just looking through the cast list for Alpha Protocol thinking that the Chinese dude sounded familiar (and it did, James Hong who appeared in Kung Fu Panda and Balls of Fury) to discover a lot of the cast has appeared previously in A-list games. The guy that voices Steven Heck (Roland North) also voiced Desmond Miles in Assassin's Creed/II. The woman that voices Scartlet Lake (Courtenay Taylor) also voiced Subject Zero in Mass Effect 2. Remarkably, a lot of the cast in Alpha Protocol also voiced characters in Red Faction: Guerilla.


I am still not sure how many endings there are. This has to be the most variable game I've ever played. I beat it four times now and am still finding different ways to make the last mission play out.

I just wish they'd get a patch out to fix the bugs (namely the lag when area transitioning and trouble aiming while zoomed).

 

[EastCoasthandle]

This game wasn't as bad as some made out to be. I've not read any major mass complaints. Sure the game has it's quirks but overall it should be an enjoyable experience. I wonder if a patch have been released?