| Platform | GameSpot | Metacritic / User Score |
|---|---|---|
Alpha Protocol tries to sneak past Kevin VanOrd in this video review.
Of course it's bugged, glitchy and clumsy.. It's made by Obsidian, after all.
They made the bugged Fallout: New Vegas and they're just as bad a studio as Bethesda in regards to bugs.
I mean, seriously, how can you make game after game with the same buggy crap and never learn? Just disband your shitty studio or learn to fukin improve.
This game isn't bad at all, could it have been better? Sure, but I had a lot of fun with it. More than I was expecting to and would like a sequel. If given a larger budget this game could be comparable to a modern day Mass Effect.
3 Like I admittedly got this cheap but it's not that bad of a game kind of innovative, way to easy, reasonable story not great. But this is a decent game i see his point though still a 7 is a much more reasonable score.
2 Like This game deserves more then 6 Gamespot your reviews are terrible.
Sorry to disappoint you mister reviewer but this is not your average Call of Duty shooter but its a hell of RPG, great game overall !
1 Like The Good :
Decent story line, nicely designed maps that give more freedom than your average recent shooter type game, far less 'pre scripted' events than your average shooter which equals less of a rail shooter feeling that so many shooter types stick by these days. Great voice acting and character interaction. Nicely done graphics. Many maps in the game cater to the stealthy type player, and can be tons of fun to carefully navigate while silently and carefully eliminating your enemies one at a time.. yet unfortunately the many bugs and lack of content in the gameplay mechanics can make this task less enjoyable than what it really should be. Overall, the game stands out as being unique, and provides somewhat of a breath of fresh air amongst the average shooter type game of the day, where there really is a lot of freedom to take on tasks in your own way, rather than constantly feeling like your stuck following a pre-defined path, with pre-defined events that so many games these days do.
The Bad :
Right to the first most annoying aspect, major flaws and lack of content in character abilities. The biggest thing that hit me was no walking ability unless you're crouched. A terrible thing to not have, when so many players are going to want to play a stealthy type, where the result is constantly moving about in crouch mode because it is the only way to move at a slow pace (which also is the only way to avoid sound detection from movement). If they had simply added a nicely done stealthy walk option, it would have done tons for the gameplay aspects in general. The somewhat undesirable look to the crouch walk really Imo is not that bad, the problem is that you rely on it because you can't walk upright, so the flaws in the crouch mode are simply magnified due to overuse over time. Next. lean right/left shooting, which of course is strictly based on if the cover you have allows it. They should have just given the lean right/left animation, let the players use it at will, and it would have removed all the time spent pre-preparing all of those areas and allowed leaned shots from any position. As it stands, so many cover spots don?t allow it, and it leaves you to have to quickly move in and out like a duck with a bull?s-eye on it in combat sometimes.
The increasing usage of 'Boss' type enemies as the story line progresses. The first few 'boss' type enemies arent too awful unbelievable.. then as time goes on, it starts really getting ridiculous.. A boss that snorts coke to get a combat boost.. while wearing nothing more than casual clothing... is one of the hardest "bosses" in the game?? The game clearly presents itself early as attempting to portray a somewhat realistic approach to combat gameplay, and then all of the sudden jumps the rails and moves into the usage of 'bosses' as if trying to mix in content from an Mmo into a single player game.. Imo they really didn't have to go so far with it, but it's yet another aspect that lacks in proper content, and my suspicion is that things started getting rushed towards completion, maybe due to budget, maybe due to time frame to completion or maybe both.
Generally speaking the gameplay can be quite buggy at times, really from one end of the spectrum to the other. Too many times my character would run to a location, stop, and all of the sudden the camera would 'trip out' and spin around on its own facing some undesirable direction. Usage of ladders in the game is downright annoying, if ur in the middle of combat and so happen to get to close to one... oops.. you just automatically start climbing it. They should have just made ladder usage just like the doors, use your activate button. No idea why they did that. Other things here and there as well.
Conclusion :
Overall, if I were to compare this game to the average shooter to date, I would personally give it at least a 7 out of 10, simply due to the uniqueness, freedom giving, and overall fun factor the game provides. The concept is really a great one, and it seems like something happened along the way, and it never really got finished before it hit the shelf. In retrospect, I guess its a good thing at least it did hit the shelf rather than being scrapped.
1 Like i personally like this game its not the best rpg out there but its at least original and works for what it is an espionage action rpg
1 Like I just finished the game for the first time, and I've gotta say I really enjoyed the experience. I think one thing that's important to enjoy it is to remember that the game is an RPG, not a straight shooter. So, you're rewarded for charging a critical hit or using an ability rather than just pointing at an enemy and immediately pulling the trigger as many times as you can. Overall, I'd really like to see a sequel, and have it go further, with an even more interactive story, and even more ways that your actions can alter the story.
1 Like I thought the story was good and it kept you wanting to play to see how the story carried on. Its to bad the game mechanics was bad. I played the whole thing using the martial arts with almost no shooting what so ever. I also thought the voice acting was really good even if the graphics were dated to show emotion of what they were speaking or feeling. Could have been a great game but at $2 its a fun play for the story.
I remember in the review mentioning some weapons being better. I just got it for $2 on Steam and after shooting 10 shots at a guy with my cursor in the middle of his body but the game making my shots inaccurate I didn't want to play the whole game where half my shots miss but not because of me.
Here's a few things to try for the PC version that I found helps improve the game. (Make a copy in the same folder of the files, APEngine.ini and APGame.ini so you can go back to original settings if you have any problems) To improve the framerate issue: Open "APEngine.ini" located at "Documents\Alpha Protocol\APEngine\Config" and change the following: UseBackgroundLevelStreaming=false OnlyStreamInTextures=true OneFrameThreadLag=False To improve Michaels Movement. This slows the turning speed and slows the animation when crouched ect. I really felt it helped improve the game. "APGame.ini" located at "Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config" and change the following: InteractDistance=250 CoverWalkSpeed=75.f CoverRunSpeed=125.f PlayerRotationSpeed=80000.0f MoveSpeedNormal=240 MoveSpeedScoped=80 SprintSpeed=320 There is even more tweeks you can do like make the graphics better ect if you just search google. Its a shame that the game didn't get higher review scores because I think it was a good start to a great franchise and could have been as successful as mass effect. unfortunately the game was released as a buggy mess and deserved the low review scores it got. Even though it plays fine since it was patched and works even better with these tweeks, its just too late to reverse the bad reputation it has. Glad I took a chance on it though because I really like it.
I bought the game last week for 360, since gamestop had a sale...and I thought all the elements of the game were unique, the story was immersive with the decisions you made throughout the game that effected everything. Definitely an original IP that could've been so much more. Granted for a game brought out last year there should have been more polish and some gameplay elements could have been better executed. Despite poor reviews, and relatively poor acceptance by gamers, I believe that Sega and Obsidian should make another one and just improve on it and continue the story. I mean after I finished I was expecting more, a more open world RPG with missions that you could tackle in any order based on who decided to be. When all else fails, try, try again.
Just finished playing this game on pc. Pretty good game I would say, definitely better than the low 6.0 rating it got from gamespot.
Shame that a clever and original game such as this is let down by a lack of developement time.
I personly blame this failure on us players. WE hawked Obsidian/Sega to get this game out so just to get us to stop they released it early. I would rather wait 5 years for a game but have it be Awesomesauce win then to get it in a month but have....this....
Lol just played it for about 3 hours. It's fun, but the firearms feel useless until you buy upgrades and add more skill points to each one.
@Evilnator, i have played it, i bought it the first day it came out, i do not like this game, it's dreadful
I've been playing Fallout New Vegas and this game doesn't look any buggier than that one.
After having played the game for myself, I have to say that I think GS actually gave a fair review of this game. The were pretty spot on with everything they said. The noted the things that were good and told the truth about the things that were bad. Overall, I still like the game, and I wish it were better than it is. But, GS got it right - this is the kind of game where you appreciate what it was trying to do. I'd like to see someone make a game just like this, only with a cooler main character, and fixing all the holes this game had.
I just got this for 20$. Should I open it and start it up? Thumbs up for yes. Thumbs down for no and to return it.
Honestly, this game really isn't that much fun. The shooting action is just terrible. I saw someone compare this game to Deus Ex - that's absurd. While Deus Ex's shooting was also underwhelming, the story, characters, and attention to detail were fantastic. Alpha Protocol certainly is good at morphing to the choices you make, but the story isn't any good and the combat is so tedious it's hard to look past.
This is actually a very good game, bought it as soon as it came out, Unfortunately sega cancelled the sequel, Hopefully someone buys the franchise, i still would like the game to be developed by obsidian.. no one writes stories like obsidian! Unfortunately most of the people complaining never even tried the game, therefore the game got such bad fame. Yes, it's buggy, but most these bugs have been resolved, and none of them were game breaking anyway.
The review seems unfair. Almost every game has these issues and most of those deal with last minute polish. The core game is great and I believe it is the true next gen successor to Deus Ex especially due to the story. And this is more realistic. Your enemies will not stupidly stop to tell you their plans(like near the end of MGS2, I was actually laughing at why are these idiots telling a well armed and unrestrained enemy or even enemies all their plans). I am going to give a few minor spoilers here about AP as an example. You will not find out that the guy in the gellatto shop is an NSA agent unless you mess up in that mission and at another point you will not find the identity of an arms dealer unless you use the proper dialogues, infact he will use you to get rid of his enemies without consequence and you will end the game without knowing who he was really working for. This is what makes Alpha Protocol special and worth ignoring all flaws.
I'm still going to give this game a try. Most of the bad things the review points out can be fixed with a patch, and the things that are done right are intriguing, to say the least. I believe it's worth a look.
So... shot hits are actually based in "dice rolls" or this does the reviewer cant shoot f***? Or is it like in Mass Effect 1 that u suck with weapons your not trained in and accuracy / damage rises as you invest levels in them?
Gamespot got this one soooo wrong! Yeah...a lot of the mechanics are glitchy and a little clumsy but this game is alot better than what they made it out to be! If a big name gets a hold of this game for a sequel this game could really rock! I look forward to a part 2!
Hey, thanks for the tumbs down, that is so awesome! Finished this game five times and despite the issue, I really enjoyed it.
