Forum Overview :: Alpha Protocol

Assault rifle is effective without being skilled up by Lizard_King 05/22/2012, 5:32am PDT Since its special ability is the least dramatic, it's safe to concentrate on other things and still have it as your secondary. Consistently, I found stealth/pistol/some other as the easiest way to play with the most refined mechanics, especially if your third ability is the one that leads to the "reset all cooldowns" ability. Russia is the hardest setting by far thanks to the embassy fight being really shitty if you don't have the second tier of abilities available and the coke enemy (especially if you haven't spiked his coke beforehand). I would say that H2H combat is unimpressive as well, since it can't match the insta-takedown of your starting, always available stealth judo chop. I would suggest doing Italy first as it seems the easiest to me (the CIA mission can be fully stealthed/judo chopped without much stealth). The advantage of doing Russia first, of course, is that it potentially opens up access to the overall best gear vendor for stealth characters; I still ended up wearing the standard civilian clothes most of the time because it went well with my beard and the stealth bonuses trump all things. But the absurdly overpowered pistol was a nice touch. The ending is on rails but it still had a few surprises. I guess if you ignored him the first time the crazy ally from the Asia level is great if you focus on him the second time, but it's also worth paying attention to the reporter if you want to go that route. Also antagonizing your handlers is pretty fun (WHY ARE YOU KILLING EVERYONE (slice) WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU (slice) YOU SICK BASTARD (bonus for fully pissing them off). Mechanics aside, it's probably the most successful effort to meaningfully reinvent branching paths in the age of voiced dialog, and the sham that is ME3's resolution of player choice lays bare just how difficult that is to do (the game path as a whole, the ending is just a footnote to the problem). It lacks production values and needed more time, and like any Obsidian game shipped all fucked up on the PC version (surprisingly, solid on the xbox). But the critical reception of the game tells you all you need to know about how worthless and intellectually bankrupt the gaming press is; my favorite was the monocle-wearing UK mag Edge handing the review to some asshole who spent the whole page talking about how it was a poor imitation of Gears of War and exactly one paragraph on the story structure or anything but its "inferior" third person shooting.

I just finished a 6 hour bender of this by fabio 05/20/2012, 12:36pm PDT     The ending was still on rails :( NT by WITTGENSTEIN 05/20/2012, 5:16pm PDT     it was literally terrible on pc at release by jeep 05/20/2012, 5:58pm PDT         That's 2 less systems than Mass Effect NT by fabio 05/20/2012, 6:03pm PDT     You have convinced me to re-install. NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 05/20/2012, 11:20pm PDT         Asshole. by WITTGENSTEIN 05/22/2012, 7:05pm PDT     Russian mobster: best character, worst boss fight by fabio 05/21/2012, 7:33am PDT         Re: Russian mobster: best character, worst boss fight by Mr. Kool 05/21/2012, 7:03pm PDT             Assault rifle is effective without being skilled up by Lizard_King 05/22/2012, 5:32am PDT     bargain basement mass effect, end of discussion by the one who infuriates you 05/22/2012, 12:08am PDT         I had to look up to see if it was the same protagonist voice actor by fabio 05/22/2012, 12:58am PDT         gruman NT by gruman 05/22/2012, 1:16am PDT         Re: bargain basement mass effect, end of discussion by This is Chris's Blood 05/22/2012, 7:30am PDT         THE AVERAGE - SNIFF SNIFF - MASS EFFECT EXPERIENCE HURRNGH by Mysterio 05/22/2012, 6:49pm PDT             hahahaha NT by Commander Derpherrpd 05/22/2012, 7:36pm PDT         yeah this isn't remotely true by jeep 05/22/2012, 9:13pm PDT             Yes, that's why I think Rome should be first by Lizard_King 05/23/2012, 6:41am PDT                 bosses in general are bad idea by jeep 05/23/2012, 9:32am PDT                     IIRC, you can actually switch cities at any point. by Lizard_King 05/23/2012, 8:45pm PDT     What a breath of fresh air, plotwise, after Assassin's Creed's faux profoundness by Mischief Artiste 05/23/2012, 12:08pm PDT