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Alpha Protocol |OT| Bourne, Avellone, Denton, and the Agency's Sagacious Secrets

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
There's an achievement for it

Plus, there are a few unique recruit dialog options (early in the game, iirc) and upon completing the run, you'll unlock the veteran class which gives you some extra points from the start and a few new dialog options as well.
 

Gravijah

Member
i was thinking of going recruit my first playthrough, but i think i'll do that if i replay it.

edit: also important question for snuggler, jim-jam and hk: why didn't you guys make me play this sooner?
 

duckroll

Member
Pro-tip, when replaying the game you should try to be as much of an ass as possible. Asshole Thornton has the most amazing character scenes.
 

edgefusion

Member
I completed it just the other day despite having it since near launch and loved every god damn second. Such a shame it didn't do too well as I'd love to see a sequel (hell even a spiritual sequel would be good enough). Gotta say that maxing out the stealth branch completely owns, you can simply decimate the whole room with ease.
 

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Pro-tip, when replaying the game you should try to be as much of an ass as possible. Asshole Thornton has the most amazing character scenes.
With these type of "be good or evil!" games I tend to play good first, then play evil. With the hilarity of being evil adding to the incentive of replaying the game.

Fallout, Infamous and Mass Effect, etc...very minor differences. Asshole Thorton on the other hand has such a great payoff.
 

Gravijah

Member
quick question re: the "shop"

i'm not going to lose access to items currently available in moscow after i complete the final mission there, right? i assume i lost access to the stuff in first hub because of story reasons.
 

Labadal

Member
quick question re: the "shop"

i'm not going to lose access to items currently available in moscow after i complete the final mission there, right? i assume i lost access to the stuff in first hub because of story reasons.

You can still visit your hideout and buy stuff in Moscow.
 

Kaizer

Banned
Wow, this Brayko kid is being a real pain in the ass to kill. I've been playing the game for a while now and can definitely say it's awesome, I was a little iffy during the initial Saudi Arabia part, but now I can't get enough of it.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Doing a true badass run: hard mode, no firearms outside of a pistol with tranqs, no armor, no alarms and no kills. Went with Veteran mode, but it only gives you a little hard start. I'm kinda forced to put a bunch of points into stealth again, but I'm trying to work gadgets into my playstyle for something different. This game is so nuts, I hope all the LTTP bros give it a replay or two, no two playthroughs are the same.
 
I'm gearing up for my balls to the wall shooter play through but I just had the thought, won't alarms be going off all the time? I can see that getting pretty annoying.
 
Here's my dudebro assault Thorton, this game is a surprisingly fun shooter even if you play it straight:

daLBB.jpg


What's the consensus on which version is better, PS3 or 360? Or are they both about the same?
I haven't heard anything, I'd guess they're probably about the same.
 
So I decided to let Brayko live this time through and was pleased to find it opened a new mission I'd never seen before, very cool. And getting his sound system in the safehouse kicks ass!

Photo
 

Jhoan

Member
Wow, this Brayko kid is being a real pain in the ass to kill. I've been playing the game for a while now and can definitely say it's awesome, I was a little iffy during the initial Saudi Arabia part, but now I can't get enough of it.

I dunno if this has been answered already, but what you need to do is shoot him like crazy (or lob him incendiary grenades since there are plenty of them), until you get him down to about half his health. He eventually
sniffs coke
and starts charging at you with melee attacks. What you do then is run around the square box in the middle and shoot him; he won't be able to catch up to you.

When he calls out his goons, take them out first before he appears again. Then run around the square box while shooting him and spamming your gun powers. Heal when necessary; rinse and repeat. That's what I did.

The licensed music in that boss battle is great.

At the rate I'm going, it seems like it's going to take another 2-3 playthroughs to romance every one, get the Antisocial achievement, get the Thornton Inc achievement, and Shoot First, Ask Questions later (which is going to be my next run). Dudebro Mike is boss, so props on that Neuromancer.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
I dunno if this has been answered already, but what you need to do is shoot him like crazy (or lob him incendiary grenades since there are plenty of them), until you get him down to about half his health. He eventually
sniffs coke
and starts charging at you with melee attacks. What you do then is run around the square box in the middle and shoot him; he won't be able to catch up to you.

When he calls out his goons, take them out first before he appears again. Then run around the square box while shooting him and spamming your gun powers. Heal when necessary; rinse and repeat. That's what I did.

The licensed music in that boss battle is great.

At the rate I'm going, it seems like it's going to take another 2-3 playthroughs to romance every one, get the Antisocial achievement, get the Thornton Inc achievement, and Shoot First, Ask Questions later (which is going to be my next run). Dudebro Mike is boss, so props on that Neuromancer.
There is a much easier way to kill him of course, if you have the right intelligence to purchase ahead of time.
 

Jhoan

Member
There is a much easier way to kill him of course, if you have the right intelligence to purchase ahead of time.

Really!? Well now that I think about, I didn't get his full dossier probably because I didn't get all the intelligence in one-two missions. I did buy all the intelligence before every mission.

Hold up. Now that I think about it, I know exactly what you're talking about. :D
Being on good terms with Heck gives one the option to buy intel to have Heck poison the coke. I could have sworn I bought the intel, but he never got poisoned. }:l
 
Just finished the game tonight, and what a fantastic game it was.


Seriously, I couldn't have ended 2011 and started 2012 off on a better note.
I pretty much loved everything in this game except for a few things-


1. The camera was really annoying sometimes. I don't know if it was just my mouse or what, but having the camera suddenly swing around was really disorienting and frustrating at times.

2. The balance between how you approached and were rewarded with your approach seemed a little half baked. It was excellent that there were so many avenues and ways to go into missions, but I usually ended up exploring all of them for the money and data they held. Felt like it sort of defeated the purpose of the approach, but I still had fun clearing rooms in my own way before collecting.

3. I only killed two people at the very start because I didn't know how to switch ammo, but the game kept presenting itself as though I was a killing machine. One level actually ended with some guy getting blown up by a grenade, after I had seemingly rampaged through the area. However, I used stealth and melee takedowns through the entire game. Heck, I think I went like six hours without using my tranquilizer near the end. I only started using it on two of the final encounters in the last "level." Just bugged me that it kept talking in cutscenes and so forth like I was a murdering machine.

4. It would have been nice if they had more consistently given you ammo for the way in which you were playing. One of the reasons I ended up going very melee heavy (other than just avoiding alerting people with badly aimed tranqs) was because I was afraid of running out of ammo. There just never seemed to be as much around the levels for my choice in ammunition as there could have been. Not a big one, but whatever. Probably just trying to get you to shake things up.

5. Not enough Sis.
Seriously, she looked like she was going to be a freaking awesome addition to the cast, but she had such a tiny role to play. I wanted to take her under Thorton's wing and turn it into Leon2 or something. Granted, I wouldn't sound as cool as Jean Reno, but WHATEVER. : (
Go, Texas.



Other than that, I thought this game was superb. I was happy at how well the Intel on agencies and individuals were pretty informant without being overly lengthy. It actually felt like it was worth my while to buy and read up on some things before going into missions because it wasn't going to take forever.

The characters pretty much all did a 180 on me as I played. I don't think I honestly felt the same way about anyone comparing their final and initial impressions. I would sometimes intentionally reload before a conversation level and do different things just to see what kind of reactions I got. Some really good stuff going on in the dialogue system.

I can't decide if I liked the Russian or Taiwanese levels more, but I think I'm leaning towards Russian, simply for the snowy setting. Rome was okay, but the level with the
Gelatto shop
was the only real standout to me, hahaha. I seriously wanted that guy to have a bigger part.

If I didn't have a tremendous backlog at the moment, I'd probably start replaying this immediately. I'll certainly be revisiting it in the future, though. I'm so glad I gave this game a chance, but it breaks my heart to know we'll probably never get a sequel or a similar title to it...
 

Mxrz

Member
I've been meaning to go back and 100% this game, but it is almost daunting how many variations there are to keep track of. A sequel with better graphics & cleaned up gameplay would've been amazing.
 

Mindlog

Member
I've been meaning to go back and 100% this game, but it is almost daunting how many variations there are to keep track of. A sequel with better graphics & cleaned up gameplay would've been amazing.
I really want a sequel to this game. Between AP, ME and DE - Alpha Protocol is the closest to getting it right.

Failing a direct sequel, if the South Park Games does well I know the next license they should work with.

45oSO.png

Archer Protocol

If anyone from Microsoft is reading: Forget about the Splinter Cell series. It's over. Get with Sega and fund another AP game.
 
What's the consensus on which version is better, PS3 or 360? Or are they both about the same?

PS3 version tears more ....and oh and shooting is on L2/R2. That's about it.

Question,

When does the gunplay get better?

I started as recruit (doing professional Thorton for the most part) and have been putting points into pistol and melee (for when enemies rush). I get really tired having to wait for the reticule to turn red all the time =(
 

Edgeward

Member
Honestly, you don't need anything other than pistols. Because once you get chain shot, it will break the game. You will kill almost any enemy with a fully upgraded pistol tree. It slows down time and you can tag enemies or the same enemy multiple times.
 
Honestly, you don't need anything other than pistols. Because once you get chain shot, it will break the game. You will kill almost any enemy with a fully upgraded pistol tree. It slows down time and you can tag enemies or the same enemy multiple times.

Yeah already got. Really breaks the game huh?
 

Edgeward

Member
It mitigates any combat troubles/frustrations I had. For the final boss I (I'll just tag this just in case, but it's really just the tactic I used)
ended up cloaking, making a beeline for the boss. Chain shot, use the skill that eliminated the cooldown for used skills, chainshot, dead. This was also in a room with dozens of lackeys.
Hell really, I used this every boss battle and they were always done in under a minute and usually even faster than that.
 

Labadal

Member
Yeah melee seems kinda pointless and completely unsatisfying to boot (tap tap tap). Looks like I'll reroll ....again

Melee can be great. On my "no kills" run, the stats page showed hands as my favorite weapon. You can play any way you want. My first run I was mowing enemies down with assault rifles and shotguns.

Think of the combat as rpg combat and I think your mind will change. When your Pistol skill is maxed you will not have to wait long for Reticule to turn red. You can also clear rooms fast with headshotting people.
 
Yeah, decided not to reroll as melee does become fun once you unlock first ability (and you get to respec after Saudi, which I forgot about) and you're not just tapping B ...and as I said, it deals with the rushing enemies.
 
It doesn't, that's why it's better to go stealth/pistols. Melee will not help you in boss battles.
I meleed every boss fight except for
two of the last fights near the end.

Took me a couple of tries to figure out the best way to do it, but yeah, totally workable.
 
Honestly, you don't need anything other than pistols. Because once you get chain shot, it will break the game. You will kill almost any enemy with a fully upgraded pistol tree. It slows down time and you can tag enemies or the same enemy multiple times.

Ha ha. I haven't played AP in a long while but this happened to me. Upgraded pistols and chain shot and I took down that one boss (playing Autograph's "TURN UP THE RADIO!") in literally under 5 seconds.
 

Kinosen

Neo Member
I just finished it last night.

I was absolutely blown away by how reactive it was to player choices, as this is the first game I've played where the story was so well designed around branching threads and unique outcomes based on character allegiances and other factors, it's very impressive. On the other hand the gameplay ranges from decent, to mediocre, to utterly frustrating. Both Mass Effect and Deus Ex were criticized for clunky shooting but man, they were never this bad. It's a real shame, because had the gameplay been polished it would've been a phenomenal package overall.
 

doomguy64

Neo Member
Just loaded this up on the pc the other day for the first time and was wondering whats with the hacking controls? I had to plug in my 360 controller to pass the first hacking part because I couldn't control the mouse to line up the code.

Had this on my steam list for a year or so, I remember being reluctant to play it after reading all these bad headlines e.g "broken controls, stealth, shooting etc", looks fine to me so far.
 
Just loaded this up on the pc the other day for the first time and was wondering whats with the hacking controls? I had to plug in my 360 controller to pass the first hacking part because I couldn't control the mouse to line up the code.
Yeah, the mouse part of the hacking is a little iffy, but you get used to it fairly fast. At least, I did.

The thing that bothered me was the camera jumping around sometimes, so be ready for that.
Enjoy the game. : )
 

Leckan

Member
Just completed this game. Inconsistent to be sure, but overall a fucking amazing experience.

I don't really enjoy the Mass Effect games but this one I loved. I played a Stealth/Pistol recruit build with some melee and the gameplay was actually quite tense. When you think about it, there's a a ridiculous amount of different branches you can choose. Imagine that, an RPG where your choices actually matter. Take note Bioware/Bethesda. And I actually cared about some of the characters, making the decisions a lot harder. Only Obsidian makes them like this, with maybe CDProject too. I couldn't put it down, just had to do one more mission. Also is it just me, or is the facial animation better than in the Mass Effect games? Maybe not to hard but they use the same engine and I imagine that Bioware's games are made with a higher budget but it was surprisingly good I thought.

I'm actually a bit excited for the South Park RPG now, at least more than Mass Effect 3 or Skyrim.

One of my favourites games this gen along with New Vegas. This game needs a Sequel badly. Where the hell did
Westridge hide?

Also best boss fight ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRojSYNg7k0

Gelato Shop Man is not pleased.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YkJRK0_Y_8
 
Also is it just me, or is the facial animation better than in the Mass Effect games? Maybe not to hard but they use the same engine and I imagine that Bioware's games are made with a higher budget but it was surprisingly good I thought.
Maybe it had to do with a much smaller number of characters you had to interact with? I'm not sure, but I'll definitely agree that this has better facial animations, easily.


Love the boss fight with
Brayko.
<3
 

Penguin

Member
Just started the game after picking it up during Best Buy's fire sale.

Enjoying it so far, the aiming/shooting can be a bit wonky, and find sometimes enemies just seem to be in blind spots.. like you have a cut scene, and one is walking down the steps, but other than that.
 

RickA238

Member
Just started this game the other day, and I finished the Saudi Arabia part and picked my specialization last night.

Out of curiosity before I delve into the game further, are there any worthwhile mods out there?
 

duckroll

Member
Out of curiosity before I delve into the game further, are there any worthwhile mods out there?

I wish. The game doesn't seem very moddable at all, which is a pity because if it were fans could really have a field day with additional content and rebalancing some of the weaknesses in the design. :(
 

Penguin

Member
I got to say I've been pleasantly surprised by this game.

Reading reviews and stuff, I really wasn't expecting much, but I find it so... engrossing.

I think the biggest factor for me is that there isn't a binary good/evil choices in the game. Different characters respond differently to the way you interact with them, and genuinely am surprised when someone responds positively when I think being a jerk or vice versa.

And while the gun play is nothing to write home about, I just focus on the stealth aspect to keep me going.

So far did a ton of missions in Moscow, few in Row.. and maybe one or two in the other area. And its so refreshing that tackling missions in various orders can effect later missions (or at least that's what the dossiers usually tell me)
 

Patryn

Member
I got to say I've been pleasantly surprised by this game.

Reading reviews and stuff, I really wasn't expecting much, but I find it so... engrossing.

I think the biggest factor for me is that there isn't a binary good/evil choices in the game. Different characters respond differently to the way you interact with them, and genuinely am surprised when someone responds positively when I think being a jerk or vice versa.

And while the gun play is nothing to write home about, I just focus on the stealth aspect to keep me going.

So far did a ton of missions in Moscow, few in Row.. and maybe one or two in the other area. And its so refreshing that tackling missions in various orders can effect later missions (or at least that's what the dossiers usually tell me)

They definitely can. The boss of one area can become quite a bit easier if you meet a specific character and become friendly in another territory.

That specific character will also react differently based on when you initially meet them.
 
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