Picked up alpha protocol today

So far I'm focussing on Stealth and Pistol. Stealth is self-explanatory, and pistol can be easily fitted with a silencer and tranq darts to complement a stealth/no-kill approach, or is still good enough in an out-and-out firefight. The other weapons, while more powerful than the pistol, just cause the enemies to come running straight at you.

Done the Desert Spear set of missions, opted to let the Sheikh live. Got me some nice bonus weaponry and good intel on other targets too. Really enjoying the game so far, bugs aside; I had the game freeze up at one point, though I had been playing for a couple of solid hours at that point. Interestingly, it did reveal another facet to the game.

Forced to replay one of the Conversation options, I got a totally different outcome. The first time through, I tried to bluff my way through and ended up drawing weapons and killing my target. This resulted in a loss of intel on a target, which it later transpired would have been a weapon drop in a later level and a dossier entry on another contact, though these were only apparent when I replayed it and successfully talked my target around, installing a a bug on his computer which resulted in the above intel and other bonuses.

So no, the game isn't perfect; it's buggy, prone to screen tearing and other graphical glitches and some of the AI is borderline moronic. Despite all that though, I think it's (whisper it) better than Deus Ex. Deus Ex threw so many exp points at you it was virtually impossible not to max out all your skill trees, in AP it's literally impossible to even get close to maxxed out. You really do have to specialise, and the branching storyline and multiple outcomes will ensure replay value.

Thanks for the recommendation, Buu, I'm really enjoying it.

I don't know where you got the freeze exactly, but i heard the blur on panning the camera, can freeze the game if you turn the tv on. I think I turned off motion blur as i didn't notice what it did and i didn't get that type of freeze again, not sure if it stopped the freezes in general. But come to think of it my first play through was the glitchiest so that might help.

What guy did that happen on? There's lots of weird shit that happens depending on how you talk to people. I think i generally pissed off anyone i didn't like in hope i could kill them later.

Glad your enjoying it.

Superbuu3 wrote:

I don't know where you got the freeze exactly, but i heard the blur on panning the camera, can freeze the game if you turn the tv on.

It was when I was fighting the tank at the very end of the Desert Spear issions, right before you talk to Shaheed. I was sprinting from cover and the game just froze. I've also had it freeze on a loading screen once, but that was just after an auto-save so not a problem.

Quote :

What guy did that happen on? There's lots of weird shit that happens depending on how you talk to people. I think i generally pissed off anyone i didn't like in hope i could kill them later.

The guy in the ice cream shop, when you try and bluff your way in to fix the computer. First time around, I screwed it up, he went to pull a gun, I shot him. Second time, I installed a bug, then he pulled--- an ice cream. So I got intel, dossier information, a weapon drop and an ice cream. Nice.

Oh that guy is well shifty, I shot him once and bugged his computer another time don't think i ever managed to get him to try adn shoot me though, so thats cool. There's even more options then i thought.

I've also been lookign at the Trophies - some of which seem like they'd be a right pain in the arse. I don't mind playing a game and unlocking trophies / achievements, but when you need to devote a whole playthrough to get one or two particularly difficult trophies I draw the line. Not that I'll mind playing through this again, I just can't see me getting the Plat.

Mind you, I've not got a single plat yet for that exact reason.

You'll get the plat quite easily, the only thing that would be bothersome in theory are the romance ones. Though its not hard to work out how to make them happy.

Without trying i got thoton inc and whatever the one for the relationships pretty effortlessly (i'm pretty sure those are considered somewhat hard to get). IIRC only one trophy actually ever made me feel like doing something i wouldn't have done normally. Though that one i did wanna see what would happen. The fact you realise you can actually turn everyone into an ally or an enemy makes it really exciting. That said even with three playthroughs there was one boss fight i never triggered. That one wasn't a trophy though.

I also failed to get a happy ending for some characters. Trying to work out the correct combo of a bunch of events will give you a headache when you realise how complex the convo tree is. A classic example is being told off if you did something in another country, if you do that mission before another one or something. The armour one is suprising to, like they comment on what your wearing.

First couple of playthroughs I'll do stealth first, then all guns blazing, if I still fancy a third playthough I might try and pick up any I missed.

I saw one that needs a lot of people to hate you - that'll be tough, because I hate being an arse, even in video games - and one that requires not being detected at all in three missions whilst getting zero kills. That'll be tough; quite a few levels seems to have set pieces that trigger alarms anyway.

I also think I missed a boss fight; I had a dialogue choice against SIE to fight her, but she liked the aggressive dialogue, so I talked through it instead. One thing I am looking forward to next time through is killing the little goth girl with the pistols, Sis I think her name is. Yeah, she gonna die next time.

SimianWonder wrote:

First couple of playthroughs I'll do stealth first, then all guns blazing, if I still fancy a third playthough I might try and pick up any I missed.

I saw one that needs a lot of people to hate you - that'll be tough, because I hate being an arse, even in video games - and one that requires not being detected at all in three missions whilst getting zero kills. That'll be tough; quite a few levels seems to have set pieces that trigger alarms anyway.

I also think I missed a boss fight; I had a dialogue choice against SIE to fight her, but she liked the aggressive dialogue, so I talked through it instead. One thing I am looking forward to next time through is killing the little goth girl with the pistols, Sis I think her name is. Yeah, she gonna die next time.

Sie was the boss fight i didn't ever initiate, i'm certain you can fight her though. She was the only female who never pissed me off. Slutty, emo, whiney and naggy, all pissed me off. I don't think i ever made a friendship with emo, so i dunno how helpful she is. I literally pissed off Mina the whole game then wondered if there was still time to chat her up by the end. I can't remember what her perks are but i don't think i really cared much about her friendly perk so just went nuts.

Yeah, I'm not really feeling Mina either. In fact, and don't confirm or deny this, I'm just speculating openly, I wouldn't mind betting it was her that set me up in Saudi Arabia, and her "handling" me is just another way of using me to get the job done with total plausible deniability.

Everyone else has just cut me off and wants me dead, and she's willing to go behind everyone's back in an agency where every other staff member is a secret agent? Yeah, not buying it.

The reporter lady is quite foxy though.

SimianWonder wrote:

Yeah, I'm not really feeling Mina either. In fact, and don't confirm or deny this, I'm just speculating openly, I wouldn't mind betting it was her that set me up in Saudi Arabia, and her "handling" me is just another way of using me to get the job done with total plausible deniability.

Everyone else has just cut me off and wants me dead, and she's willing to go behind everyone's back in an agency where every other staff member is a secret agent? Yeah, not buying it.

The reporter lady is quite foxy though.

Which countries have you done?

I honestly trusted the women willing to shoot me more then the others. They at least didn't wanna be on my good side. Mina just really comes across as a bit desperate. I didn't actually suspect Mina of anything though, i assumed she was one of those annoying overly nice people who picked the wrong line of work, she seriously takes a great deal of verbal abuse and still is always on that tv. On the other hand i really didn't trust Scarlet, she just screamed femme fatale to me. Sie i assumed could be trusted, like i said if she was willing to shoot me in the first place we're really only going up from there lol.

Superbuu3 wrote:

Which countries have you done?

Saudi Arabia, obviously. I've done most of Moscow (at least, I assume so... I've done five or six missions there), and have done one or two in each of the other locations, just to see what the locations were like.

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I honestly trusted the women willing to shoot me more then the others. They at least didn't wanna be on my good side. Mina just really comes across as a bit desperate. I didn't actually suspect Mina of anything though, i assumed she was one of those annoying overly nice people who picked the wrong line of work, she seriously takes a great deal of verbal abuse and still is always on that tv. On the other hand i really didn't trust Scarlet, she just screamed femme fatale to me. Sie i assumed could be trusted, like i said if she was willing to shoot me in the first place we're really only going up from there lol.

I'm assuming from your tone of voice I'm not too far of the mark with my suspicions about Mina then. Again, please don't confirm or deny that statement!

Scarlet does look very classically femme fatale, (I thought she looked like Black Widow, Scarlett Johannson's character in Iron Man 2) but her personality is not - I tried to flirt with her on the plane, and she killed the conversation stone dead. I then read her dossier in the safe house and it states, quite correctly, she responds better to a more Professional approach. She's all business, no dicking around.

Sie is a funny one... I struggled with her the first couple of times, but soon discovered she likes to be handles aggressively, which is at odds with 99% of the other characters in the game. She seems to treat the whole thing as a game, though as you say she's quite happy to shoot your face off early doors if you mess up the conversation options and tick her off. At least you know where you stand with her!

SimianWonder wrote:

Superbuu3 wrote:

Which countries have you done?

Saudi Arabia, obviously. I've done most of Moscow (at least, I assume so... I've done five or six missions there), and have done one or two in each of the other locations, just to see what the locations were like.

Quote :

I honestly trusted the women willing to shoot me more then the others. They at least didn't wanna be on my good side. Mina just really comes across as a bit desperate. I didn't actually suspect Mina of anything though, i assumed she was one of those annoying overly nice people who picked the wrong line of work, she seriously takes a great deal of verbal abuse and still is always on that tv. On the other hand i really didn't trust Scarlet, she just screamed femme fatale to me. Sie i assumed could be trusted, like i said if she was willing to shoot me in the first place we're really only going up from there lol.

I'm assuming from your tone of voice I'm not too far of the mark with my suspicions about Mina then. Again, please don't confirm or deny that statement!

Scarlet does look very classically femme fatale, (I thought she looked like Black Widow, Scarlett Johannson's character in Iron Man 2) but her personality is not - I tried to flirt with her on the plane, and she killed the conversation stone dead. I then read her dossier in the safe house and it states, quite correctly, she responds better to a more Professional approach. She's all business, no dicking around.

Sie is a funny one... I struggled with her the first couple of times, but soon discovered she likes to be handles aggressively, which is at odds with 99% of the other characters in the game. She seems to treat the whole thing as a game, though as you say she's quite happy to shoot your face off early doors if you mess up the conversation options and tick her off. At least you know where you stand with her!

Scarlett technically speaking is the hardest female to handle as you can get great results if you mix up the conversation a lot (i also completely messed up the plane convo), the same could be said about mina but its more obvious when you have to mix it up with her plus i think if you went all pro or all suave, just because you talk to her so much by end game you'd probably get close to maxing her out.

Almost at the finishing point in the Taiwan missions, and I love how batshit crazy Steven Heck is... he's a complete nutjob.

I've also managed to level up my stealth and pistols to the point where they're a definite edge rather than mildly helpful; I can become momentarily invisible, can silence my footsteps even when sprinting, and if I fuck up the stealth approach then I've got an auto-stealth function that temporarily cloaks me for a couple of seconds while I find cover. The Pistols special ability functions a lot like Dead Eye in Red Dead Redemption; slow time time, place your shots then you've instantly taken our two, three or five enemies depending on how far you've levelled that tree.

I've struggled to find a third skill tree to use. Contrary to my early thoughts, hand to hand proved quite useful to a point. Now though, if I'm fighting it's because I've messed up and where there's one guard there are now two or three more. So that is now redundant. Sabotage seems half decent, helping with hacking doors, computers etc, and it also adds range and punch to the various grenades though that's been less useful on the stealthy approach.

I think the hacking skil was one i often did a lot for as it gives you extra cash adn a couple of the hacking machine bits can get tricky.

Yeah, one f the hacking skills gets you bonus cash per hack... well worth it when some of the hacks give upwards of 5 grand a time.

Must be getting near the endgame now - yes, I know, I've played it lots over the last three or fours days - and it continues to surprise. Got my first romance achievement, then my girl gets kidnapped and I have to choose between her and a group of civilians. I choose her, save her dramatically... then she leaves me anyway because she can't cope wth the guilt of knowing that her living meant dozens of others died. On the plus side, I then went and saw the reporter chick instead. Oh yeah. Then I was practically raped by the mad russian chick.

Now back where I started, going to see how shit goes down.

Oh that Sie scene I literally could not believe what was happening. The on screen convo prompt says might as well enjoy it anyway or something. Hilarious.

I liked the dialogue at the end.

Quote :

"Can you untie me now?"
"I released your restraints five mnutes ago, you were holding onto the bed too tightly to notice."

Damn.

Anyway, went back and redid the museum mission, opting to go for the bomb this time. The cutscene that follows was pretty harsh, and I'm guessing Marburg's going to get royally fucked up at the end of the game. That said, Mike got over Madison pretty quickly. Mina, Scarlet, then Sie, all in the space of 24 hours... not really honouring his girlfriend's memory, is he?

Just beat it.

Really, really impressed with the game, much much more satisfying than Deus Ex HR which got bogegd down in conspiracy theories that no one cared about.

I'm not sure how may variables there are, (lots I'd imagine), but I ended up being offered a job at Halbech by Leland, which I refused, then spoke to Marburg on the way out, where my completed intel file let me talk him around to my point of view and got me a perk to boot. I spoke to Parker on the computer, and managed to point out his analytical flaws, getting him on side too.

Rescued Mina, went to Sie's aid and she helped out while Parker downloaded the Alpha Protocol info. Went after Darcy, took out a helicopter, then fought Leland, opting to execute him at the end because he had Madison killed. Marburg turned up and he left on the understanding he never crosses paths with Thorton again. Rode off into the sunset with Mina.

Interestingly, in the post-mission briefing, it mentioned trying to get hold of Scarlet without success... Leland had said she was in the AP facility, so I'm assuming I missed something? Also in the news reports at the end, Al-Samad carried out a bombing which killed hundreds of people... all because I didn't kill Shaheed when I could've. Twice in fact. Madison also got a martyr's funeral which was nice.

EDIT: Looking st some online strategy guides, and I can't believe just how much his playthrough differed to mine. I completely bypassed the Marburg boss fight, and I genuinely had no idea Madison was Parker's daughter, despite this guide recommending using that intel against Parker. Well, that would have changed things somewhat. Also, Scarlet was Sung's assassin? Bugger me, I missed a lot.

Going to play through again as Veteran now, and I'm going for an "all-guns-blazing-gung-ho-arsehole" approach.

Dude don't read spoilers thats half the fun of the game.

My generally fool proof method to see most stuff was, be nice to everybody (well i pissed off all of AP both games). Get through the game.

The next method was piss everybody and kill every body.

Then you can work on the middle ground later. Going for all one dialogue type through the game i doubt would do anything that interesting, as you'll just get one type of person siding with you.

I just started my Veteran campaign. Damn, he's almost broken. After struggling through the initial training mission with Recruit, to suddenly have three points in every skill right off the bat feels grossly overpowered, even on Hard - I aced all the training missions and even unlocked a couple of bonus trials I didn't see the first time through, I'm guessing because my scores weren't up to much that time. I've also discovered that R2 works as a fast forward button for conversations, which is handy... though it does mean when the game asks for your input, I have no idea what the question was.

I think I'll take some points out of some skills, I'll ignore Pistol, and melee, and dump them into Assault Rifles. Maxed pistol made my life a lot easier on a stealth run, I'm hoping the same will be true of the assault rifle on a shooting play through.

EDIT:

Spoiler:

Oh, one trophy I did miss was Thorton Inc, the one were you have to get everyone to like you. Don't really see how that's possible... some of the characters are in the game for one scene, and you have no interaction with them (Jibril al Bara for one), and others you have one scene where you've already shot the crap out of them, so why would they like you (Brayko?)

90% of the cast liked me, but it seems that wasn't enough.

Are you asking me how to get it? Its actually not that hard to get thorton inc. When you romance all the girls its an easy one to get, you honestly don't need that many people to like you just the right ones IIRC.

Is brayko the cocaine induced maniac, i think you just let him go and take money, then make a business deal with the other guy. You literally can get everyone eating out of the palm of your hand if you play them right. That ending you got i never got once interstingly enough. I played that final mission like 5/6 times as well.

Superbuu3 wrote:

Is brayko the cocaine induced maniac, i think you just let him go and take money, then make a business deal with the other guy. You literally can get everyone eating out of the palm of your hand if you play them right. That ending you got i never got once interstingly enough. I played that final mission like 5/6 times as well.

Yeah, Brayko's the boss that has cocaine fuelled moments of invincibility. He was a tough boss fight, though I did managed to buy a stash of coke laced with rat poison for him to snort throughout the fight. He ended up snorting himself to defeat, which was very amusing. Anyway, he was the only one who disliked me.

I'm actually not that fussed about getting all the trophies... doing a dedicated fifteen hour playthrough just to get the one or two trophies I mioght have missed isn't my idea of fun, I'd rather play the game the way I want to and enjoy it.