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I have finished this brilliant RPG twice, and I only became aware of the possibility of stealthkilling opponents after reading a walkthrough, with your knife. How do you do that? (Using the knife, not managing to not find out.)

Thanks in advance!

If I remember correctly, spacebar is your friend, baby. Just as a normal stealth takedown, only instead of 'e', press spacebar. Myself, I like the minimal casualties approach.
Maybe I need a third run as a runinn'n'gunnin' killing machine

Thanks! I never noticed this.

Not hating, I assure you:

The game is brilliant? Are you letting it's flaws go or did it get a patch?

I have to admot: I hadn't any of the game-breaking bugs/flaws I read about, like the camera trouble.
Things like "It's not a shooter, I need to put POINTS before I can wield a weapon!1!!1", I tend to discard those, as it never profiled itself as such. One of the other criticisms, the timed responses, well, I think those were a great idea. It worked really well and forced you to go with your instinct.
Never had any trouble with the minigames either, I found both of them quite fun.

bushwhacker2k wrote:The game is brilliant? Are you letting it's flaws go or did it get a patch?

There are flaws, yes, but they are tolerable for the most part. Didn't like the vision cones on cameras and boss battles, plus the forced use of subsonic rounds for assault rifles when they could have just implemented a silencer. The gameplay is okay for the most part if you choose to play stealthily but bad when it comes to direct and boss fights. Hacking is pretty okay, though it gets irritating after a while. Despite all this, it is a pretty decent game.

As for the timed conversations, while I admit that it is slower than Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit), it does feel like the game wants to force you to quickly choose one of the options. Most give you ample time to consider the options before choosing but there are some instances where the timer is 'Fahrenheit' quick until you don't even have time to choose properly. And that is where I get irritated by it. Not that I hate it in any way, but I wasn't a fan of it either.

I encountered a lot of annoying things in the game that bugged me, personally.

The game had a lot of potential, which makes the flaws all the more annoying to me.

-The dialogue system didn't work very well, because whatever you said could have pretty much nothing to do with the choice you picked and it often ended up with bad results that are completely against what you're trying to do. This is a bad thing, because it shouldn't be a random dice roll.

-Stealth was pretty clunky, if you didn't invest heavily in the skills you sucked at it and the skills were less to make you more stealthy and more to give you magical bs invisibility, which took no skill and pretty much required you to just sit in hiding and wait for the cooldowns to finish.

-Some walls, while being flat or at least close to it, didn't let you lean/take cover against them. Just sloppiness.

-Deus Ex: Human Revolution had the same problem, but the fact that you magically lose the ability to take someone out with a stealth takedown and they can absorb bullets unrealistically just because they have the title of 'boss' was pretty : /. I admit that as long as you follow the stereotypical 'boss' idea, you can't make things too easy, but it is still a flaw. Any character focused primarily on stealth had a large penalty against bosses.

On the other hand, there were some things I respected: I LIKE lacking weapon skill without proper training, it MAKES SENSE! Some of the stealth takedowns were hilarious, I especially liked the punch-to-the-throat technique. There were one or two other things I enjoyed in the game but they escape my mind atm.

I found the dialogue system to be working quite well, never had trouble with the option being misleading and letting me say something else entirely.

Stealth was ok, it's normal in an RPG that you need skill points to be any good at it. "Invisibility" might over-do it, true, but I felt it worked. There are only so many ways you can mechanically implement stealth.

You're right about the bossfights, I guess. Since I tend to play pretty combat oriented, this didn't bother me at all, but that's due to my decisions, and it doesn't stroke with AP's overall "plenty of options" attitude.

bushwhacker2k wrote: -Deus Ex: Human Revolution had the same problem, but the fact that you magically lose the ability to take someone out with a stealth takedown and they can absorb bullets unrealistically just because they have the title of 'boss' was pretty : /. I admit that as long as you follow the stereotypical 'boss' idea, you can't make things too easy, but it is still a flaw. Any character focused primarily on stealth had a large penalty against bosses.

Well.. Deus Ex : HR bosses were a joke when you saved explosives just for them. Stealth characters don't use grenades anyway, which makes spamming detonation packs, frag mines/grenades so much easier.

Stworca wrote:Stealth characters don't use grenades anyway, which makes spamming detonation packs, frag mines/grenades so much easier.

True, but because we don't use frag grenades or mines... We tend to sell them. I remember my first real boss (In Moscow, I believe), I was scared pantsless. Got run over like a little punk. I was playing a stealthy, pistoly recruit. Dead on arrival.
Still, for me, it was enjoyable. Somehow, I didn't feel like the computer was cheating me, as I'm sure I would if it was a Bioware or Bethesda game. Am I biased against them? I really don't think so, it's just mostly because, well... Obsidian write excellent stories. And I guess that's all it takes for me

Stworca wrote:Well.. Deus Ex : HR bosses were a joke when you saved explosives just for them. Stealth characters don't use grenades anyway, which makes spamming detonation packs, frag mines/grenades so much easier.

That's what I did for every boss, frag grenade spamming. It was actually kind of dull because it was so easy that way...

Not hating on peoples' opinions but I feel like I must be more critical of things than many other people because I couldn't play Alpha Protocol after all the things it did wrong for me, but some people don't even consider them flaws.

It's not really a matter of being critical, I think. Some people got lucky and didn't suffer many bugs, others did. I understand that some were quite infuriating.
Personally, I found that the good things far outweighed the bad things.

Myrr Disparo wrote:Still, for me, it was enjoyable. Somehow, I didn't feel like the computer was cheating me, as I'm sure I would if it was a Bioware or Bethesda game. Am I biased against them? I really don't think so, it's just mostly because, well... Obsidian write excellent stories. And I guess that's all it takes for me

Isn't that already considered biased towards Obsidian? Not to say I'm poking fun or calling you out in any way, but sometimes it irks me when people sympathise with Obsidian when they made a problematic game like Dungeon Siege 3 but when it comes to other well-known developers, they get a lot of flak when they make one bad game. Talk about bias...

I'd hardly call DS3 problematic. It's quite clear that it will be an action RPG, just like the previous DS's. For an Obsidian, this one even had very few bugs. I can sympathize with Myrr Disparo, though: Obsidian makes great games & stories, but they need to learn to finish the goddamn things properly.

GawainBS wrote:I'd hardly call DS3 problematic. It's quite clear that it will be an action RPG, just like the previous DS's. For an Obsidian, this one even had very few bugs.

I recall reading that its control scheme wasn't implemented well for the keboard and mouse (more suited for gamepad) and it has performance problems. I'm not talking about whether it is an action RPG or not.

GawainBS wrote:I can sympathize with Myrr Disparo, though: Obsidian makes great games & stories, but they need to learn to finish the goddamn things properly.

Up till now, I still do not understand why Obsidian is able to get away with bugs and lack of polish found in a number of their games, regardless of how well-written their plot is (At least they are eventually patched, so that is not so bad). Maybe it's the huge respect fans have towards the company, especially Chris Avellone, I do not know.

DesR85 wrote:Up till now, I still do not understand why Obsidian is able to get away with bugs and lack of polish found in a number of their games, regardless of how well-written their plot is (At least they are eventually patched, so that is not so bad). Maybe it's the huge respect fans have towards the company, especially Chris Avellone, I do not know.

I can't pretend to speak for anyone else, but, for me, you really hit the nail on the head. It's exactly because how well-written their plot is. I can't claim that the respect I have for Troika and Black Isle isn't playing a part, but even if it is, it's a really small and subconscious part.
Truth is, Bioware has very seldom written a videogame that holds any interest for more that the first couple hours. They have fascinating opening acts, but the middle part stutters along to a drag. And suddenly, I find myself playing Freelancer again, and considering my purchase history.
In point of fact, I haven't finished a single Bioware game since KoTOR (can we consider KoTOR II Bioware? Because I finished that one, too, and even though it was an Obsidian game, it felt pretty KoTOResque), and no Bethesda game since Morrowind (at least, to the extent that you can 'finish' Morrowind) so it's high time I accepted their games aren't for me anymore. For me, Mass Effect (and, to a lesser extent, DA:O) and Fallout 3 were definite proof of that.
Obsidian, however, and in particular Alpha Protocol have managed to hold my interest and make me want to go back to Thorton time and time again, no matter how faulty the experience may be (which, for me, it wasn't at all, but your mileage may vary, of course. Computers are misterious things). In fact, it's the first game I have finished more than once since, I dunno, probably Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines? Or Arcanum? Which was earlier, i know, but i got them both more or less at the same time.
Am I enjoying games 'the wrong way'? Maybe. Maybe I should start worrying about things like the optimal build, or whether the graphics are up to snuff, or the bug-count. But, truth is, I barely notice them. What I do notice is whether I want to play a game again, whether I want to submerge myself in the story and characters for 'just a few minutes more'. And Obsidian games, barring a few exceptions, manage to do that masterfully.
Also, for the record, I didn't like either Baldur's Gate. So my opinion is clearly wrong. But still, it is mine, and hard as I've tried I couldn't change it (and believe you me, I've tried, because I paid good money for games I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to play, which was clearly very stupid. And I don't like being stupid)
So, in short? I'm weird, so sue me.
Also, I felt this is the place to make such a suggestion. I'm about to start a new AP playthrough, and I think it would be interesting to make a post with the decissions we've made along the campaign, along with our reasoning for them, from a ethical, political or just plain fun point of view (I'm a philosophy prof., so take care, boring lectures abound) Is anyone else up for that?

I was considering a new playthrough as well, as a Recruit this time. I tend to make the general broad decisions each time I play, though, and rather differ in character build each time. I'm one of those people who couldn't possible play the "evil" route; it just bores me. But for the intent of this, it shouldn't matter if I made the decisions previously.
Don't worry about boring lectures, I'm a historian myself, so I'm innured to them.

Myrr, if you start the thread, I'd be happy to participate. I've been running through the game again in the past week or so (hoping to actually finish it this time) and I'd enjoy talking about our reasonings for the more "difficult" decisions in the game.

DesR85 wrote:Isn't that already considered biased towards Obsidian? Not to say I'm poking fun or calling you out in any way, but sometimes it irks me when people sympathise with Obsidian when they made a problematic game like Dungeon Siege 3 but when it comes to other well-known developers, they get a lot of flak when they make one bad game. Talk about bias...

Agh, Dungeon Siege 3... I gotta say, I just do not like Obsidian. My biggest praise is that some of the games that they made sequels to (i.e. they never made the original series, they just borrowed the title and the popularity) weren't bad (never as good as the original though).

As it's already obvious Obsidian has a lot of fans but I don't think I've ever really liked a single one of their games. It's either a bad game to me or a decent sequel to a game series they didn't make.

I must sound like I'm really ragging on them at this point, but they destroyed Dungeon Siege (which was a game series I really liked), it had pretty much nothing at all to do with the former Dungeon Siege games.

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Actually I did like some things in Fallout: New Vegas, but that game certainly wasn't lacking for bugs (I got caught on the other side of an invisible wall and couldn't get off a mountain). But then on the other hand 99% of the game was taken from Fallout 3 anyway, I don't think I know of any Obsidian games completely made by them that were really solidly good games.

Dungeon Siege 3 has actually a lot of lore taken from the previous games. Even an entire subquest, not to mention the intergral part the 10th Legion played in Ehb. The gameplay changed, sure, some for the best, some for the worst.