Dead Island is a compellingly torturous game. It has the same level up system and random weapon pickups as Borderlands which makes it kind of annoying as well. Enemies are always harder and weapon pickups you get are rarely better than the ones you have at the moment of acquisition.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Stealh and Stealthibility - Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex
Hey, ya'll, have you played Alpha Protocol? Well, it was like $5 at EB, I mean Gamespot 'cause I'm old.
What's great about Alpha Protocol?
The story (and the US or, as the game puts it, the people who claim to represent the US is/are the bad guy while other criminal/terrorist organizations are the sympathetic fall guys). The characters. The interactive conversations. The choices you can make in the game that have real effects on the rest of the game. The skills you get. The way you can customize your playing style to stun or kill. The lockpick, bypass, and hack minigames that feel like they could actually be real. The way the game progressively gets difficult. The endurance and health system. The action-packed finale (I WAS QUITE EXCITED THROUGHOUT IT!)
What sucks about Alpha Protocol?
The graphics. The lack of an ability to jump. The AI that does a poor job of pretending not to know where you are unless you max out your conceal skill and get accessories to further lower your enemy sight range so that you can be in your enemy's peripheral vision, but he or she never sees you. The fact that the developers don't seem to have had time to tweek the "move body" system so that instead bodies just disappear after a set amount of time. Add onto that the inability to climb boxes that you take cover behind. The long load times. The lack of a quick-save or save feature between checkpoints and the varying length of quick-saves so that you have to take down two bosses with no checkpoint in between but there is a section later in the same level with only one flunky to takedown. Glitches (which the wikia can brief you on better than I) which can cause you to turn friendlies into enemies just by going up the wrong ladder.
AND I LOVE THIS GAME!
And I guess Deus Ex: Human Revolution is everything Alpha Protocol could have been if AP had been an established series and had the backing of a producer (is that right?) like Square Enix which loves it some good graphics and tight gameplay. Even the start screen of Deus Ex is really compelling with a haunting theme and shattered glass in a mosiac of the main character's profile.
Where does Deus Ex fall short? I dunno. Haven't found anything yet. I didn't know how bad the graphics of Alpha Protocol were until I started playing Deus Ex. The fact that enemies can look down on you over boxes is something that AP couldn't handle. AP would have been a great PS2 title and would have brought interesting twists to the Metal Gear franchise (it's hard for me to talk about stealth games without mentioning or thinking about Metal Gear). It's still a great game, but it's a flawed giant like Heavenly Sword or KOTOR2. That's why there's companies like Blizzard who take years developing their games and make bajillions off of each one.
More Sug(g)estions after Boy and man can settle time conflicts of fun and responsibility.
-Lorry Boe Jarabia
What's great about Alpha Protocol?
The story (and the US or, as the game puts it, the people who claim to represent the US is/are the bad guy while other criminal/terrorist organizations are the sympathetic fall guys). The characters. The interactive conversations. The choices you can make in the game that have real effects on the rest of the game. The skills you get. The way you can customize your playing style to stun or kill. The lockpick, bypass, and hack minigames that feel like they could actually be real. The way the game progressively gets difficult. The endurance and health system. The action-packed finale (I WAS QUITE EXCITED THROUGHOUT IT!)
What sucks about Alpha Protocol?
The graphics. The lack of an ability to jump. The AI that does a poor job of pretending not to know where you are unless you max out your conceal skill and get accessories to further lower your enemy sight range so that you can be in your enemy's peripheral vision, but he or she never sees you. The fact that the developers don't seem to have had time to tweek the "move body" system so that instead bodies just disappear after a set amount of time. Add onto that the inability to climb boxes that you take cover behind. The long load times. The lack of a quick-save or save feature between checkpoints and the varying length of quick-saves so that you have to take down two bosses with no checkpoint in between but there is a section later in the same level with only one flunky to takedown. Glitches (which the wikia can brief you on better than I) which can cause you to turn friendlies into enemies just by going up the wrong ladder.
AND I LOVE THIS GAME!
And I guess Deus Ex: Human Revolution is everything Alpha Protocol could have been if AP had been an established series and had the backing of a producer (is that right?) like Square Enix which loves it some good graphics and tight gameplay. Even the start screen of Deus Ex is really compelling with a haunting theme and shattered glass in a mosiac of the main character's profile.
Where does Deus Ex fall short? I dunno. Haven't found anything yet. I didn't know how bad the graphics of Alpha Protocol were until I started playing Deus Ex. The fact that enemies can look down on you over boxes is something that AP couldn't handle. AP would have been a great PS2 title and would have brought interesting twists to the Metal Gear franchise (it's hard for me to talk about stealth games without mentioning or thinking about Metal Gear). It's still a great game, but it's a flawed giant like Heavenly Sword or KOTOR2. That's why there's companies like Blizzard who take years developing their games and make bajillions off of each one.
More Sug(g)estions after Boy and man can settle time conflicts of fun and responsibility.
-Lorry Boe Jarabia
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