Did anyone pre-load from Steam with the european release date, but is NOT from the UK?

Right now it's still tagged as pre-loaded but not unlocked in my library, and the countdown timer's missing. Gah.

I'm having a bit of trouble now. Played thru the tutorial stuff and a couple of missions successfully and is now on a mission where I met a very strong guy, a bossish character.

Problem is, I've invested all my skill points in sneak and some spare points in sabotage, and nothing in combat at all. That I've been cheap and haven't bought any better weapons or better protection, doesn't really help either

EDIT: Managed to do a sneak attack on the bossish character

I've preordered, and the game should be arriving today. Squee!

Got quite far but choose to replay since I couldn't change my appearance. I thought I would be able to do that again after the tutorial area.

I'm totally stuck on the first mission in the airfield. I have to bypass a checkpoint which only has one way into it, and there's a guard looking straight at the only way in. I can't sneak up behind him or anything. What am I supposed to do without raising an alarm?

edit: I got it, that was some BS, I had to walk right into his field of view and somehow he missed me.

I just saw this advertised on Steam. Do the crappy graphics mean it'll work on my crappy computer?

How would this game run on a Nvidia Geforce 9200?

The rest of my PC is ok... I have amd phenom 9650 quad core cpu and 4gb ram... Just my GPU that svcks.

Okay, first impressions time. Well, overall I really like the feel of the game and I think it controls pretty well. It's not as polished as it could be but the control system does work, at least on PC. Big issues are random FPS drops when enemies spawn in, and also I seem to get about 3fps when I access the clearinghouse. Overall though, I'm quite happy with it and I really like the dialog, it's like an improved version of ME/ME2's dialog wheel because there's no ''Good guy'' ''dike'' ''Neutral'' options, just different ways of saying things that people may or may not respond well to, depending on their personalities.

I generally like the game so pointing out the good things, well, then I have to take almost everything, so here are some bad points with the game.

• Buggy game AI. Once the enemies even just stopped to work and stood still so I easily could do sneak kills on them.
  
• Buggy game in general, once I had to restart a mission from the beginning because the game bugged out and wanted me to go to a place I couldn't go to (and already been to, several checkpoints ago).
  
• Suffer from random framerate drops now and then.
  
• The visual options of the player character are rather limited, you can't configure him much as far as looks go, and you have to play as a male.
  
• You can't save anywhere you want, the game use an automatic checkpoint system.
  
• Dead bodies vanish. The other guards can see dead bodies and raise the alarm, but when a dead body only exist for 20ish seconds, it doesn't really matter much. Not possible to pick up and carry bodies either.

Most people seem to complain about the graphics and animations, but I think they are good enough for me. I mean, the hands have fingers and aren't just some big cube, so yay? If the graphics are good enough to give the people individual fingers, then it's good enough for me


You can, in the safehouse.


My graphic card is fairly weak and run the game rather well, except for FPS drops that happen sometimes.

What? :blink: How?
I searched through the 3 safehouses I've had so far and didn't find anything. I expected it to be a mirror or in the bedroom, but nothing.

And I agree with you, the graphics are good enough. But the disappearing bodies and not being able to carry bodies was a let down.

oo:

That's awful... I was under the impression this was a RPG, aren't custom save points kind of standard in them? :unsure:

Hell even Far Cry 2 had custom save points.

It's not like that one thing will stop me from getting the game, but it is rather unpleasant. How frequent are the checkpoints?

Also, if the game is as buggy as you guys are saying I'm rather worried for New Vegas, considering that was made in a much shorter amount of time than this game was.

It's really a non-issue, as while the mission areas are free for you to roam in, they are sort of made up of several linear paths that sometimes cross over to each other. At least in the first mission I did. So you get a checkpoint every time you advance enough.

Sorry to hear that.



Nice I am glad those work on bosses.



Shame I wanted to carry bodies and hide them. :shakehead:

Oh, how's the hacking mini game? Want to know whether I need to get my gamepad back when my PC version arrives. The console controls are fine, but I can't imagine that it works that well with a keyboard...

Ah, and about carrying bodies: I was disappointed first, but now that I can sneak kill multiple people and would have to remove them all in the half minute until the next guard shows up again, which I could if the camera wouldn't shake into strange directions some time... It actually spares me from some busywork.

I've found that using the mouse for the right bit of code that needs to be hacked (there are two) is a bit unwieldy, but I don't like the minigame out of personal preference. I use EMPs wherever I can spare them instead of hacking.

So most of the American reviews have been negative complaining about the combat and crappy AI and general lack of polish. Europe reviews have been better (around 80's for most). Destructiod gave it a 2/10, and I think the guy was mostly upset about the combat being based off character skill and crappy presentation of the game (the latter is a completely valid point, especially considering it was delayed). A lot of people have complained about the codebreaking minigame with a bunch of numbers flying around. Is it really that annoying, or do you just need points in sabotage? Some (American) reviews complained that the story and characters are bad. Is this true, or are they just pulling things out of their asses? Also, lots of complaints about headshots taking up to 10 bullets to kill someone. I find these a bit ironic considering that ME and Fallout 3 both had the same thing, but I feel the compulsive need to ask you who have played the game, anyway.

Destructoid also gave Deadly Premonition 10/10. They're just doing it for attention.

Would you mind linking to some of the reviews you're reading? Especially the Destructoid one, though I just want to compare what it says to other reviews.

Strangely, the European review all seem to accept the game as the espionage RPG that it says right on the tin, whereas American reviewers seem to stop when ESPIONAGE has entered their mind and they only think of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Metal_Gear_Solid_cover_art.png. ^_^

The hacking minigame looks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urhnx2XrySQ, you just have to shove around those password boxes until you find two counterparts. Starts slightly confusing, you get used to it and is less irritating the better Thorton gets.
And the story and characters are supposed to be bad? Now that's something I really can't see - I do see AI weirdness, I've had one enemy fly out of a room. But ten hours in, some plot twists already, believable and either or both likable and hateable characters... Nope, can't say I've seen better writing in the last few years. What did they compare it to? The hamminess and steroid department of Gears?

And yeah, the criticism about headshots is just stupid. You can't expect an FPS and its logics if there is "RPG" right on the darn cover.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/alpha-protocol-review.
http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/alpha_protocol/review.html
http://www.destructoid.com/review-alpha-protocol-174617.phtml
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/alphaprotocol
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/05/28/alpha-protocol-game-review
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3179545
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamestar.de%2Fspiele%2Fwertungskasten%2Frollenspiele%2F44382%2Falpha_protocol.html&sl=auto&tl=en Full review is in magazine, I think.

There are tonnes more try looking at Obsidian's AP forum if you want (but the 27 page review thread is kind of daunting for me).

Edit: Minigame looks really confusing. Am I right in guessing there's a tutorial for it?

Of course there is. A pretty long and deep one for everything, actually. Really liked that.

Hmm, that's pretty disappointing. Mind you I read the Joystiq review first and the Destructoid review last, because I usually trust Joystiq reviews. Seems like it's too buggy to be worth a buy, though I'll probably rent it at some point when I get a new Xbox 360.

If Obsidian made such a broken game given so much time to make it, I'm really fearful at how buggy New Vegas could be. Though with Bethesda watching them like a hound it shouldn't be too bad. I know saying that would have the people who consider FO3 buggy laughing their asses off, but at least Fallout 3 wasn't broken like these reviews seem to suggest.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/05/28/alpha-protocol-game-review/comments/28270583/ might calm your worries over New Vegas. Or it might just be totally bs. Did any of the reviews mention game breaking bugs? The joystiq review suggests that the texture pop-in is a nightmare, though.

It barely makes me feel better, assuming it's even real. What makes me feel better is that Bethesda, unlike SEGA, likely wont release a Fallout game with their name on it if it's as buggy as AP. They did release Rogue Warrior, however that wasn't a game in one of their most successful series.

None of the reviews mention bugs that actually broke the game, but after reading about the numerous bugs that it does have, I figured I'd just call it broken instead of really buggy. I know there's a difference but broken more adequately describes what the reviews say this game is. :shrug:

What bugs does it have? Links?

All I see are a bunch of complaints about how it's buggy with the examples being texture pop-in and floating enemies. The latter is serious, but reviewer doesn't mention how often it occurs. If common, you're right to call it broken.

Anyway, bugs can be fixed. I really have no idea why you're worrying so much about Fallout: New Vegas when Fallout 3 had such a dedicated modding community that made up for all of its bugs. If they don't release an editor, then you can start worrying. Todd Howard will be making Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls V (I think), so you have nothing to worry about. Bethesda has tons of cash and this isn't one of their in house titles- they can handle it if it tanks (it wont due to their amazing marketing, though).

Edit: I might just be able to better tolerate bugs than most. So yeah, I guess you have your own idea of what a broken game is.