Alpha Protocol

[Hassat Hunter]

Worse than Peragus?

[loony636]

Worse than Peragus?

I really didn't mind Peragus. I mean, it was buggy as hell (yay mods!) and a blatant System Shock 2 try-hard, but it wasn't that bad. While it felt a little out of place in an otherwise largely non-linear game (i.e. you couldn't choose to go to Peragus), I found it enjoyable. Especially the first confrontation with Atton.

[Jaedar]

Worse than Peragus?

The real problem with the beginning in AP is that a lot of the flaws crop up instantly, but it takes quite a while for the good bits to come into their own. The game has great reactivity to your actions, but it obviously can't react before you've done some stuff. It also takes a while for the plot and for the (totally awesome) characters to crop up and define themselves. Also, just like in DX combat is very clunky until you get a decent skill with a weapon type.

I don't understand why you dislike Peragus, so I'm gonna have to say yes.


It really is worth enduring the beginning of AP though, and the occasional technical problems. Just... remember to pump at least one weapons skill to at least 7 or so before your first boss. The one in Saudi is stealthable, but the others require fighting.

[Hassat Hunter]

It's pretty anti-RPG. And that for the start of a RPG.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll get AP and see for myself I guess.

[Jaedar]

It's pretty anti-RPG. And that for the start of a RPG.

What do you mean anti-rpg? Railroading?

[Hassat Hunter]

Lack of conversations, choices, skill-dependant stuff.

[Jaedar]

Lack of conversations, choices, skill-dependant stuff.

Definitely agree on the latter two, but not really the first one, there are enough dia/mono-logues in Peragus I think.

Also, you can skip all the tutorials in AP at least, and it even has some short-term consequences.

[bobby 55]

Guys, spoiler ahead(and its a big one): Turns out Mina is the bad guy. She set you up so she could use you to destroy Alpha Protocol, bloody double agent.

Now if you do the math, about 50% of the characters in the game have character arc twists. That's pretty cool.

I just hope you new guys don't get disappointed now that you've been hyped up. AP is a hard game to love.

OMG that explains who was doing the sneaky stuff at AP. I thought Darcy beat her up for helping Mike . Although she really liked Mike in my first playthrough but that wouldn't stop her using him to exorcise the place I guess. She also was happy to jump in a big ass boat and sail away with him in the end sequence.
Sheesh.... looks like a third playthrough may be in the works.

[chris the cynic]

I should probably stop reading spoilers for a game that I don't have yet, but I would like to point out that killing people to teach a lesson and to save someone else from pain is pretty much textbook evil. It isn't on the level of, "We have to kill all of the Jew, Gypsies, homosexuals, ... and trade unionists for what we perceive to be the greater good of humanity," but there's a lot of evil that doesn't rise (sink?) to level of Godwin's law.

For the most part evil people think they are good, their actions are justified in their, at times deranged, minds and they may very well regret what they are doing, they might even regret it as they are doing it. It doesn't make them less evil. Those without regret may be more frightening, but those without it are still very much evil.

Having a justification for the evil things they do doesn't make people less evil, it just means that they are proficient in their evil doing. Saying Marburg, whoever he is, did the thing you both agree he did (the doing of which you both agree means he is not in any way a good person) to teach someone a lesson and therefore save that person some pain* doesn't mean Marburg isn't evil, it means that Marburg is good at being evil. Maybe he's a natural, maybe he's had practice, but this is a person who has an aptitude.

Of course, innate or acquired, aptitude is not destiny and Marburg could decide to stop being evil, depending on how he reacts to the regret.

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This concludes Morality 101, or How Jaedar Convinced Me He Was Wrong When His Words Were All I Had To Go On, for the day. Make sure to submit your entries for the "The Class Needs A Shorter Name" contest by next class. The winner will get cake.

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* Because he sees himself in that person and therefore making that person's life better would be like making his own life better so according to Jaedar this guy is one selfish fuck ... how does this not scream out, "EVIL!" If someone says, "I'm going to kill someone for selfish reasons that have nothing to do with the person I am killing," the appropriate label for that person is "evil." Then again, maybe I'm missing something. All I have is Jaedar's description of this person's motivation.

[Jaedar]

Suffice it to say chris, that there is more depth to the character than I could ever convey.

I think this really ties back into the debate we had all those months(years?) ago about greater good and stuff. I assume neither of us has had a change of opinion, so I understand why you might feel differently than myself on this issue.

Sheesh.... looks like a third playthrough may be in the works.

Same here....

Right now its looking to be a Veteran(120 skill points at level one is a juicy bonus) and hard difficulty.

My other two Thortons were a stealthy professional gunslinger and an Assault Rifle wielding maniac(aka Aggressive). And the kicker is that I'm still going: I wonder what would happen if.... And I tried to do as much things differently between them, but there's still stuff I know I haven't seen(Like what happens if Heck doesn't like you.... or if you kill Sie... or if you can kill Marsburg in Rome, or what if you join Leland or..... and can I learn of Scarlet's secret trade before the last boss?

So many questions. I need more Data GRAAARGH.

[bobby 55]

Hey thanks Chris, I have no idea how to win that cake.
@ Jaedar: I'm still in my second playthrough and I have been a bit more adept at stealth, although I'm bloodthirsty operative in this one. Executing bad guys doesn't make me a good person but at least it reveals cinematics I missed first time around.

[chris the cynic]

Suffice it to say chris, that there is more depth to the character than I could ever convey.

I think this really ties back into the debate we had all those months(years?) ago about greater good and stuff. I assume neither of us has had a change of opinion, so I understand why you might feel differently than myself on this issue.

That did occur to me, but according to what you said that didn't come into play.

You said that his actions were explicitly not good. You said that what he did was so far beyond the moral event horizon that you can, without any sign of hesitation or doubt, conclude on the weight of that single action that he is definitively not a good person to such a degree you can express it with the precision and certainty of a logical equation.

In saying that you demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, that this was not something being done for the greater good and the doing of it could not be considered good. Our previous debate revolved entirely around the question of the greater good. It did not touch on things so far beyond the pale as to outweigh every other thing the person may have done and may yet do and allow one to conclude, on that action alone, that the person is not good.

It also revolved entirely around matters of saving multiple people from certain death, not saving one person from hypothetical pain at an unspecified time in the future. Every one of the underlined words in the previous sentence was pretty central to the argument you put forward. (You didn't, for example, say it was ok to murder one person to save one other person from maybe having a headache tomorrow.) Your argument was simple mathematics (you compared death to death and certainty to certainty claimed that the only difference was numbers, and went with the higher number of survivors.)

Then again, it also involved you lying repeatedly about triage.

[Added] And with that I will leave, there's only so much that can be said about what you have said. If we're going to have an actual debate on this I'd prefer to use the primary source. Your description clearly indicates the person is evil but, as you say, your description is not the same as the actual character.

[Jaedar]

Here's the thing: Entire plot of AP follows including all the baddies motivations, you shouldn't read this, but I can't counter your argument without posting it leading to a dilemma. So I'll just let it go and not post it and I recommend you play the game so you can form a first-hand opinion about the character and maybe then we can continue this debate or something.

Fakedit:

[Added] And with that I will leave, there's only so much that can be said about what you have said. If we're going to have an actual debate on this I'd prefer to use the primary source. Your description clearly indicates the person is evil but, as you say, your description is not the same as the actual character.

Well that makes my entire post pointless

[chris the cynic]

To be honest, I wasn't so much interested in the character as the fact that you said something that read, to me, like this:

He's not evil. Let me prove it by describing his evil, evil, evil COMIC BOOK EVIL! makes Lex Luthor look like a fucking saint reasons for being so damned evil.

Which was something I couldn't resist responding to. Like I said, I was responding to your description of the character, not the character himself. Assuming I ever play the game (I have no money so that is hardly assured) I'll see how, if at all, the character matches your description.

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For some reason some of the keys on my keyboard aren't acting right. It is aggravating.

[Jaedar]

Assuming I ever play the game (I have no money so that is hardly assured) I'll see how, if at all, the character matches your description.

That's what the Pirate Bay/friends are for