Alpha Protocol - Retrospective @ Eurogamer

I didn't buy AP. But will I?

Originally Posted by DR490N
I know why I hated it :
- timed dialogues
- no quicksaves
What a waste due to two stupid decisions.

I do understand english, but sorry, I don't understand it as fast as someone who works in Obsidian. Timed dialogues? You mean I have to read fast and think even faster? For god's sakes…
It's not something new, if not dialogue there are plenty of games with timed missions/quests, but you can't win the international market by putting that as a core ingame stuff.

No quicksaves? Does that mean you can't save anywhere? For saves anywhere and saves only on certain spots I've already said - I have frequent power outages where I live and I can't be arsed to replay the same thing over and over again just because I couldn't make a gamesave during the power surge. The #1 reason I don't have a console (nor will at least till they start to ship them with batteries) is the stupid savepoint system that only UPS producing companies adore.

AP can be a masterpiece game. But clearly, if I understood correctly, it's not a game I can love. And I'm not buying it. Sorry.

All in all,


Thanks to its characters and, of course, narrative reactivity Iīve found AP a lot more memorable than DE:HR, but Iīd love to see a sequel that would utilize combat/stealth and level design closer to DE:HRīs fashion.

As a side note, the way some of the RPG aspects were utilized in gameplay was not Obsidianīs, but SEGAīs decision, at least according to this interview with Avellone:
"AP represents a disconnect between what it looks like on screen vs. how it plays out – as an example, one of our design mandates from SEGA was that your gun skill effects your targeting and spread, which is something our studio is very much against, and you can see the consequences of that discrepancy in a number of mandated system mechanics in the game."

I like AP a lot, as I found it very refreshing. I'm pretty desperate for non-fantasy RPGs these days, since there are so few of them.

Not long after AP was released, I remember writing it could turn into something of a cult classic. I still think so. The original approach is still unique, and I very much doubt that will change anytime soon.

Best $2 I ever spent!

Going by this thread, I think we can safely say that people who liked AP are NOT alone - and it's much less of an underdog than it's been made out to be. Ok, so it was a commercial and critical failure - but what use is that for any serious gamer?

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'd be happy just to see re-releases of NOLF 1&2 that are compatible with Windows 7.

I reinstalled NOLF 1 a few weeks ago on Win 7 (64 bit) and don't remember any problems.

Edit: That I didn't remember problems didn't mean, that there were none :

I believe I did it as described on this page, with the second method described there:
1.Copy the contents from the "game" folder onto your hard drive. (Make a new folder in Documents named "NOLF" (copy the CONTENTS of the "Game" folder to the HD folder that you create, not the "Game" folder itself)
2. Enter the "data" folder on the cd, then copy the "nolf.rez" from both cd1 and cd2 into the folder you copied onto your hard drive.
3. Place cd in drive, or mount your image and launch the NOLF.exe.

(I created the NOLF folder directly under C:, not in My documents".)

I also read that somebody has created an alternative installer (because it is only the installation that fails, not the game as such), but don't think I tred that one.

[QUOTE=bkrueger;1061178480]I reinstalled NOLF 1 a few weeks ago on Win 7 (64 bit) and don't remember any problems.

Edit: That I didn't remember problems didn't mean, that there were none :

I believe I did it as described on
1.Copy . . .
2. Enter the "data" . . .
3. Place cd in drive, or mount . . .
[QUOTE]

OMG did you have to do config .sys and figure hi-mem too. :-)

That type of work is way behind me now, I just go on GOG and occasionally put in few plugs for them to get the NOLFS. Currently playing the oldie Might & Magic 7 and didn't have to do a damn think other than dowload and install.

Anyways, thanks to this thread, AP has shot back up to the top of my to-play (again) queue.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
OMG did you have to do config .sys and figure hi-mem too. :-)

You are exaggerating, it was a question of five minutes. And copying some files is no miracle.

Unfortuntely the NOLFs are not on GoG yet…