Fallen A2P Alpha Protocal

Fallen A2P Alpha Protocol

Since I won this key and promised a review, I thought I'd give my impressions as I played. Thanks to Red Katana and Format 92 for their great effort in getting me the key as quickly as they did. The process turned out to be anything but easy.

I played my first hour this afternoon.

The combat works well. I like the 10 point AP system mixed with the X-Com kind of movement graphics. I much prefer it to a 2 point system.



On the other hand the game is drastically in need a tutorial. I know I never played with one in the 80s (though you did normally get a pretty deep manual), but now of days I kind of expect something. I didn't pick up any loot on the first map and had to go the options menu to realize that I needed to push"g" to gather stuff. I have no problems with the controls per say, but even as a veteran of tactical rpgs, I still would have liked that explained.

The skill system seems to be a mixture of skill tree and use based system, which also seems like a good mix.



I was surprised how much is voiced in a game with this kind of budget. The voice actors aren't bad either. I find the story (which is relatively unimportant to the gameplay) a mixed bag so far. I see there is a strategic layer, which I don't think I fully grasp yet, and am interested to see how it turns out. I think the strategic layer could use a little more explanation as well. What for example are the other car symbols on the map? Other caravans? Enemies?

Anyways it seems like I will be killing a large number of bomb worshipping fanatics in the future. This one has already met his maker.

I played another 2 levels. I'll have to replay the gas station level, because the tanks blew up. I didn't realize I needed to push "Y" to turn them off. Again, letting the player know this in the game itself would be good. I also personally am not a fan of no saving during a 45 minute level exactly for this reason.
I like the combat system. I like how the various weapons differ. I can see I'm going to want to expand each of my character's inventories so they can carry more different types of weapons. The battles themselves are fun, though grenades seem very powerful at this early stage.
I also like the various upgrades for weapons and in the caravan. I have too much I want to buy and nowhere near enough funds. That's always a good sign in a game.

One doesn't really have enough time to read the clues in the missions. It makes them seem almost irrelevant except to reach them as mission goals, which I don't think is really what was intended.

3 hours of playing time is enough for me today. As I am playing 7 games through a rotation (currently in addition to Fallen A2P, X-Com:Enemy Within, Of Orcs and Men, Bloodlust: Shadowhunterr, Avernum 2:Crystal Souls, Antharion, and Age of Decadence.) I'll probably make my next update in 5-7 days.

Bloodlust Shadowhunter rather Thanks forgottenlor

I hate games that aren't save anywhere. I should re-do 45 minutes just because the devs are too lazy to put in a save feature? Umm…dudes I have a limited amount of gaming time, put in a save system. I often don't even have 45 minutes in any one session. Give me a break.

hmmm…weren't there two keys given out? Where's the other dude's thread? Can you turn off gore? I'm not 12, so I don't need to see blood and guts. Turn on nudity and turn off gore is always my preferred setting

Thanks for the update, FL

@Muhabor: Corrected. How embarrassing!
@Crpgnut: I completely agree. I'm always surprised though about how there is a small vocal minority against saving anywhere. For example there are a few guys on the Bard's Tale IV forum who only want you to be able to save your game at an inn. Its not enough for them either if its an option. They want to force everyone to play the game this way.
I don't think you can turn off gore. Its very cartoony for the most part. People kind of explode when they die. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but its so unrealistic that it didn't bother me, and I'm not a fan of excessive gore. After all some times my wife or daughter peek over my shoulder when I'm playing.

I played another 3 hours today. I replayed the 4th mission and then played mission 5 twice, because one of my characters died during a mission. Normally your characters hit 0 health and just go down, but they can actually die when going to 0 hit points and have ongoing damage, like burning damage from grenades or bleeding damage from a katana. One of the cool things is how weapon LOS can be seen. From a normal gun for example:



or a shotgun:



While the story seems ok per say, the writing leave something to be desired. For example the text on a number of the mercenaries:



The main story is correctly written but tries to switch from dark and gritty to funny, but the writing isn't strong enough to pull it off:



Despite that the missions are pretty fun because the combat system works so well. I'm not sure how long I can take not being able to save during missions, but I will play again in 5-8 days. If I have to replay missions more than twice it will definately try my patience.

I'm up to 10 hours of playtime now. After breezing through mission 6, it took me three attempts to win mission 7 without losing anyone. While in X-com its easy to replace lost soldiers, the cost of a new character in Fallen is very expensive, so its not worth having someone die. Anyways this library proved a nightmare because the mutants had lots of life meaning it was difficult to kill them before they tossed grenades or shot rockets. The rocket launchers felt like a decent reward for a hard level, though.



I've maxed everyone's inventory space now, so its weapons galore, which is worth it because it not only allows some flexibility, but also because ammo is rare.



I've now accumulated a massive 14k in scrap and am thinking of getting my 6th and final soldier. One thing I don't understand is why you'd hire a human over a mutant as the mutants have more health without any visible drawbacks and cost about the same to hire, but maybe I'm missing something. (It could be there starting equipment, but at this point that doesn't make up for 3-4 health points)