Alpha Protocol (2010) - Review

Some times games don't manage to make you feel as much as you or the developers hoped for. Alpha Protocol has a lot going for it, but falls a bit short of being a good game. As it is now, it's ok. Good enough to waste some time on, if all you were going to do was scroll through Youtube Reels anyway. But probably not something you're going to think too much about once you've turned it off.

Which is unfortunate because on paper Alpha Protocol has a lot going for it. Developed by Obsidian ( Knight of the Old Republic, Fallout: New Vegas, Outer Wilds) and published by SEGA (needs no introduction) in 2010, it presents itself as an action role-playing shooter and could fool anyone that it was picking up the baton from Deus Ex after Deus Ex sort of fumbled and lost it.

It's clear that is what it is trying to do, with the main character introduction and gameplay being very similar. You play as Mike Thorton, and at the beginning of the game it's not entirely clear why you are where you are. But you are quickly thrust into the action as you run, stealth and shoot your way through different set pieces. After only a handful of missions you end up embroiled in a plot twist, Bourne-style, and need to keep working to figure things out. It's a story about corporate greed, shifting alliances and plenty of backstabbing, if you choose to. The pacing is high and the story cuts back and forth between the present and the future. 

The game allows you to tackle missions in a variety of ways - when you start the game you can choose what kind of agent you want to be, and it affects how your agent will be able to solve different problems and presumably more or less how you are going to play through the game. Each time you level up you can choose to improve different weapon skills, stealthing, technical aptitude and more typical RPG stuff. You also unlock skills on cooldowns which you can trigger to improve your situation in different ways. I found some of those skills absolutely mandatory, like the skill that allows you to track enemies even when you can't visibly see them. That skill starts out on a cooldown but if you invest enough points into it, it becomes permanent and made the levels way easier to get through.

A big reason for this is because the stealth sections aren't very well realized, but that could also be because I didn't put many points into this. I found it hard to judge how visible Thorton was in any given moment, and often found myself confused when I was spotted by someone. After having played games like Thief and aforementioned Deus Ex, I just know there are much better ways to inform your player of these things, but on the other hand games like Assassins Creed struggle with this also.

Running and gunning works fine however. Your weapons have different recoil, different bullets and different addons you can attach to improve their stats. You can take cover behind things and throughout the levels there are a lot of computers to hack and locks to pick if you want to. All of these things usually give you some sort of small upper edge, like disabling cameras or extra loot.

The game has a neat, optional, tutorial in the beginning - which I completely butchered. The people assisting me were delicate about my lack of skill however. The game never felt hard though, and even though I often messed up because the controls aren't always precise enough, it was usually not difficult to get myself out of the situations I had put myself into. Enemies are often contained in segments, even within a level, meaning that once you've shot off a certain few in an area, the rest will be just as unaware as ever. 

In fact, let's talk a bit more about this part. I played this on PC with keyboard, but it really felt like the game was made for a control pad, the way you're supposed to interact with the environment and even with menus just was a bit unintuitive and clunky. For instance, to select between different cooldowns or gadgets (grenades, first aids) you press Z or C and choose from a radial menu as default, rather than them being bound to different keys. And the interface doesn't always react to where the mouse cursor is, in that weird way that you only understand if you've experienced it.

The AI is not the best, actually among the most stupid I have seen in a game of this time. Several bosses I managed to unintentionally cheese simply because their heads were poking out behind some cover and they wouldn't react when I laid in to them. I guess the AI thought they were behind cover and just couldn't figure why they were still taking damage. And when I shot someone, it didn't matter where it happened, everyone in the vicinity knows my exact location immediately and run through corridors and up and down stairs to find me without trouble. What is up with the homing tracking? Then they run towards me like lambs to slaughter, so some times it will work in my favor. And this is not the kind of game where you have to worry about leaving bodies visibly anywhere, AI does not react to this at all.

Obsidian has put a lot of effort into making a slick feeling game in other areas though. The game tracks your reputation with most of the characters you meet, which in turn affects how they react to different situations and conversations. It's explained early on that a good reputation isn't always beneficial, because a bad reputation can make someone annoyed with you which in the world of covert operation can be used to your advantage. When they explained this I was intrigued by how this was going to showcase itself in the game. Often during conversation a wheel of reactions will pop-up. You have a few seconds to choose how Thorton is going to react to what is being talked about. The options are often only described with an adjective, "angry", "flirty", "professional", and it's some times difficult to predict exactly what each option means. It happened fairly often that I chose something only to feel like that wasn't what I was going for at all.

Between missions you spend time in a base of operations which allows you to tinker with your gear and otherwise prepare for your mission. One interesting feature is the option to buy "intel", that will give you different benefits in your upcoming missions. This can be everything from a map of the area you're going to, information on the characters you're meeting or even giving you optional ways to go around the place. You can choose in which order you play through missions which in turn affect how some people around you react. There are a lot of variables to play around with and they feel like they matter. Your choices are some times very weighty and not always easy to make.

I've only played through the game once, but it definitely gives you the impression that the choices you make and the way you handle situations impact how you move forward, meaning you can have a wholly different experience on a second playthrough. I can't say how well this is realized, but it felt impressive and enticing. After a few hours with the game I couldn't help but see the layered onion that it was trying to be, and I liked it.

It's really too bad the main character is such an uninteresting sausage of a person. The poor guy doing the voice acting sounds bored half the time and confused the other half, like he doesn't really understand what he is saying. And unfortunately this goes for most of the characters of the game, where pretty much all of them sound like they are phoning it it. The only guy who sounds like he is having fun is Steven Heck, but then Heck is a special kind of psycho. I rarely even react to voice acting performances, even less complain about them, but in this game it is so bad it actually detracts from the overall experience.

Overall, and to reiterate, Alpha Protocol has some interesting highs and lows. It's almost like two different teams worked on it, or they ended putting so much effort into the writing that they didn't have any money left for the gameplay. It's far from a bad game, and easy enough to rarely annoy you. In the end it's just kind of... forgettable.

Limbo (2010) - Review

I personally think the indie game landscape is one of the best and freshest things to happen to the video game world. It was looking quite dark there for a while in the mid 00's, with triple A developers only hinging their money on the safest of bets, ergo the most predictable of games. The video game industry seemed to be caught in a loop of trying to predict and deliver exactly what video gamers wanted, which only led to games that no one fully enjoyed. Things were glum indeed and suddenly, almost as by design, developing tools became accessible and user friendly enough that any basement game designer could give it a go. It was a beautiful full circle back to the very dawn of computer and video games, when most of them were made by people just playing around on their machines, trying to create something that they themselves wanted to play and not necessarily make the most money out of.

Limbo, released in 2010 by Playdead, wasn't among the very first indie games, but in my mind it definitely belonged to the first batch of games that showed players what indie games could accomplish that triple A developers were missing out on or were overcomplicating. It was a game that dared to be simple and concise, something that video game designers seemed to have almost forgotten the art of. Instead of moving towards even more content, even more open world, even more customization, Limbo was a game that removed all of that and told the simplest of stories with the most straight-forward of gameplay, like the darker twin of Super Mario Bros.

I was deep into my World of Warcrafting when Limbo was released and had little interest for it at the time. And in all honesty, the only reason I decided to eventually check it out was simply because it still lingered in the back of my mind as a game that was part of a big moment in video game history, and as such at least something I should know a little more about than the name and that it seems to have huge spiders in it.

Puzzle platformers are really not my thing, I must admit. I also tried Braid and didn't like it, so I didn't have high expectations for Limbo either. I also suck at Mario games, but those I still enjoy playing every now and then. My problem with indie puzzle platformers have often been that focus has been so much on making interesting puzzles, that it seems that the most important part - good platforming - has been lost on the way. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to solve a puzzle and constantly failing because your character doesn't control well enough. This was one of my issues with Braid.

I found this to be part of the issue in Limbo as well. The character, who seems to be a young child lost or running through dark woods, controls just fine until you get to parts that require timing. The controls are super simple, you can go left, right, up and down and with "ctrl" (on computers at least) you can grab things. The child will automatically cling on to ropes and edges if you're close enough. That's all there is to it. But it doesn't always work well enough and your character will suddenly do a short jump where you needed a long one, or fail to climb over an edge in time. I'm not saying the controls are badly programmed, but they are not tight enough for what is requested.

So you have to be prepared for a lot of trial and error. Limbo will throw traps at you that reverses the rule of a previous trap, which just feels devious. Or maybe hilarious, depending on your mood for the evening. Some times the puzzle is on a time limit for varying reasons (rising waters being one) and you don't get much time trying different ideas. Some times you know exactly what you need to do but fail at execution for unfair reasons, see above.

I am not entirely sure what Limbo is trying to tell with the atmosphere, but there must almost be a subgenre of games that has the "lonely in dangerous woods"-feel. If you like the feeling of being alone in the world, everything out to get you and nothing making sense (and why would you, it literally sounds like a nightmare), while solving puzzles, I can recommend checking out the games Rymdresa and Year Walk as well. The black and white in Limbo really works in its favour, and it probably helps hide the fact that Limbo itself feels like only half a game.

Because something struck me as interesting while playing Limbo - I am not so sure Limbo would've been noticed at all if it had been released in todays indie landscape. I am in fact sure it wouldn't be. Limbo in itself isn't much of a game, really. You run in one direction and  But what it represented when it was released meant a lot more than the game itself. It was what the game industry needed at the time. But now that we have indie games galore, we're spoiled with out of the box ideas and underdog design choices and a game like Limbo doesn't seem like a game that's out on a limb(o) anymore. In todays indie world Limbo seems a bit simple and tame.

But it wasn't back then. Back then it represented fresh and daring thinking, and no one can take that away from it. If you're like me, a bit curious about gaming history and gaming milestones, you could give Limbo a few hours of your life. Otherwise I think it's enough to just know what it once was, and enjoy the fruits of what it sowed.

Man Up or Manual - Comparing Diablo-clones

As I've been on a streak of playing Diablo-clones, purely coincidentally as I often install games on random, I've also come to think of the subtle differences that make or break a game. What makes a good game? It's a question almost as difficult to answer as the big one about the meaning of life, especially since it often comes down to subjective ideas of fun. It just really popped into my head when playing these Diablo-clones specifically because they're somehow so comparable. Often the core mechanics are pretty much the same and the differences are too subtle to explain in a good way.

I never played Diablo or Diablo 2 much when they were released, but once I got around to it I loved them. I never beat Diablo, but went through Diablo 2 a couple of times. I was quite thrilled when Diablo 3 was announced but got bored with it after some months, I gave it another chance a while after but never could get into it. I've filed it under the list of "unsuccessful Diablo-clones" (although technically not a Diablo-clone), along with a whole bunch of others. Din's Curse (2010), Torchlight (2009) and FATE: The Cursed King (2011) joined that list pretty quickly. Eventhough I had fun with all of those games initially, since I am quite a fan of the core mechanic, I ended up losing interest fairly quickly. I even bought Torchlight 2, having heard it was better than the first one, over two years ago. I still haven't played it.

FATE is pretty much Torchlight - amazon.com

Then I started playing Darkstone (released 1999) and something changed. The interesting thing was that all of the abovementioned boring games were simple to get the hang of. They either had tutorials that explained what you needed to know, or game mechanics easy enough to figure out on the run. But they lacked something that made it fun to stick around in the world. To me, Din's Curse, FATE and Torchlight all suffered from the same feeling of meaninglessness, the way all that killing never felt like it was leading anywhere or at least nowhere I wanted to go. Diablo 3 had the same problem of repetitiveness and sense that I was bashing my head against a wall even when I was making progress. But I had so much trouble figuring out how it differed from Diablo 2. What made the one fun and the other one not?

Torchlight - gamespot.com

Darkstone did things differently than the other games. It has a tutorial, if you can call it that - a dude tells you where the vendors are and you get to test some different weapons and that's it. Quests are given to you by random people walking up and telling you "good luck finding the Holy Shield! You're going to need it!". I am paraphrasing, but that is literally all the information you get. Not a word about where the item is, which seems like pretty essential information. It took me 2 hours to figure out how to make my companion use spells. Or how to lock spells into my spellbar. Or what the different skills you can buy actually do. All thanks to me digging up the actual manual of the game. Apparently you have to hold in shift while clicking a spell to make it stick to your spellbar. Apparently you have to tell your companion how much mana they can use by marking their mana bar before they start using skills. Apparently the Language skill is completely useless in single player.

Needless to say I was frustrated as hell the first couple of hours of playing, which wasn't the case with the other Diablo-clones. Diablo was released several years before this game so I was desperately trying to find the key that would show me all the loot at my feet, but alas. You have to use your eyes and try to see that tiny ass pixelated ring somewhere among all the cracked urn pieces. Trying to open a chest I often end up circling it because targeting is wonky as hell. There is no pet to conveniently run off and vendor your things. Eventhough you're a team your characters control as two different people, which means if you want to sell or buy stuff from the vendor you have to do it individually. Swapping between characters is also unintuitive (especially since there is no key for it) so I've already died a couple of times from freaking out when in the wrong character, using the wrong skills. But somehow, rather than making me angry, it made me all the happier when I got it right.

Closer to the style of Diablo - megagames.com

But it was fun. I kept trying, I kept playing - eventhough all the game mechanics told me I should've given up long ago. I kept thinking "what the hell is wrong with this game" but I didn't close it down. When I finally ended up reading the manual to be able to actually do simple stuff, I even got a bit sentimental. I can't explain it. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that games nowadays come with tooltips and explain basic game mechanics from the start. There are even old games that do this without it feeling like the game is holding your hand, like Geneforge or Planescape: Torment. And I don't think it's the handholding alone that makes a game more or less fun, Darkstone also has a more interesting world and manages to make dungeon crawling feel like an adventure and not a chore, just like the original Diablo did. I passed a lake and a fairy in it told me to "blow the reeds from the smallest to the biggest". "What reeds?" I thought. There were no reeds anywhere and she didn't tell me where to find them or why (to play the song of snakes, whatever that was good for). After some clicking around I decided to just leave it. Venturing into the next dungeon, I happen to find some reeds in various locations. Now I am curious.

Worst graphics, best game? - gamersinfinite.com

There was just something about the ruthlessness of getting thrown in at the deep end, the feeling of the game developers thinking "they'll get this, they're not stupid" (although clearly I was) that felt refreshing. If done right, and that's obviously easier said than done, saying "we don't need to tell you, you'll figure it out" really adds to the sense of achievement. You need a lot of faith in your game to think people will stick around for it. A lot of upcoming games will add this as an optional feature (like the new Hitman, and I believe the new Thief had this as well) where you can choose to get more or less information. I think that is a brilliant idea. If the popularity of Dark Souls is anything to go by, people enjoy good trial & error. And for the rest of us, there is always the manual.