Lotheneil vs. The Backlog Hydra, Ep. #3
Another week, another report coming in :)
I’ve decided to join the fun of ABC challenge and created my own list. I’ve chosen for each letter the game I’m looking forward to playing the most, disregarding the HLTB completion time. As I’m a RPG fan, the list ended up containing some seriously long games… hopefully I manage to beat it by the end of the year :). Time will tell. So far 1/21 done.
Grotesque Tactics 2 – Dungeons and Donuts
2 hours of playtime, 5 of 13 achievements
They’ve told me the second instance of the series is better. They’ve told me it has better visuals, character development, faction system, new mechanics and functionalities. And they were right. What they did not tell me, is that the camera is still extremely unreliable, dialogues neither interesting nor funny, characters still one-dimensional and irritating and, what’s the worst of it all, quest are extremely uninspiring and fedex-like. Rather than exploring new areas, fighting monsters and developing your characters and tactics, you run around the main hub (that is located in one, if large, building) for hours, doing heroic deeds like baking a doughnut for princess or talking a woman into adopting an orphan. Yawn thrilling.
Verdict: negative While the title does have some redeeming qualities, its awfully, painfully bland and boring.
Status: dropped. Why? My patience, depleted by the first instance already, reached its limit. Nothing in the title hooked me enough to compensate for its shortcomings to carry on.
Alpha Protocol
17 hours of playtime, no achievements
This game is pretty mediocre when it comes to gameplay mechanics, location design, AI or graphics. It delivers one thing perfectly though - a living, immersive world painted in shades of grey, full of diverse characters with their own agendas, choices with meaningful and believable outcomes. And secret agency and espionage setting, of course :) There is no room for black-and-white, allies-versus-enemies diversification - whether someone is going to help or hinder the character depends on his previous actions and their goal similarities.
Verdict: mildly positive. The game hooks you on the world of espionage and international conspiracies and does not let go, expertly hiding its shortcomings, though if the setting is not right up your alley, other elements will not make up for that.
Status: completed. All endings seen, vast majority of missions completed (apart from some minor mutually exclusive ones), vast majority of dossiers completed.
I’ve decided not to delve into a full replay, though as I’ve said I’ve seen all the endings (which required replaying the last mission only, assuming you have good standing with two of the characters). And your character from the screen above ended up eerily similar to mine (stat-wise, that is) :)
I know it doesn’t make sense but if you just click on the speech bubble in your notifications you end up replying to the main post and not to the message. As you didn’t reply to Arbiter Libera’s message they didn’t get a notification for it :P
Aww, good to know, will remember. You’ve found your way here, perhaps Arbiter Libera will as well :)
Alpha Protocol is criminally overlooked and you could tell plenty of so-called reviewers back in the day never made it past Saudi Arabia. Also, it’s a game that thrives on replays so you get to see all the changes that result from simply doing events in different order. I also like that at the time Mass Effect 2 went the whole “simplify the stats” whereas Alpha Protocol embraced the skills ranks and upgrades.