Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Alpha Protocol - Closure Alert - Part 4

Our first major boss fight has been completed, and we were able to show off quite a bit.

If you wish to watch content like this as it's recorded live, be sure to follow my Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud




One of the most pointless cruel things you can do in this game is murder a young girl and then throw it in her parental figure's face. You'd only ever do that if your goal is to make Albatross as angry as possible.

Going through Brayko's mansion again, especially in the version where Thorton has a high enough Technical Aptitude to save your partner and get the data, makes me wonder what this mission was intended to be like before Alpha Protocol transitioned to having more linear levels, when the hubs were going to be wide open sandboxes. You can tell there's some fudging, since the vault with the data is located in the same building we first entered (the courtyard we enter to go back there is ever the same courtyard we began the level in).

There's also the point Wil/anaphysik made about how it seems likely that players were always supposed to go in with SIE, since Albatross gets a less intense cutscene and frankly would not be on site for a mission like this. Artifacts like this are part what make Alpha Protocol so fascinating. It excels in a few key places, but there are also so many glaring imperfections to discuss as well.

As for Brayko, he's a small sample of what the other bosses are like. By far, this is one of the strangest choices Alpha Protocol made. These bosses are so different from every other point in the game that it makes me wonder where they came from, especially if you specialize in Stealth. It's very similar (though not quite the same) as the problem Deus Ex: Human Revolution had with their bosses.

No comments: