So now we finally reach the finale of Taipei. And I find an entire different reason to bitch about Taipei.
First off, the cape drop is supposed to be badass, but all it communicates to me is that Omen Deng is trying too hard.
I'll say it right now, the bosses in this game really, truly suck. They are almost universally unfun and unfair. As we'll also see in Moscow and Rome, this game turns from an interesting spy thriller into "just another video game boss fight" whenever we get the a hub's finale. I just don't understand the choice to have such rigid boss fights and to not allow you at least the option of talking your way out of them. (Especially for an Obsidian game like this, where conversation is really the most interesting part.) In all 3 of these points, all the problems with the gameplay just come together all at once and it's really frustrating.
Omen Deng has a bullshit version of Shadow Operative that Thorton won't even be able to get at Rank 15. The game does not allow you to use Shadow Operative if the enemy knows where you are and can see you. Here, we see Omen Deng vanish into thin air, which we shouldn't be able to see. You'll also see that his Cooldown is somewhere close to 0 where ours is around 90 seconds. I'm all for the bosses having player skills, but they should not have skills even a master in that discipline couldn't have.
I really hate combat taunts. I especially hate when they sound so mechanical. The only reasons I recall this otherwise uninteresting boss fight are that I died a lot on my first playthrough (to the other bosses as well) and that he kept telling me that "You're in, over your head." It's almost as bad as the Naked Muscle Man boss fight in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Not quite that bad, but getting there.
I am honestly legitimately surprised that Aldowyn only took two tries to take him down. This is not because Aldowyn is unskilled. This is because there is almost always some wayward grenade incendiary device that will kill you almost instantly. Also, if Omen Deng decides to bum rush you with his martial arts, you have no way to defend yourself against it and no way to counter-attack. And you saw how much more health and defense this guy has compared to us. He took hundreds of shotgun slugs. Even on Easy, we can't take anywhere near that much punishment.
This conversation with Heck at the end of Taipei is one of my favorites. If he hates you, then he'll just take the deal and blame Mike for the assassination. If he likes you, he'll kill the VCI agent sent to blackmail him and set Wen Shu up for the fall, which he will later be executed for. I feel bad for Wen because as far as I can tell, he's done absolutely nothing wrong aside from get involved with Steven Heck for reasons unknown.
Overall, I like the concepts behind Taipei. I also like the overall structure of the Hub's mission. I take issue with the way they framed the whole plot. The moral choice is interesting, but set up in such a way as to frustrate players. The red-herring isn't an inherently bad idea, but there's no real reason to suspect him to be the would-be assassin. I promise you that the other two hubs are significantly better than this one. Taipei had great potential, but squandered it.
Lastly, it would be sinful for me to not link Shamus Young's comic detailing how comically stupid this particular boss battle is. Also of note is that while fighting him in the area with the statue, Deng makes the remark: "Here, before the eyes of our Nation's founder, you will die." Make of that what you will. Anaphysik and I have been discussing it, and we've got no clue exactly which person was meant to be referred to here.
Showing posts with label krellen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label krellen. Show all posts
Friday, March 29, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 16: Swan Sung
In this episode, I want to kill President Sung. Also, we spoil who the assassin actually is from 5:30 - 8:20. If you're following along, yet haven't beaten the game yet, skip that section of the video. Also, I spoil it in the second to last paragraph in the text following the video.
I took what anaphysik said to heart and really thought about. And then I realized something. In either interpretation of President Sung's character, he's a complete and total moron. For the sake of argument, I'm going to give the game the benefit of the doubt and assume that we can prove that the riots will occur without even hinting at a potential assassination, even if that makes no sense.
In my interpretation as a typical amoral politician, when Sung is confronted by the possibility that he could die for his cause, then he would take the side of caution in favor of his life when you can prove that their is at least one genuine threat at his rally (a riot) and put on a bulletproof vest. He wouldn't be afraid of "showing his weakness to the world" because there would exist the possibility of Mike being right on both counts. If Mike can prove one threat, but insists there is two, any typical politician would want to be as safe as possible. That's why gov'ts have highly trained security detail. He would not dismiss an assassination as "merely your conjecture."
In anaphysik's interpretation, where Sung is a wanna-be martyr trying to die for his people, he's stupid for a different reason under an entirely different circumstance. Sure, I'll give anaphysik that it makes sense if you choose to prove the riots. However, if you choose to prove the assassination, then why not put measures in place to quell the riots anyway. It's not like your in danger of "looking like a petty dictator" if it turns out that people were really trying to cause a riot. And besides, we would have literally just proved and attempt on Sung's life. In that case, he's justified in bringing extra guards on that merit alone. Any savior-of-his-people would want to place their safety and the hands of rioters as a top priority. They would not dismiss the riots that would kill innocent people as "merely your conjecture."
So if Sung's a moron by either interpretation, then I conclude that he is a moron.
And another question, if Omen Deng is such a great intelligence agent, should he not be aware that the guy who is supposedly trying to kill President Sung walked right up to the guy with proof of a conspiracy against him, trying to convince him there is a genuine threat to his life? For being a boogeyman in the intelligence scene, he looks dumber and dumber the more you get into this plot and the longer you analyze it. At the very least this would cause some doubt to creep in. And don't say that he wouldn't know. After all, the point to him being here is stopping the president's assassination. He'd have someone on watch.
*SPOILER WARNING*
And then Scarlet Lake appears. Really, her being the assassin would've been a great twist had we spent a bit more time getting to know her character and allowing her to feed you misinformation. It'd be perfect to have her use her journalist cover to her advantage in that way, making Omen Deng make sense. And the bullshit about not doing collateral damage which she tells you if you confront her on it later makes zero sense. Basically, the whole plot to Taipei is stupid and doesn't make a lick of sense. Don't worry, I promise the other two are better.
*END SPOILERS*
Lastly, it is really weird that I'm so bloodthirsty in these LPs because when I play these kinds of games I'm such a White Knight Paragon that it's almost disgusting to other people. Also, the LA Noire video he and I reference is this one, which highlights how dumb LA Noire's interrogations can get at times.
I took what anaphysik said to heart and really thought about. And then I realized something. In either interpretation of President Sung's character, he's a complete and total moron. For the sake of argument, I'm going to give the game the benefit of the doubt and assume that we can prove that the riots will occur without even hinting at a potential assassination, even if that makes no sense.
In my interpretation as a typical amoral politician, when Sung is confronted by the possibility that he could die for his cause, then he would take the side of caution in favor of his life when you can prove that their is at least one genuine threat at his rally (a riot) and put on a bulletproof vest. He wouldn't be afraid of "showing his weakness to the world" because there would exist the possibility of Mike being right on both counts. If Mike can prove one threat, but insists there is two, any typical politician would want to be as safe as possible. That's why gov'ts have highly trained security detail. He would not dismiss an assassination as "merely your conjecture."
In anaphysik's interpretation, where Sung is a wanna-be martyr trying to die for his people, he's stupid for a different reason under an entirely different circumstance. Sure, I'll give anaphysik that it makes sense if you choose to prove the riots. However, if you choose to prove the assassination, then why not put measures in place to quell the riots anyway. It's not like your in danger of "looking like a petty dictator" if it turns out that people were really trying to cause a riot. And besides, we would have literally just proved and attempt on Sung's life. In that case, he's justified in bringing extra guards on that merit alone. Any savior-of-his-people would want to place their safety and the hands of rioters as a top priority. They would not dismiss the riots that would kill innocent people as "merely your conjecture."
So if Sung's a moron by either interpretation, then I conclude that he is a moron.
And another question, if Omen Deng is such a great intelligence agent, should he not be aware that the guy who is supposedly trying to kill President Sung walked right up to the guy with proof of a conspiracy against him, trying to convince him there is a genuine threat to his life? For being a boogeyman in the intelligence scene, he looks dumber and dumber the more you get into this plot and the longer you analyze it. At the very least this would cause some doubt to creep in. And don't say that he wouldn't know. After all, the point to him being here is stopping the president's assassination. He'd have someone on watch.
*SPOILER WARNING*
And then Scarlet Lake appears. Really, her being the assassin would've been a great twist had we spent a bit more time getting to know her character and allowing her to feed you misinformation. It'd be perfect to have her use her journalist cover to her advantage in that way, making Omen Deng make sense. And the bullshit about not doing collateral damage which she tells you if you confront her on it later makes zero sense. Basically, the whole plot to Taipei is stupid and doesn't make a lick of sense. Don't worry, I promise the other two are better.
*END SPOILERS*
Lastly, it is really weird that I'm so bloodthirsty in these LPs because when I play these kinds of games I'm such a White Knight Paragon that it's almost disgusting to other people. Also, the LA Noire video he and I reference is this one, which highlights how dumb LA Noire's interrogations can get at times.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 15: We Kneed More Junk
In this episode, we steal some intel and make a very poorly framed choice.
Aldowyn and anaphysik bring up a very good point here, which is that Michael Thorton has the same problem Adam Jensen would go on to have in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The problem being that players could sneak through an entire mission without ever being detected or raising alarms, yet still walk into the wide open rooms and expose themselves for no reason in a cutscene. It's one of those times where it almost feels like the player character is trolling the player. There is a way to set up this scene so that Thorton looks a bit more competent.
On the other hand, that room is the exact same room where Steven Heck can blow away all of your enemies with a machine gun mounted to a subway train if you buy the intel. This is again why people tend to like Steven Heck.
And now I can get into why exactly Taipei's plot chaps my hide. (But I will first concede that making it so that Mike hacks the flash drive himself instead of Mina if his Technical Aptitude is high enough is really cool. Do more stuff like that, developers!) We know that someone (supposedly Deng, but that's dumb) is planning to kill Sung at his rally, starting a series of riots that will no doubt claim more than a few innocent lives. This flash drive gives us the proof of the whole plan, but the data self-destructs once it's hacked into and gives us only enough time to save either the proof of the riots or the proof of the assassination. Sung will only believe in the threat that we can prove when we go to meet him, so your choice here could save the lives of thousands, or the life of a very influential person.
I theoretically don't mind this kind of moral choice. "Is it better to save a lot of innocent people or one very influential political figure looking out for them?" is a very interesting and ambiguous decision to make. I highly dislike the way it was framed. Since Omen Deng is apparently trying to get this information out to Sung and his people, why would he and his spies bother encrypting it in such a way that it would self-destruct the moment it is hacked into? What would he gain by destroying the information that proves the very thing he's trying to prevent is going to happen once someone besides his staff accesses it? Seems counter-intuitive to me. And as I mentioned, since the plan is to have the assassination trigger the riots, it's a bit far-fetched to have this proof be structured in such a way as to be able to prove the effect will happen without proving the cause of that effect. I have no idea how one would go about that. Once we actually meet Sung for real, I'll have even more to say on that.
I do want to call attention to the fact that the damage bonus you can on bosses with a completed dossier is only 5%. That's not a huge amount by any stretch and you're collecting dossiers more for background than any practical benefit. This isn't the difference between 20 and 30 damage. It's the difference between 20 and 21 damage and hardly worth worrying about.
Lastly, anaphysik made a reference to Delicious Cinnamon, which is a YouTube LP group you can find here. Also, apparently "Does the Pope shit in the woods?" is just a bad reference.
Aldowyn and anaphysik bring up a very good point here, which is that Michael Thorton has the same problem Adam Jensen would go on to have in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The problem being that players could sneak through an entire mission without ever being detected or raising alarms, yet still walk into the wide open rooms and expose themselves for no reason in a cutscene. It's one of those times where it almost feels like the player character is trolling the player. There is a way to set up this scene so that Thorton looks a bit more competent.
On the other hand, that room is the exact same room where Steven Heck can blow away all of your enemies with a machine gun mounted to a subway train if you buy the intel. This is again why people tend to like Steven Heck.
And now I can get into why exactly Taipei's plot chaps my hide. (But I will first concede that making it so that Mike hacks the flash drive himself instead of Mina if his Technical Aptitude is high enough is really cool. Do more stuff like that, developers!) We know that someone (supposedly Deng, but that's dumb) is planning to kill Sung at his rally, starting a series of riots that will no doubt claim more than a few innocent lives. This flash drive gives us the proof of the whole plan, but the data self-destructs once it's hacked into and gives us only enough time to save either the proof of the riots or the proof of the assassination. Sung will only believe in the threat that we can prove when we go to meet him, so your choice here could save the lives of thousands, or the life of a very influential person.
I theoretically don't mind this kind of moral choice. "Is it better to save a lot of innocent people or one very influential political figure looking out for them?" is a very interesting and ambiguous decision to make. I highly dislike the way it was framed. Since Omen Deng is apparently trying to get this information out to Sung and his people, why would he and his spies bother encrypting it in such a way that it would self-destruct the moment it is hacked into? What would he gain by destroying the information that proves the very thing he's trying to prevent is going to happen once someone besides his staff accesses it? Seems counter-intuitive to me. And as I mentioned, since the plan is to have the assassination trigger the riots, it's a bit far-fetched to have this proof be structured in such a way as to be able to prove the effect will happen without proving the cause of that effect. I have no idea how one would go about that. Once we actually meet Sung for real, I'll have even more to say on that.
I do want to call attention to the fact that the damage bonus you can on bosses with a completed dossier is only 5%. That's not a huge amount by any stretch and you're collecting dossiers more for background than any practical benefit. This isn't the difference between 20 and 30 damage. It's the difference between 20 and 21 damage and hardly worth worrying about.
Lastly, anaphysik made a reference to Delicious Cinnamon, which is a YouTube LP group you can find here. Also, apparently "Does the Pope shit in the woods?" is just a bad reference.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 14: Vampire: The Mike-arade
Sorry about the massive delay in posting this episode. There are quite a few reasons for the delay. Truthfully, Aldowyn finished the initial cut of this chunk of episodes almost 2 weeks ago. We were initially planning to release them last week. However, Aldowyn decided to use the clip montage for the credits that we used for the last set of videos, just with new subtitles. Since I wanted to get them out in time, knowing the Aldowyn would not be around due to Spring Break, I agreed.
However, anaphysik did not. Since he is the one who writes the descriptions and takes the videos off "unlisted" status, this caused some trouble. He tried to get into contact with Aldowyn, except Aldowyn was on break and unable to work on "fixing" the credits. So we spent all week with the episodes uploaded and ready, just unlisted.
In other words, this delay was a result of Aldowyn's laziness, anaphysik's standards?, and my haste to get these episodes out regardless of the quality of the credits all colliding in a way such that no one ended up happy and we all share equally in the blame. We deeply apologize for the delay and hope you guys are still eager to watch more Disclosure Alert. Sorry!
Also worth noting is that the posts for this week have also been in limbo, sitting here on my queue waiting to be posted. I barely remember what I said in any of them.
----------------------------------------
In this episode, we begin the second half of the Taipei hub with a mission that pisses me off in quite a few ways. Oh well, at least Krellen, from the Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines LP, was there to add some new blood to our conversation. (Spoiler Alert: Mike doesn't actually become a vampire.) Also, I should warn you that we basically spoil the entire plot to Taipei in this episode. You have been warned.
Fortunately, for the guys who asked me to stop mocking Aldowyn's play style, this week I FINALLY get to show you I listened. Unfortunately, the fact that we're in the second half of Taipei means that I still have something to bitch about. If it's not one thing, it's another around here.
I... severely dislike this section of the Taipei plot. And I'm going to be extremely transparent and upfront about it. We'll get more into it as this batch of episodes get posted.
But before that, I do like that the Omen Deng conversation does have slight variances to it. It's a decidedly minor detail, but it really does add to the sense that the game is keeping tabs on your every choice and tailoring your experience to those choices. He will comment on both hubs completed (if you did any besides Saudi Arabia) and what armor your wearing. Then again, these small touches are Obsidian's MO. Y'know, I could've sworn being Suave with Deng made him Dislike you slightly, but I guess I was wrong.
I honestly don't like Deng as either a character or a plot device. Aside from obvious similarities (for comparison) to Raidou Kuzunoha from Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (whose outfit, by the way, looks very out of place in a bright white subway system, especially with the Chinese Secret Police symbol emblazoned on it), there's not a whole lot to his personality. He's very bland and uninteresting, and with a monotone voice that proves to be quite irritating. This is all before we get to his role in the plot to Taipei.
So yeah, as it turns out Deng is not the bad guy. When I played through this mission, I honestly did not even know I was supposed to think he's the bad guy. All I heard was that he's someone worth knowing about from Hong Shi and later on I learned that he was raised by Sung in the dossier "donated" to us by the NSB. The thought that the guy who was raised by Sung as a son would come to kill him never even occurred to me, so I was shocked when the conversation with him became a confrontation. (It makes sense for now because Deng has been somehow led to believe Mike is the one trying to kill Sung. This falls apart later, but we'll get to that when we get to it.) As we go on in the season, you'll see a theme where I confess that I didn't really understand what was going on until my second or third playthrough. I spent most of my first playthrough of the game confused. I want to blame Obsidian, but then I know that back when I first played this game I was a lot dumber than I am now, so it could very well be my fault.
Since these CSP agents are here with Deng and join him during the confrontation where he's trying to save Sung, I have to assume that these guys are also undercover, just like he is. Otherwise, this plot would make even less sense than it does already. Then again, if that's true then why is Omen Deng special. After all, how would Deng have accumulated so many double agents? Did he just hire them all once his cover was secured? Did they kill their families as well? In either case, how does China NOT KNOW that these guys are all secretly working against them. Since Deng can apparently be easily fooled in believing patently false information, I have to call his skills as an intelligence agent into question as well. (The same can be said of Thorton himself.) Why am I asking so many inherently pointless questions? Ugh. Taipei, that's why.
Until we leave Taipei, it's all downhill from here.
However, anaphysik did not. Since he is the one who writes the descriptions and takes the videos off "unlisted" status, this caused some trouble. He tried to get into contact with Aldowyn, except Aldowyn was on break and unable to work on "fixing" the credits. So we spent all week with the episodes uploaded and ready, just unlisted.
In other words, this delay was a result of Aldowyn's laziness, anaphysik's standards?, and my haste to get these episodes out regardless of the quality of the credits all colliding in a way such that no one ended up happy and we all share equally in the blame. We deeply apologize for the delay and hope you guys are still eager to watch more Disclosure Alert. Sorry!
Also worth noting is that the posts for this week have also been in limbo, sitting here on my queue waiting to be posted. I barely remember what I said in any of them.
----------------------------------------
In this episode, we begin the second half of the Taipei hub with a mission that pisses me off in quite a few ways. Oh well, at least Krellen, from the Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines LP, was there to add some new blood to our conversation. (Spoiler Alert: Mike doesn't actually become a vampire.) Also, I should warn you that we basically spoil the entire plot to Taipei in this episode. You have been warned.
Fortunately, for the guys who asked me to stop mocking Aldowyn's play style, this week I FINALLY get to show you I listened. Unfortunately, the fact that we're in the second half of Taipei means that I still have something to bitch about. If it's not one thing, it's another around here.
I... severely dislike this section of the Taipei plot. And I'm going to be extremely transparent and upfront about it. We'll get more into it as this batch of episodes get posted.
But before that, I do like that the Omen Deng conversation does have slight variances to it. It's a decidedly minor detail, but it really does add to the sense that the game is keeping tabs on your every choice and tailoring your experience to those choices. He will comment on both hubs completed (if you did any besides Saudi Arabia) and what armor your wearing. Then again, these small touches are Obsidian's MO. Y'know, I could've sworn being Suave with Deng made him Dislike you slightly, but I guess I was wrong.
I honestly don't like Deng as either a character or a plot device. Aside from obvious similarities (for comparison) to Raidou Kuzunoha from Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (whose outfit, by the way, looks very out of place in a bright white subway system, especially with the Chinese Secret Police symbol emblazoned on it), there's not a whole lot to his personality. He's very bland and uninteresting, and with a monotone voice that proves to be quite irritating. This is all before we get to his role in the plot to Taipei.
So yeah, as it turns out Deng is not the bad guy. When I played through this mission, I honestly did not even know I was supposed to think he's the bad guy. All I heard was that he's someone worth knowing about from Hong Shi and later on I learned that he was raised by Sung in the dossier "donated" to us by the NSB. The thought that the guy who was raised by Sung as a son would come to kill him never even occurred to me, so I was shocked when the conversation with him became a confrontation. (It makes sense for now because Deng has been somehow led to believe Mike is the one trying to kill Sung. This falls apart later, but we'll get to that when we get to it.) As we go on in the season, you'll see a theme where I confess that I didn't really understand what was going on until my second or third playthrough. I spent most of my first playthrough of the game confused. I want to blame Obsidian, but then I know that back when I first played this game I was a lot dumber than I am now, so it could very well be my fault.
Since these CSP agents are here with Deng and join him during the confrontation where he's trying to save Sung, I have to assume that these guys are also undercover, just like he is. Otherwise, this plot would make even less sense than it does already. Then again, if that's true then why is Omen Deng special. After all, how would Deng have accumulated so many double agents? Did he just hire them all once his cover was secured? Did they kill their families as well? In either case, how does China NOT KNOW that these guys are all secretly working against them. Since Deng can apparently be easily fooled in believing patently false information, I have to call his skills as an intelligence agent into question as well. (The same can be said of Thorton himself.) Why am I asking so many inherently pointless questions? Ugh. Taipei, that's why.
Until we leave Taipei, it's all downhill from here.
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