Mass Affection (Mass Effect Series)

[State Lemming]

I keep seeing AP for £5 in the pre-owned sections. I'm tempted, but I know I'll be disappointed...and I'm the guy who keeps saying, "Give Obsidian a chance! They just have the worst luck, okay?!"

So it's your fault!

Obsidian gets chances, they get a lot of chances. Sometimes a I see some old Black Isle charm but for the most part their games are just underwhelming for me.

[Edd Strid]

Alpha Protocol is bar none, the best game I've played as far as how your choices influence the story.

The action side of it sucks but you almost don't need action in a game as cerebral as AP is. It's the only one I've seen where reading background dossiers can influence how you play. You can do stuff like poison someone's cocaine before entering his mansion, which prevents him from powering up during the boss fight.

It has I don't know how many different endings. I owned it, completed it several times, and still didn't see them all. One of them ended with the last boss shooting at me from a balcony. I beat him once with the typical videogamey tactic of shooting him and his men from behind cover. The second time, I realized I could stealth my way up the stairs and come up behind him, at which point I beat him without firing a shot. Just walked right up, unlocked the door, and kicked his ass. That's two ways to beat one of the potential bosses, mind you...

Your allies and enemies change based on how you play it. Imagine having The Illusive Man and Kai Leng as your squadmates while you move to take down the Alliance. Alpha Protocol actually does shit like this.

I really should buy another copy. It was like, ten bucks last I checked. Once a game goes that low, you might as well buy it while you can. After that, no one wants to bother with it because it's nearly worthless, in terms of trade-in value. But then again I'm probably the only Dtoider who still goes to the local stores, so lol.

Ordered AP for a few quid today on your recommendation, new copy too from Amazon, can't argue as it's cost me less than the amount of a couple of pints.

[Stevil]

So it's your fault!

Obsidian gets chances, they get a lot of chances. Sometimes a I see some old Black Isle charm but for the most part their games are just underwhelming for me.

KOTOR 2 and Fallout: New Vegas are excellent games. Nothing more to add.

[GlowBear]

Concur.

[Jon Bloodspray]

KOTOR 2

Excellent?

That's a bold statement.

Just better than ok seems to fit a little better.

[State Lemming]

KOTOR 2 and Fallout: New Vegas are excellent games. Nothing more to add.

Nothing more to add

Look I like both those games but Obsidian is always a mixed bag.

And the glitches, oh god the glitches.

[Stevil]

Excellent?

That's a bold statement.

Just better than ok seems to fit a little better.

Condisering how LucasArts fucked them over, I'm amazed they got a game out at all.

Obviously, it's not on par with the first, but I like the story, and it isn't built around a shocking twist, so there's more going on under the hood. Aside from the look, it's about as un-Star Wars as you can get. It's about ripples of consequence, and fixing your mistakes - a pretty heavy going game compared to BioWare's winning "special guy on a quest to find a McGuffin to stop a horde of (insert baddie name here)".

It's just a shame we never got to see the proper ending, but I think the Restoration mod salvages a good chunk of what could've been, and while we'll never see HK's robo planet, I'm happy with getting a better cut of an underrated game.

Nothing more to add

Look I like both those games but Obsidian is always a mixed bag.

And the glitches, oh god the glitches.

Glitches can be fixed. Gamebryo is a notoriously glitchy engine for open world scenarios, and it's not really Obsidian's fault when Bethesda hands them a crappy engine to make a follow up. You do what you can with the tools you're given. Anyway, I found it less buggy than Fallout 3. It had moments of frustration when it came to broken quests, but Fallout 3 was consistently a mess with the graphics.

I think Obsidian are brilliant when it comes to the writing, whatever the game.

[Mighty Hatman]

I found New Vegas pretty terrible for crashes. The writing for the DLC is brilliant though.

[Sir Legendhead]

KOTOR 2 and Fallout: New Vegas are excellent games. Nothing more to add.

I agree with you on New Vegas, but you're the first person I've seen say anything good about KOTOR 2. I don't have an opinion on it myself. I played maybe the first twenty minutes, that was about it.

[Stevil]

I can see why people have some bones to pick about that one. It's an unfinished game sold as a cash-in.

I wouldn't be suprised if Alpha Protocol had the exact same fate considering how Sega got cold feet about long projects. They also cancelled the Aliens RPG by them (which I'm okay with, but aside from some odd/bad design choices, it had legs as a Mass Effect clone).

[State Lemming]

I found New Vegas pretty terrible for crashes. The writing for the DLC is brilliant though.

The crashes have never truly been fixed either, I personally get this problem where the loading screen never actually ends.

I am kind of surprised that the DLC writing (at least for Old World Blues) was so great when the main game is so underwhelming.

At least for me Obsidian's problem has always been they are so selective about which parts of their games get actual writing and which parts get boring fetch quests. Sure Caesar's Legion is interesting to learn about and the Caesar himself is a very interesting, three dimensional character, but then you get the NCR, a group consisting almost exclusively of no nonsense soldier types that are ever so willing to tell you about how patrolling the Mojave makes them feel.

Some of the quests are complete garbage too, like the Brotherhood quests where you just fast travel to wherever the Brotherhood left some scout corpses for you to investigate.

[Stevil]

I'll agree that the Brotherhood parts are the weakest moments in the game. I know it's more of a connection to the Fallout universe in general, but much of the game has absolutely nothing to do with them. It doesn't help that Veronica is so out of place.

As for the NCR, that's really selling them short. The whole idea is that they're trying restart our present day politics, including all the red tape, in a post-apocalyptic world. They're underpowered, struggling and have a fighting force that is the complete opposite of the Legion - Empire vs Democracy in a world built around survival. Their hearts were in the right place, but their timing was lousy. That's why I chose independence.

As for the minor quests, they made sense because you were a hired gun that had a reputation. In Fallout 3, people someone figure out you're from The Vault and lump all their problems on you for no reason at all.

[Sir Legendhead]

I went with Yes Man first time around just because he seemed like such a fun guy. Plus being voiced by Dave Foley made me like him even more. Ultimately I think House is the best choice though. It's his city and he knows it better than anyone else.

Also, lol at this turning into a New Vegas thread.

[Stevil]

This is now the "Stevil fights for Obsidian's right to party!" thread. Heeeey, did I ever tell you guys about the time some of them made Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines?

Yeah, that went well, too.

[State Lemming]

I thought I should say something volatile about Mass Effect to get the thread back on track, but then someone mentioned VTMB so this is still Black Isle and Black Isle accesories thread.

I don't have an issue with the presence of NCR, I thought their goal was in line with what happens in Fallout 2, with the NCR trying to expand their Lawful goodness wherever they could. I'm just saying the individual characters within the NCR were all flat, with the exception of maybe Hanlon, but he is really in his own little WTF sidequest world. I tried an NCR plotline once and was completely disengaged when all I got was some more no nonsense higher ups telling me to do the same thing House and Caesar would've told me to do, but without explanation. I think my favorite was when I went to report after recruiting the Khans, and my next quest was: Kill House. That's it, kill him for us. The request was so insanely casual it took me right out of the game. It was literally just another thing on the NCR checklist.

Also I think you are swimming in dangerous waters if you are trying to make Fallout quest giving make sense.

[GlowBear]

Did anyone actually genuinely agree with Caesar and the gang? And like being on their side?

[State Lemming]

Interesting theory, but his execution of it was garbage. I don't think you are suppose to agree with him, but he does have good critiques of the NCR.

But yeah, NCR taxes or slavery? Hmmmmm....hard choice.

[Sir Legendhead]

Did anyone actually genuinely agree with Caesar and the gang? And like being on their side?

I did their quest line just to be a completionist. Their way of thinking almost made sense in a necessary evil, Darwinist manner of speaking, but overall they seemed like crazed fundamentalists.

[GlowBear]

I haven't done a second playthrough so there's lots of ways I tried to go in my first. I think I tried to appease all sides, but I then destroyed the Legion. I would probably do their quests all the way through to be a completionist as well, but they were really damn evil, actually felt uncomfortable doing anything but wiping them out.

[Sir Legendhead]

It's not possible to appease all sides in New Vegas. You get to a point after a while where helping one alienates the others.

I completed it like, half a dozen times for that and other reasons. Even plotted a safe path from Doc's house to the city itself. If you travel along the side of Black Mountain, you can go straight to the main part of the game within about twenty minutes.