This is Alpha Protocol at it's best, a vast interconnected web of relationships and events. A spy RPG is doing well when I only realise that I could have trusted that person as they lie dead on the floor beside me. And I could have saved them, the fate of almost every NPC will pass through your hands at some point in this game and the choices will have very real consequences, both in short term relationships, money, weapons, plot, which enemies show up on which levels. There are no wrong decisions, just the decision you chose with the consequences that came with it. You get perks for stealth kills and violent kills
Previously in RP Gs, the player would read a possible dialogue, interpret it for its mood and judge how the NPC would respond. Recently RP Gs like Mass Effect just removed the full dialogue leaving people to red/blue conversations. AP gives you broad moods instead and asks you which best suits your purpose. There's a timer so conversation feel panicked.
The gunplay/stealth isn't bad, although it's RPG focused with aim circles and abilities that help a lot, but you always want more conversations and less combat (get pistols). When the levels mix it up as best. There are bugs but talk was overstated, but nothing that really spoils the enjoyment.
It's not perfect, not polished, but there is real gold if you're willing to dig
This needs to be a cult classic
A man meets me in the café, he's not the person who I was told I was going to meet up with, but I expected things might turn out like this. He's a rival and an adversary, but we share a degree of mutual respect, a clean cut practical man, he's trying to get the size of me and potentially dissuade me before we meet in a more hostile environment, maybe he can recruit me, eventually that option will get given to me. We talk, he begins to cut me down, analyse me from the inside out psychologically, and I mean me not the PC, I've been careful, professional, keeping casualties to a minimum, silent in Rome, did a good job in Thailand, motivated by duty etc. And then I do the same to him, I've been paying for intel, digging it up on computers and talking to people and know I pay him back like for like, exposing every flaw, every insecurity. I plant the seed of doubt in his mind, he likes me, maybe his superiors don't have his best interests in mind. Maybe when the time comes he'll hesitate on that order.
This is Alpha Protocol at it's best, a vast interconnected web of relationships and events. A spy RPG is doing well when I only realise that I could have trusted that person as they lie dead on the floor beside me. And I could have saved them, the fate of almost every NPC will pass through your hands at some point in this game and the choices will have very real consequences, both in short term relationships, money, weapons, plot, which enemies show up on which levels. There are no wrong decisions, just the decision you chose with the consequences that came with it. You get perks for stealth kills and violent kills
Previously in RP Gs, the player would read a possible dialogue, interpret it for its mood and judge how the NPC would respond. Recently RP Gs like Mass Effect just removed the full dialogue leaving people to red/blue conversations. AP gives you broad moods instead and asks you which best suits your purpose. There's a timer so conversation feel panicked.
The gunplay/stealth isn't bad, although it's RPG focused with aim circles and abilities that help a lot, but you always want more conversations and less combat (get pistols). When the levels mix it up as best. There are bugs but talk was overstated, but nothing that really spoils the enjoyment.
It's not perfect, not polished, but there is real gold if you're willing to dig