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Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house

mcvey posted:

I just picked up Alpha Protocol($2 on Steam? Yes please) and I was wondering if there was anything I should know or avoid. Going for the stealthy suave agent kind of playthrough.

On your first playthrough, do yourself a huge favour and just roll with the game. Don't constantly reload if things don't go your way, just take it in your stride and watch the consequences unfold.

Also a combat skill is pretty neccessary as despite your best efforts you will be forced into a boss fight every now and then. As mentioned, pistols and stealth are easy mode, especially with chain shot.

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Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


Ok, I got a bit of an out there one. Hopefully one of the flight sim goons can help.

Red Baron 1 or 3D, doesn't matter.

mcvey
Aug 31, 2006

go caps haha

*Washington Capitals #1 Fan On DeviantArt*

Ddraig posted:

On your first playthrough, do yourself a huge favour and just roll with the game. Don't constantly reload if things don't go your way, just take it in your stride and watch the consequences unfold.

How badly am I penalized if I don't complete missions stealthily or without minimal casualties? I'm going through one of the first missions and every time I set off an alarm I usually just reload to the previous checkpoint :geno:

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house

mcvey posted:

How badly am I penalized if I don't complete missions stealthily or without minimal casualties? I'm going through one of the first missions and every time I set off an alarm I usually just reload to the previous checkpoint :geno:

Not hugely. Alpha Protocol doesn't really have a consequence system in the typical manner. Pretty much every eventuality is covered, so if you gently caress up a mission and have to kill everyone there, you will be held accountable to someone, but it won't end your game or have a negative effect that makes the game impossible to complete.

Random Hajile
Aug 25, 2003

Ddraig posted:

Not hugely. Alpha Protocol doesn't really have a consequence system in the typical manner. Pretty much every eventuality is covered, so if you gently caress up a mission and have to kill everyone there, you will be held accountable to someone, but it won't end your game or have a negative effect that makes the game impossible to complete.

To add to this, pretty much everything is rewarded. Piss off your handlers, and you just get different perks than if they really like you. Take an absurd amount of damage, and you'll eventually get extra damage resistance. Even murdering civilians can sometimes get you a bonus.

Don't worry about it and just play through it however you feel like.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


mcvey posted:

I just picked up Alpha Protocol($2 on Steam? Yes please) and I was wondering if there was anything I should know or avoid. Going for the stealthy suave agent kind of playthrough.

As others have said, the game rewards you no matter how you play it; there's no need to game your responses in an attempt to get an "optimal" outcome. Just play however you want.

There's no reason to play on Hard difficulty. The Recruit character class is harder than normal (with some unique dialogue branches), and completing the game as a Recruit unlocks Veteran, which is the easymode character class and is great for powering through the game to see alternate story branches.

Also, this:

mcvey posted:

How badly am I penalized if I don't complete missions stealthily or without minimal casualties? I'm going through one of the first missions and every time I set off an alarm I usually just reload to the previous checkpoint :geno:
will probably suck all of the fun out of the game. If you really want to ghost the game, try that on Veteran where you can start out with the ability to see through walls and turn invisible at will.

Also, the Alpha Protocol thread has some INI tweaks in the OP that may help performance.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



mcvey posted:

How badly am I penalized if I don't complete missions stealthily or without minimal casualties? I'm going through one of the first missions and every time I set off an alarm I usually just reload to the previous checkpoint :geno:

A few people might berate you but unlike every other RPGs having a negative influence with a character is not a bad thing. Sometimes being hated is more "optimal" than being loved.

Killing US government agents does change the outcome of the ending but not in a negative way. There are at least a dozen ending variations but this game is like 12 hours long on the first play and encourages multiple runs.

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

mcvey posted:

How badly am I penalized if I don't complete missions stealthily or without minimal casualties? I'm going through one of the first missions and every time I set off an alarm I usually just reload to the previous checkpoint :geno:

It's not Splinter Cell. Don't sweat it. There are only a couple of levels in the game where it is possible to completely ghost. There might be some people (civilian police, US government agents) who you might or might not prefer to kill depending on your mood, but that's what pistol tranq rounds and punches are for.

a kitten
Aug 5, 2006

I really liked Viewtiful Joe when I had it on my Gamecube, I was terrible at it, but I still had a blast playing. I never got around to finishing it though.

I don't have any nintendo systems any more, but I do have a perfectly good PS2 so I was just wondering if the game played and looked as good on it as it did on the gamecube. It's super cheap used, but if it is a terrible port I don't even want to bother.

Chinaman7000
Nov 28, 2003

The best advice I got for Alpha Protocol is to actually choose your reaction to each line of dialogue instead of just playing all suave or all aggressive. Don't let those Bioware instincts make you play boringly.

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house
I'm pretty sure there's a reward for not picking a single dialog option over and over again. There's also one for doing exactly that.

AP loves giving you stuff.

Goofballs
Jun 2, 2011



Anyone have any advice for Dead Island? I've only been playing for a little bit (about an hour) and it seems really cool. I took the blunt weapons guy. What are good things to get in the level up screen and should I really try to play online like in Borderlands or would that just murder the atmosphere?

Burning Mustache
Sep 4, 2006

Zaeed got stories.
Kasumi got loot.
All I got was a hole in my suit.

Goofballs posted:

Anyone have any advice for Dead Island? I've only been playing for a little bit (about an hour) and it seems really cool. I took the blunt weapons guy. What are good things to get in the level up screen and should I really try to play online like in Borderlands or would that just murder the atmosphere?

The problem with online play is that there is absolutely no difference in terms of zombie spawns or their health or anything like that compared to singleplayer, so it becomes ridiculously easy with four people. Playing it with friends is good fun, but it seems to end up with people just dicking about because the entire zombie killing business is trivially easy.
If you're enjoying the game and the atmosphere so far, I'd say go for a singleplayer run first.
In terms of skill trees, make sure to get the skill that allows you to do head stomps on downed zombies as soon as possible, it's easily the most important skill in the entire game.
The survival skill tree should be avoided until you have most (if not all) of the combat skills you want to have because most of the abilities there aren't really that useful and the points are better invested in other skills (I've only played as Logan so far but I think this applies to all characters).

Guns are fairly useless against common zombies but your best choice against human enemies. Also, most human enemies carry guns and ammo so you're pretty much meant to fight those with guns. For anything else, use melee weapons.

Thugs can be a bit tough to take on initially, don't be afraid of using molotovs / grenades against them (which pretty much instantly kill them), you'll eventually find plenty of those anyway.

SpazmasterX
Jul 13, 2006

Wrong about everything XIV related
~fartz~

Goofballs posted:

Anyone have any advice for Dead Island? I've only been playing for a little bit (about an hour) and it seems really cool. I took the blunt weapons guy. What are good things to get in the level up screen and should I really try to play online like in Borderlands or would that just murder the atmosphere?

-The survival skill tree is pretty useless.
-Your weapon specialty tree gives you a special move (usually an insta-kill on downed zombies) at the expert and mastery levels
-Your best weapons will almost entirely be found in stores or as quest rewards.
-Explore a little. If you see a white skull on your mini-map, it usually means that it's a zombie attacking survivors who will reward you for saving them.
-When you start getting guns, keep a pistol and another gun of your choice handy, sell everything else. Rifles sell for quite a bit.
-If you want to cheat, you can dupe melee weapons by throwing them and holding the drop button immediately afterward. Sell for a profit, or keep a bunch of your best weapon.
-Online matchmaking limits you to players near you in the story so as not to ruin the (admittedly crappy) story. Joining someone that isn't near you keeps you from getting main quest progress (unless they catch up to you), but you get xp, items, and sidequest credit.

Goofballs
Jun 2, 2011



Thanks. I've already put a point into survival because I figured lockpicking might come in handy but that's no big deal. I thought it was only an hour or so but steam tells me I have played two. I also have a few minutes of online play under my belt. We drove around in a car for a while and the guy driving crashed so they booted me for some reason. Oh well.

I haven't found any grenades yet. Currently I mostly use two hammers and a machete which have really brutal effects on zombies. I have a mod to make a nail spike baseball bat I haven't used that.

I'm not sure if its possible or not but can I miss things? Other than by just not taking the quest at all.

Gharbad the Weak
Feb 23, 2008

This too good for you.
For Alpha Protocol, if you're going stealth/pistol, then pistol should probably be your highest leveled skill. Chain shot is mandatory for boss fights if you're stealthy.

SpazmasterX
Jul 13, 2006

Wrong about everything XIV related
~fartz~

Goofballs posted:

Thanks. I've already put a point into survival because I figured lockpicking might come in handy but that's no big deal. I thought it was only an hour or so but steam tells me I have played two. I also have a few minutes of online play under my belt. We drove around in a car for a while and the guy driving crashed so they booted me for some reason. Oh well.

I haven't found any grenades yet. Currently I mostly use two hammers and a machete which have really brutal effects on zombies. I have a mod to make a nail spike baseball bat I haven't used that.

I'm not sure if its possible or not but can I miss things? Other than by just not taking the quest at all.

Pretty much the only way to miss something is to not do/find it before you go past the point of no return (which you are warned of).

Asilack
Apr 23, 2008

Just bought a bunch of games from GoG, picked up both Icewind Dales, and both Baldur's Gate games. Anyone have any advice for em?

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house

Asilack posted:

Just bought a bunch of games from GoG, picked up both Icewind Dales, and both Baldur's Gate games. Anyone have any advice for em?

Icewind Dale is pretty much just a dungeon crawler in the infinity engine. There is a plot, but it's not very character driven compared to something like Baldur's Gate. From what I can remember you can create your entire party from scratch, whereas in Baldur's Gate there's NPC characters that you're encouraged to take (although you can make a custom party too)

All three games use AD&D 2nd edition rules, which are very different from current rules. Two stats you should learn to love are AC and THAC0

AC is your armour class. The lower the number the better.

THAC0 is "To hit armour class 0" which is basically the number a character would have to roll to hit someone with an AC of 0. If it's 5, if the person your attacking has an AC of 0 then you would need to roll a 5 or higher to hit them. The basic calculation is "THAC0 - AC" so if someone has a THAC0 of 18 and the person they're attacking has an AC of 5, they would only need to roll a 13 to be able to hit them.

This can be rather broken at times, especially when you get an AC in minus numbers. I'm pretty sure in Baldur's Gate 2 it's possible to get an AC of over -20 which means unless someone rolls a natural 20 or they have a magic weapon they will never be able to hit you.

That said, Baldur's Gate is rather more forgiving than IWD. You can create pretty mcuh any character in Baldur's Gate and you'll usually be able to find a group of party memebers that can contribute to your group and gloss over any weaknesses you have. IWD doesn't really have that.

Although for some reason I love the BG1 engine (I think it's because it's the first real PC RPG I played), a lot of people dislike it and consider the BG2 version to be vastly superior. Thankfully you can install something like BG1TuTu that will convert BG1 to use BG2's engine. As a caveat, Baldur's Gate 1 was never meant to have some of the features that BG2 has, so the game will become considerably easier if you decide to go the TuTu route. My recommendation would be to play the vanilla games first, then make any modifications you want after you've beaten them at least once.

Goofballs
Jun 2, 2011



Asilack posted:

Just bought a bunch of games from GoG, picked up both Icewind Dales, and both Baldur's Gate games. Anyone have any advice for em?

Oh boy, that's a lot of gameplay. You are probably best off playing through bg 1 and then 2 before moving to the icewind dale games. Seriously bg1 might well be 60-70 hours and I envy you because you get to play them for the first time.

Anyway, mages start off weak then become super powerful and poo poo on everything. At low levels they are support characters. So if you have a mage in your party at the low levels they want to be casting spells like sleep. This might knock down half the enemy force and make life really simple for you even if it does no direct damage. mage direct damage spells are kind of pointless at the low levels.

At low levels spells you should consider are sleep, shield, mage armour, horror and mirror image

Fighters rule at low levels. They are harder to hit, have more hitpoints and hit really hard. They continue to be useful through the games but more as impeneterable meat shields towards the end.

Mages want high intelligence and high dexterity. Fighters need high strength and high constitution.

Your rogue or thief classes will want high dexterity not only for their thief skills but so they can be useful in combat with bows.

Read up on the magic system, seriously. Knowing what the right spell to cast is the difference between the party getting wiped out and the party killing everything before it.

In bg1 explore a lot. The developers pretty much expect you to have side adventures to level up in because if you only follow the main plot you will be kind of under leveled. You have less freedom in the icewind dale games.

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house
It's also possible to import your baldur's gate 1 characters into baldur's gate 2. This is recommended.

Also, if you go this route: Hold onto the pantaloons. Trust me on this.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



There's no Company of Heroes on the Wiki and these krauts are kicking my rear end! I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing in Red Ball Express because no matter how aggressive/defensive I play these guys steamroll every capture point. Then after 10 minutes you have panzers rolling on your rear end so I set up a nice defense but whoops three howitzers are just outside my base range and wrecking house.

War is hell.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

What's the point of the faction wars in STALKER: Clear Sky and is there anything I should know coming from Shadow of Chernobyl?

The swamp zone was just conquered by my faction, but I didn't really do much except follow my team and loot corpses. Now the map is pretty much clear except for a couple bases of renegades on the edges of the map. My faction won't push any farther, so I'm stuck trying to take the last bases on my own, but the respawning waves make it pretty difficult.

I'm playing on veteran difficulty with the complete mod.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

Asilack posted:

Just bought a bunch of games from GoG, picked up both Icewind Dales, and both Baldur's Gate games. Anyone have any advice for em?

If you are starting at Baldur's Gate 1, make sure you use your consumables. Wands and potions can make a big difference at the start of the game.

Also, save often. Until you get to level 5 or so, your characters have so little health that you can die from one unlucky critical hit.

Holding down tab (or maybe alt, it's been a while) will highlight all containers on the screen. There are some hidden containers in the wilderness that can give you some pretty nice loot.

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

Fruits of the sea posted:

What's the point of the faction wars in STALKER: Clear Sky and is there anything I should know coming from Shadow of Chernobyl?

The swamp zone was just conquered by my faction, but I didn't really do much except follow my team and loot corpses. Now the map is pretty much clear except for a couple bases of renegades on the edges of the map. My faction won't push any farther, so I'm stuck trying to take the last bases on my own, but the respawning waves make it pretty difficult.

I'm playing on veteran difficulty with the complete mod.

Without modding, faction wars are broken and your allies will never take the last few points you need to take to entirely own their potential territory. Either get a mod (Complete is not enough, you want Faction Commander or there are one or two others that fix it) or just don't sweat it. You don't need to do faction wars to progress in the story, it's just a thing that's there if you want to.

Goofballs
Jun 2, 2011



Fruits of the sea posted:

What's the point of the faction wars in STALKER: Clear Sky and is there anything I should know coming from Shadow of Chernobyl?

The swamp zone was just conquered by my faction, but I didn't really do much except follow my team and loot corpses. Now the map is pretty much clear except for a couple bases of renegades on the edges of the map. My faction won't push any farther, so I'm stuck trying to take the last bases on my own, but the respawning waves make it pretty difficult.

I'm playing on veteran difficulty with the complete mod.


I think the bases at the edges never get completley cleared. Anyway you can totally ignore faction wars if you want. Its just supposed to be more stuff to do and I guess the rewards can be kind of cool but the downsides can be punishing too. Like really don't join freedom or duty or you will get shoved into so many fights at random times it will just hurt.

Anyway just make sure to upgrade your stuff and Clear Sky is by far the hardest STALKER game so don't get disheartened. SOC was challening but my first time through CS I rage quit and uninstalled the game and it was like a year later before I got around to it again.

Oh and bandages are way more important than they were in SOC. You will bleed out so fast without one. Unless they changed that in complete.

Oh and there is a point or two where you can totally get robbed. When it happens load up your auto save dump your poo poo on the ground let the even take place and then go pick up your stuff back up.

ClearAirTurbulence
Apr 20, 2010
The earth has music for those who listen.
I just bought Alpha Protocol the other night, and tonight I finally made it past that infuriating tutorial mission so the game is starting to look like it might be worth the $2 I paid for it. I do have a concern, though - will I ever be forced to do the minigames again or can I just use EMP devices on control panels and computers? It took me forever to be able to hack that computer in the tutorial, no matter how high I move my mouse sensitivity it doesn't seem to effect it in the minigames. The hacking is worst, as the mouse moves the password around so slowly and inaccurately, but the slow laggy mouse also contributes to the annoyance of the control panel game and the lockpicking (should you have to move the mouse THAT far to move a pin?)

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house

ClearAirTurbulence posted:

I just bought Alpha Protocol the other night, and tonight I finally made it past that infuriating tutorial mission so the game is starting to look like it might be worth the $2 I paid for it. I do have a concern, though - will I ever be forced to do the minigames again or can I just use EMP devices on control panels and computers? It took me forever to be able to hack that computer in the tutorial, no matter how high I move my mouse sensitivity it doesn't seem to effect it in the minigames. The hacking is worst, as the mouse moves the password around so slowly and inaccurately, but the slow laggy mouse also contributes to the annoyance of the control panel game and the lockpicking (should you have to move the mouse THAT far to move a pin?)

With AP: invest in a 360 controller. Seriously, the mouse and keyboard controls kind of suck and the minigames, in particular, become a 100x more tolerable with the analog sticks.

Provided you have the ability, you can EMP all electronics to bypass them in the game. You're never really forced to hack stuff, unless you run out of grenades of course.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



Fruits of the sea posted:

What's the point of the faction wars in STALKER: Clear Sky and is there anything I should know coming from Shadow of Chernobyl?

The swamp zone was just conquered by my faction, but I didn't really do much except follow my team and loot corpses. Now the map is pretty much clear except for a couple bases of renegades on the edges of the map. My faction won't push any farther, so I'm stuck trying to take the last bases on my own, but the respawning waves make it pretty difficult.

I'm playing on veteran difficulty with the complete mod.

Faction wars are there to collect loot. Unless you mod it you'll never clear out a location in any area. Everyone will respawn at their respective headquarters about an hour after clearing it (bandits have the hangar, Duty has Agroprom, etc.).

There's a point-of-no-return in Clear Sky. After attacking a bridge with Clear Sky there'll be a tunnel leading to Pripyat. Don't go into the tunnel until you're ready to end the game because from there it's a long gauntlet against elite soldiers until the end.

al-azad fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Sep 29, 2011

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

quote:

Clear Sky

Also - you can mod AI grenade accuracy down a little bit if it gets too bad. It can get a little frustrating when the AI starts barraging you with freakishly accurate grenade throws.

Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

Asilack posted:

Just bought a bunch of games from GoG, picked up both Icewind Dales, and both Baldur's Gate games. Anyone have any advice for em?

You're going to want a couple of mods for the Baldur's Gate games, mostly fixpacks. All of these are on gibberlings3.net. Basically, here's what's recommended on all installs:

The BG1 and BG2 fixpacks, these are all bugfixes and corrections, there's not really anything that will significantly change your gameplay experience if you're worried about that.

BGTuTu, which will let you play Baldur's Gate 1 in the infinitely better Baldur's Gate 2 engine. Trust me, you want to do this, BG1's engine is crazy clunky and it's got a lot of really annoying problems that BG2's fixes.

BG2 widescreen mod: Unless you really want to play at 600x800, you want this

I'd skip the content mods for a first playthough, they're really flipping good games without them. I'm not sure if the versions on GoG come prepatched, but if they don't, you'll need to track down the last official patch for Throne of Bhaal before any of these work. I'm also not sure about the install order for the actual mods, but I think it's like:

Install BG1
Install BG2 and Throne of Bhaal
Patch the games if you have to
Fixpacks?
Widescreen?
TuTu?

If you've got any specific questions, go here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3136028. We're real newbie friendly in there

Dr Snofeld
Apr 30, 2009

ClearAirTurbulence posted:

I just bought Alpha Protocol the other night, and tonight I finally made it past that infuriating tutorial mission so the game is starting to look like it might be worth the $2 I paid for it. I do have a concern, though - will I ever be forced to do the minigames again or can I just use EMP devices on control panels and computers? It took me forever to be able to hack that computer in the tutorial, no matter how high I move my mouse sensitivity it doesn't seem to effect it in the minigames. The hacking is worst, as the mouse moves the password around so slowly and inaccurately, but the slow laggy mouse also contributes to the annoyance of the control panel game and the lockpicking (should you have to move the mouse THAT far to move a pin?)

In the hacking minigame the mouse-controlled code segment isn't following the cursor, it just moves a bit for every certain amount you move the mouse. You may want to use a controller for this game if you like.

Luisfe
Aug 17, 2005

Hee-lo-ho!
Anything I should know to make things easier for Dawn of War 1? It's not on the Wiki. Also, I am going to assume that basic tips for it would work for DoW2, which I will eventually get, and Company of Heroes, which I already have and will try eventually.

A Fancy 400 lbs
Jul 24, 2008
DoW 1 and 2 are completely different games. DoW 1 is a traditional Starcraft/C&C/AoE style RTS with base building and large armies of generic units. DoW 2 is small scale tactics based based combat with unique units, and no base building.

scamtank
Feb 24, 2011

my desire to just be a FUCKING IDIOT all day long is rapidly overtaking my ability to FUNCTION

i suspect that means i'm MENTALLY ILL


Luisfe posted:

Anything I should know to make things easier for Dawn of War 1?
The game mechanics vary a bunch between the games and the expansions. What I say applies mostly to Dark Crusade.

- Always keep up the forward pressure. Having to fall back from a point isn't a shameful thing, but turtling inside your base just gets you killed most of the time.

- Rapid-fire bolters kill infantry. Plasma kills heavy infantry. Flamethrowers kill morale. Rockets kill vehicles and almost nothing else. Commanders fight one another. Space Marine commanders fight Daemons.

- You can't shoot in melee, take advantage of it. Disrupt enemy shooters with melee units and let your own ranged units sweep them up. Sacrificing a spare squad of Guardsmen to plug enemy barrels with their bayonets could tip the balance in your favor against something like Flash Gitz or Fire Dragons.

- Use cover. Besides just blocking damage, it speeds up morale regeneration.

- When your squad breaks, its damage output is almost nullified. Use the retreat button.

- Space Marines have two detector units: The Librarian and the skull drones. The AI rarely uses neither.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


ClearAirTurbulence posted:

I just bought Alpha Protocol the other night, and tonight I finally made it past that infuriating tutorial mission so the game is starting to look like it might be worth the $2 I paid for it. I do have a concern, though - will I ever be forced to do the minigames again or can I just use EMP devices on control panels and computers? It took me forever to be able to hack that computer in the tutorial, no matter how high I move my mouse sensitivity it doesn't seem to effect it in the minigames. The hacking is worst, as the mouse moves the password around so slowly and inaccurately, but the slow laggy mouse also contributes to the annoyance of the control panel game and the lockpicking (should you have to move the mouse THAT far to move a pin?)

With the hacking and lockpicking minigames, no, you don't need to move the mouse that far, because it's treating the mouse like an analog stick. It doesn't matter how far or fast you move the mouse, just what direction you move it in. Once you realize this, they get a lot easier; a slow, steady movement in the direction you want works fine.

The hacking minigame is easier with a controller, but the bypassing minigame is easier with a mouse and the lockpicking minigame is much easier (because the mouse gives you much finer control over pin position - it's done with the triggers when you use a 360 controller). Personally, I prefer KBM, but it's down to which minigames you find most annoying and how much you mind aiming with a stick.

In general you can skip all minigames by either using EMPs, or taking alternate paths that don't require you to hack/lockpick/bypass at all (possibly with a tradeoff of setting off alarms or the like).

ClearAirTurbulence
Apr 20, 2010
The earth has music for those who listen.

ToxicFrog posted:

With the hacking and lockpicking minigames, no, you don't need to move the mouse that far, because it's treating the mouse like an analog stick. It doesn't matter how far or fast you move the mouse, just what direction you move it in. Once you realize this, they get a lot easier; a slow, steady movement in the direction you want works fine.

The hacking minigame is easier with a controller, but the bypassing minigame is easier with a mouse and the lockpicking minigame is much easier (because the mouse gives you much finer control over pin position - it's done with the triggers when you use a 360 controller). Personally, I prefer KBM, but it's down to which minigames you find most annoying and how much you mind aiming with a stick.

In general you can skip all minigames by either using EMPs, or taking alternate paths that don't require you to hack/lockpick/bypass at all (possibly with a tradeoff of setting off alarms or the like).

Arrgh, there should be warning labels on PC games that were made for consoles and given half-assed ports. Those games would work so much better if the mouse actually worked like a mouse. I do have a generic dual shock clone somewhere around here that I may hook up, but I hate using a controller for these kinds of games.

Kruller
Feb 20, 2004

It's time to restore dignity to the Farnsworth name!

ClearAirTurbulence posted:

Arrgh, there should be warning labels on PC games that were made for consoles and given half-assed ports. Those games would work so much better if the mouse actually worked like a mouse. I do have a generic dual shock clone somewhere around here that I may hook up, but I hate using a controller for these kinds of games.

Blame SEGA, they forced it out the door before QA was finished. Blame them for requiring you to have a weapon skill to be able to do poo poo with a gun, too. Also blame them for there possibly never being a sequel.

Lets Fuck Bro
Apr 14, 2009

ClearAirTurbulence posted:

Arrgh, there should be warning labels on PC games that were made for consoles and given half-assed ports. Those games would work so much better if the mouse actually worked like a mouse. I do have a generic dual shock clone somewhere around here that I may hook up, but I hate using a controller for these kinds of games.
Here's the thing, using a generic dual shock is a bad idea for Alpha Protocol since at least one of the minigames (lockpicking, as you imagine you have to do it alot) is dependent on the variable pressure of the 360's trigger buttons. I tried just hooking up my generic Logitech Dual Action to 360 Controller Emulator (the game requires XInput) and the minigame was completely impossible. You will need a pretty recent gamepad for it to work properly. Yeah, there's always something with that game.

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ahobday
Apr 19, 2007

I've taken up Dragon Age: Origins again, and I'm about 5 hours in probably (Redcliffe castle).

Some battles are a little too hard, and I've set combat to the lowest difficulty setting.

Is there a mind-set I should be in to make combat easier in this game? I feel like there's a chance I'm missing something.

Right now I'm only controlling my mage and letting the AI characters do their own thing. I haven't toyed with their orders or mechanics or whatever they're called (FFXII style "If this then this" set-up), so they're still set to the default. And I currently don't use any items just before or during battle.

Should I be changing any of this? Is there a surefire way to make all battles simple to win?

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