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Pistol with Chain shot is waaaaaaaaay better than assault rifle it's not even funny, you'll only need the assault rifle for Saudi arabia because you won't have enough ranks in chain shot/powerful enough pistol/enough ranks in critical hit with pistol for you to really be able to pull off long shots, but past saudi arabia you can pistol out the rest of the game without getting spotted first if you are careful. In Chain shot mode, you don't need the crosshair to go into red critical shot mode, just make sure you get the dot on the crosshair on the head, no matter how far away and bam it's a headshot when chain shot finally goes off. So you can tranq dart a guy from insane ranges so long as you can see their head well enough to get a shot lined up. Not to also forget a decent pistol with steel core rounds + the second last rank or last rank of chain shot is instant boss kill everytime. With that in mind I always recommend doing Rome first if you are going pistols cause one of the first missions you can do you can find a silencer mk III pistol upgrade on the level and that helps a lot with making sure your pistol packs punch at range without waking up the neighbourhood. I just focus the rest of my upgrades around accuracy etc, the size of your ammo clip won't matter, having 6 bullet ammo clips when you have enough ranks in pistol mastery won't hurt you at all, though do make sure the clip is reloaded whenever you are about to do a chain shot otherwise you'll gently caress up a 5 or 6 bullet chain shot.
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Nov 5, 2011 21:41
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This game is really, really good. Can't believe the reviews it got. That's modern gaming for you, I guess.
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Nov 5, 2011 22:30
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So what would be a good loudout for an Archer playthrough? I'm thinking smgs, martial arts and giving the suave or aggressive everytime. Oh and execute every chance I get.
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Nov 6, 2011 12:43
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Opendork posted:Sorry if this one's been asked, but was there a reason why (endgame) I wasn't allowed to use Albatross as my handler during the final mission? I saved him in Moscow and everything, and I thought we were on good terms. Meanwhile I could choose SIE, who I'd barely even spoken to. I did Moscow last, if that means anything. Did you contact him before going on the final mission? That's the only thing I can think of.
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Nov 6, 2011 12:49
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John Charity Spring posted:Did you contact him before going on the final mission? That's the only thing I can think of. Didn't have the option. Maybe it was a bug or something. I can just save it as fodder for another playthrough.
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Nov 6, 2011 16:11
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I'm wondering about that too. The only thing I can think of, is that I picked SIE as handler over him on a previous mission. I didn't think one action would remove all the good things I'd done for him earlier.
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Nov 6, 2011 16:19
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I played this thing all the way through and I really didn't enjoy it at all. I thought the plot was silly and took ridiculous leaps--I'm sure some holes could be filled in by getting additional dossiers, but playing through as I do most games it felt like a disconnected series of events. The combat was loving terrible. Either it's much too easy (chain shot and power shot behind cover both really feel like cheating) or much too hard (any combat where you can't use your super powers). The stealth is too unforgiving to go along with the checkpointing system. I get what they were trying to do, make a game where failure is possible, and I applaud the effort, but given the sheer volume of dudes you go through on a given level means it's practically impossible to avoid getting seen at some point. Unless you're willing to reload the same checkpoint ten times it's essentially impossible to stealth through an entire level because at some point you'll be a pixel off when taking a shot, or you'll get stymied by the horrible mouse control of the hacking game, or ... something. I'm not even sure if there's a reward for stealthing through a whole level, I don't think I pulled it off once. The conversation system, relationships with characters, and story being modified by your actions should be a model for every single game that wants these features. They really did that well, and it felt natural (mostly), which is about the biggest compliment I can possibly give to a system like that. It's just too bad that every other part of the game sucked. If you're playing through and it seems like random chaos with terrible justifications, it only gets worse in that regard. If you feel like you're in the driver's seat and loving it by midway through the second city, I think the game will only get better for you as it goes on. I personally didn't like the game enough to want to debate it, so I'm just going to drop this post like a turd on the floor and bow out of the thread.
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Nov 6, 2011 16:23
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If by 'stealth' you mean 'ghost' well...yeah, you'll have a rotten time other than a couple of missions explicitly designed for it. You're meant to use stealth for elimination more than evasion.
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Nov 6, 2011 16:26
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:The stealth is too unforgiving to go along with the checkpointing system. I get what they were trying to do, make a game where failure is possible, and I applaud the effort, but given the sheer volume of dudes you go through on a given level means it's practically impossible to avoid getting seen at some point. Unless you're willing to reload the same checkpoint ten times it's essentially impossible to stealth through an entire level because at some point you'll be a pixel off when taking a shot, or you'll get stymied by the horrible mouse control of the hacking game, or ... something. I'm not even sure if there's a reward for stealthing through a whole level, I don't think I pulled it off once. You're not supposed to sneak past everyone--you're supposed to sneak up to them and incapacitate them (lethally or nonlethally) without them seeing you. When you think of stealth as a way of reducing the number of enemies as opposed to merely avoiding them, it makes a lot more sense. Plus, some missions will explicitly say "Try to get in and out without being detected" while others will force you to blow your cover at some point. Also, killing people with the pistol while stealthed (hell, killing people at all while stealthed) is a bad idea because other enemies will see the dead body and become more alert as a result. Knocking people out doesn't trigger it, but killing them seems to. So if you're going around headshotting people with a silenced pistol, you're going to be building up a trail of bodies that anyone can spot. Add to that the fact that early silencers give you a penalty to damage, so unless you score that critical headshot you're likely to piss the guy off instead of killing him in one go. Then there's the fact that the game starts you in armor that has terrible noise reduction, and the fact that most people don't bother to use their skills, and yeah stealth can be a lot to manage at first.
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Nov 6, 2011 17:36
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I thought stealth was balanced just right personally, anytime I was spotted I considered it my own fault rather than the game being poorly designed. Between shadow operative, silent running, the stealth bonuses in general, the fact that until you can buy good stealth armor you can wear no armor at all (and lets face it if you are doing stealth right you shouldn't need armor, armor is there when you gently caress up) I found it easy to get past missions without triggering an alarm and if I had more patience without even anyone seeing my face or making a noise to put people on alert. The only thing I'd argue against getting with a full stealth playthrough is the last rank of chain shot cause the duration on it, if you don't fire all shots asap, can be enough to get you detected. In other news, 3 points in the melee tree makes a whole world of difference in close up fighting holy poo poo.
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Nov 6, 2011 17:47
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That Russian boss fight is terrible.  It's like the only bad part of the game so far. Reloaded the safehouse and went to Taiwan instead.
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Nov 6, 2011 23:22
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Quantum of Phallus posted:That Russian boss fight is terrible. Do Taiwan and a friend you make there might be able to help with the boss somehow. Check your intel purchase screen when you go back to Moscow to try again.
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Nov 6, 2011 23:37
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Just picked this up the other week and so far its pretty enjoyable. Is there any reason why I didn't receive the basic training achievement? I'm not that bothered about it just curious about why i didn't receive it. Krypt-OOO-Nite!! fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Nov 6, 2011 |
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Nov 6, 2011 23:51
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Are you sure you did all of the training courses?
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Nov 7, 2011 00:02
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^ Ha, having just looked at a guide it seems i just walked past the weapons training with Mina and the stealth training with Parker and walked right into the briefing with Westbridge. How the hell was that possible??
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Nov 7, 2011 00:08
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Krypt-OOO-Nite!! posted:^ Ha, having just looked at a guide it seems i just walked past the weapons training with Mina and the stealth training with Parker and walked right into the briefing with Westbridge. This is a good lesson because the game does this A LOT. Check your map often, and always try to remain aware of where your objective is. The game loves to present with options that disappear if you walk through a door or past a specific trigger. More often than not, reaching a new checkpoint will seal the area behind you so try scout out the perimeter of an area before leaving it to make sure you didn't miss anything.
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Nov 7, 2011 00:31
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Krypt-OOO-Nite!! posted:^ Ha, having just looked at a guide it seems i just walked past the weapons training with Mina and the stealth training with Parker and walked right into the briefing with Westbridge. For Parker you have to the professional response to unlock his secret mission, for Mina you have to get a good score to get the shoot Darcy in the balls with a stun gun mission and for Darcy you have to get a high score to unlock the beatdown challenge mission.
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Nov 7, 2011 00:40
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etalian posted:For Parker you have to the professional response to unlock his secret mission, for Mina you have to get a good score to get the shoot Darcy in the balls with a stun gun mission and for Darcy you have to get a high score to unlock the beatdown challenge mission. Uh, that's not correct at all. All 3 'secret' training missions have the same requirement: >100 score in the normal training.
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Nov 7, 2011 00:42
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Mistikman posted:Uh, that's not correct at all. All 3 'secret' training missions have the same requirement: >100 score in the normal training. Yes and you can take the tests multiple times to achieve this. I always wished there some small perk for just skipping past all of the training missions. I always figured Veteran Thornton would have no business learning how to throw a stun grenade and would just talk to Westridge and get the hell out of the base.
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Nov 7, 2011 01:30
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Maybe I'm retarded but the story is completely batshit and I can't follow it at all, I stopped trying around the time where Thorton went rogue and I still don't even know why because they never really adequately explained it. My other main grief with the game is that Thorton's voice acting is loving terrible, so not only am I entirely lost story-wise but it's like it's actively trying to put me to sleep. I just finished Moscow, now doing Rome. Does any of this poo poo ever get explained? Should I just restart and try to follow the story again? I'm trying to finish/like this game but it's making it so hard for me.  On the plus side, the fight with Brayko was really, really fun. It was hard but it didn't seem unfair, so I had enough motivation to keep trying until I beat it. I guess going full stealth and martial arts as a Recruit isn't the best setup for trying to take him on, but it's made the rest of the game a breeze. edit: and what the hell is with the mouse control for the hacking minigame, is there any mod or patch to fix that? Holy poo poo that's embarrassingly awful, Obsidian. Daily Forecast fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Nov 7, 2011 |
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Nov 7, 2011 07:15
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WardeL posted:Maybe I'm retarded but the story is completely batshit and I can't follow it at all, I stopped trying around the time where Thorton went rogue and I still don't even know why because they never really adequately explained it. My other main grief with the game is that Thorton's voice acting is loving terrible, so not only am I entirely lost story-wise but it's like it's actively trying to put me to sleep.
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Nov 7, 2011 09:03
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WardeL posted:Maybe I'm retarded but the story is completely batshit and I can't follow it at all, I stopped trying around the time where Thorton went rogue and I still don't even know why because they never really adequately explained it. My other main grief with the game is that Thorton's voice acting is loving terrible, so not only am I entirely lost story-wise but it's like it's actively trying to put me to sleep. Are you fastforwarding through the cutscenes? Because there are quite a few (when you get blown up, when you're in the safehouse immediately afterward, the Leland conversations, etc.) that basically rehash everything you've done up until that point and try to place it into context. Really, though, it boils down to one of those standard spy tropes. You're an agent sent on a job, but it turns out your bosses (Alpha Protocol) are dirty and plan on attempting to kill you, and burning you if you survive. You discover that a defense contractor (Halbech) is pulling the strings at your old agency and that they have three key locations that they're running some kind of operation in--Rome, Taipei and Moscow. Halbech sold weapons to a terrorist organization (Al-Samad), and decided to cover up evidence of their treason by first sending you to the Al-Samad base to eliminate any opposition, and then by bombing the place (and you) to eradicate any remaining evidence of Halbech's treason.
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Nov 7, 2011 14:04
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I keep running into the disappearing enemies bug no matter what. I just started a new game, went through the saudi safehouse briefing and selected the airfield mission first. I saved the checkpoint and when I got back to it later, only the very first enemy is present. If I restart from the saudi safehouse save (and go through the whole briefing with Mina again), all the enemies are there. However, as soon as I load either an autosave checkpoint or a manual save, enemies disappear. I'm not using quickload, I'm going through the menu. What gives?
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Nov 7, 2011 15:04
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Bouchacha posted:I keep running into the disappearing enemies bug no matter what. I just started a new game, went through the saudi safehouse briefing and selected the airfield mission first. I saved the checkpoint and when I got back to it later, only the very first enemy is present. If I restart from the saudi safehouse save (and go through the whole briefing with Mina again), all the enemies are there. However, as soon as I load either an autosave checkpoint or a manual save, enemies disappear. I'm not using quickload, I'm going through the menu. What gives? In my experience, the glitch occurs 100% of the time when loading a save from the first airfield save spot. Once you reach the first checkpoint in the level, it will never be a problem for the rest of the game. Just walk around a bit and enjoy the view I suppose!
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Nov 7, 2011 17:31
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Bouchacha posted:I keep running into the disappearing enemies bug no matter what. I just started a new game, went through the saudi safehouse briefing and selected the airfield mission first. I saved the checkpoint and when I got back to it later, only the very first enemy is present. If I restart from the saudi safehouse save (and go through the whole briefing with Mina again), all the enemies are there. However, as soon as I load either an autosave checkpoint or a manual save, enemies disappear. I'm not using quickload, I'm going through the menu. What gives? Yah don't reload from in mission checkpoints, they are buggy as poo poo and make many things disappear. Anyway reloading from a previous savepoint inside a mission is for wimps! The missions aren't very long, clear through in one, if you die start again from safehouse! Cause even if enemies do/don't bug out, you can actually miss out on checkpoint objectives that reward exp if you reload from previous checkpoints (for example 500 exp can be lost from reloading from last checkpoint inside the large building with the scaffolding in the final taipei mission as the objective won't trigger and you can finish the mission without it completing). I mean yes those are some really annoying bugs in hindsight, but on the other hand it cost me $2 when I'd have still been satisfied if it cost $20.
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Nov 7, 2011 17:53
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WardeL posted:edit: and what the hell is with the mouse control for the hacking minigame, is there any mod or patch to fix that? Holy poo poo that's embarrassingly awful, Obsidian. It's a lazy adaptation of twinstick controls - WASD act like the left stick and the mouse like the right stick. It doesn't care about where the mouse cursor is or how fast you're moving it, just what direction you're moving it in. There are no mods or patches to fix it and probably never will be (apparently enabling mod support in this engine costs the developer extra  ).You could just use a gamepad, which makes the hacking feel perfectly natural, but the tradeoff there is that now you're playing the rest of the game with a gamepad too. 
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Nov 7, 2011 17:57
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Astfgl posted:Are you fastforwarding through the cutscenes? Because there are quite a few (when you get blown up, when you're in the safehouse immediately afterward, the Leland conversations, etc.) that basically rehash everything you've done up until that point and try to place it into context. Actually while Alpha Protocol is indeed bad news and working with the baddies, they didn't try to kill you, and had no real plans to either if I remember right. Mina was the one who firebombed your location in an attempt to get you against them from the start and on her side, and it was only after you went rogue and started murdering contacts did they decide you needed to get taken out, because well, you started murdering them.
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Nov 7, 2011 18:00
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I feel like Obsidian missed out on a great opportunity by not binding the mouse controls for hacking to IJKL. That way, you can get the 100% accurate Hollywood hacking experience: wildly typing on the keyboard and somehow doing things right!
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Nov 7, 2011 18:11
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Rookersh posted:Actually while Alpha Protocol is indeed bad news and working with the baddies, they didn't try to kill you, and had no real plans to either if I remember right. Mina was the one who firebombed your location in an attempt to get you against them from the start and on her side, and it was only after you went rogue and started murdering contacts did they decide you needed to get taken out, because well, you started murdering them. My interpretation was that it was Halbech who launched the missiles in order to hide the evidence that they were supplying Al-Samad. All Mina did was flag you as rogue in order to manipulate you in do doing the bidding of her agency.
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Nov 7, 2011 18:44
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Pseudoscorpion posted:I feel like Obsidian missed out on a great opportunity by not binding the mouse controls for hacking to IJKL. That way, you can get the 100% accurate Hollywood hacking experience: wildly typing on the keyboard and somehow doing things right! It would've been the perfect opportunity to implement double hacking. 
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Nov 7, 2011 20:04
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WardeL posted:My other main grief with the game is that Thorton's voice acting is loving terrible, so not only am I entirely lost story-wise but it's like it's actively trying to put me to sleep. As for hacking, there's a skill early on that lets you disable hacks, locks, and keypads with EMPs. It only costs a few AP and allows you to bypass any minigame (as long as you have enough EMP charges with you). I usually get that skill right away and just stock up on EMP.
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Nov 7, 2011 20:33
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What's the point of selling Halbech data on the black market? Selling it back to Halbech is worth 15 grand, and selling it to Scarlet is worth 1 grand and rep with Scarlet. So is there a point to selling it on the market? Do you get discounts at the clearinghouse? Does it unlock new items?
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Nov 8, 2011 00:21
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Astfgl posted:What's the point of selling Halbech data on the black market? Selling it back to Halbech is worth 15 grand, and selling it to Scarlet is worth 1 grand and rep with Scarlet. So is there a point to selling it on the market? Do you get discounts at the clearinghouse? Does it unlock new items? Not from a powergaming perspective, afaik. It makes sense in-game to try and bring Halbech down quicker, and you might find the black market a little more palatable than blackmail, but I don't recall any change except possibly
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Nov 8, 2011 00:24
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Astfgl posted:What's the point of selling Halbech data on the black market? Selling it back to Halbech is worth 15 grand, and selling it to Scarlet is worth 1 grand and rep with Scarlet. So is there a point to selling it on the market? Do you get discounts at the clearinghouse? Does it unlock new items? As I recall it changes the news reports during the credits. If you sell it on the black market Halbech becomes discredited publicly, whereas if you blackmail them Halbech suffers massive losses from all the bribe money they're paying you.
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Nov 8, 2011 00:24
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Category Fun! posted:As I recall it changes the news reports during the credits. If you sell it on the black market Halbech becomes discredited publicly, whereas if you blackmail them Halbech suffers massive losses from all the bribe money they're paying you. That seems like a bit of a double dip, I mean they pay you what, can't be more than a hundred and fifty thousand for all the emails put together? They're a multinational weapons giant, they'd spend that much on piecework for one jet.
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Nov 8, 2011 00:32
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I just assume Thorton actually meant to tack an extra few zeroes onto the blackmail, and the rest of the cash is busy being laundered somewhere.
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Nov 8, 2011 00:34
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Rookersh posted:Actually while Alpha Protocol is indeed bad news and working with the baddies, they didn't try to kill you, and had no real plans to either if I remember right. Mina was the one who firebombed your location in an attempt to get you against them from the start and on her side, and it was only after you went rogue and started murdering contacts did they decide you needed to get taken out, because well, you started murdering them. Yeah, no, Mina put out the burn on you, Parker sent the missiles. You were supposed to blow up and die, I don't think it's revealed what AP would have done next once you didn't, but immediately the strike missed you Mina issued a burn notice and tried to get you away safe. It's fairly likely that you'd have been burned anyway, really. It's just a twist that Mina did it with good intentions. Now that I think of it, I have no clue what difference it makes, unless AP was planning to fake an extraction on you then kill you at some point between that and the Greybox (which, again now that I think of it, seems likely). Android Blues fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Nov 8, 2011 |
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Nov 8, 2011 00:35
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Android Blues posted:Yeah, no, Mina put out the burn on you, Parker sent the missiles. You were supposed to blow up and die, I don't think it's revealed what AP would have done next once you didn't, but immediately the strike missed you Mina issued a burn notice and tried to get you away safe. It's fairly likely that you'd have been burned anyway, really. It's just a twist that Mina did it with good intentions. Now that I think of it, I have no clue what difference it makes, unless AP was planning to fake an extraction on you then kill you at some point between that and the Greybox (which, again now that I think of it, seems likely). Parker can even admit that they should have brought you back to the Grey box for debriefing rather than sending the missiles after all the trouble you caused them.
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Nov 8, 2011 01:01
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So I didn't play the game for a while, and when I returned to it this week the modifications I made to the ini file to make it playable had been reversed. Is that a thing? I mean, does that happen to others?
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Nov 9, 2011 23:47
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Mine never seemed to do that, but after replacing mine with Setzer's newer ini file he linked a few pages back the top 16th or so of the screen becomes a streaky blur whenever the game enters a convo segment for some reason.  It does run more smoothly though than before so I can deal. EDIT: What the hell, it's doing this even after I switched back to the old APEngine.ini that I used my first time through. The only thing that's changed since then is my Radeon 5550 died and I upgraded to a 6570. I'd note that when I took these I had completed gadget orientation and the bonus and was standing back in the AP lounge area about to meet Westridge.   
Kitfox88 fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Nov 12, 2011 |
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Nov 12, 2011 07:58
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