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Typhoid
06-17-2010, 03:33 PM
I bought this game yesterday after wanting and wanting to despite the fact nobody seemingly has anything good to say about it.
So I assume I will be the first.

Basically, it's like Mass Effect meets a combination of a Jason Bourne, James Bond, or Jack Bauer movie. The game feels great. It feels like you're playing a spy movie - but I do assume if you go in shooting everyone constantly, it would feel much different. In this way, it gives me a comparison to Metal Gear Solid. Enemies have alert radii, there are alarms (that you can shut off, if you get near them). There are also 'boss fights', which (while not as epic as MGS) sort of remind me of it in a sense.

The bonus' that I find for this game so far, is the fact that you can play through multiple times, and nothing will be the same. Tiny, tiny things you do/say, can ripple into large changes later on. If you have enough patience with the game and isn't someone who just wants to run-and-gun constantly, I honestly think you'll enjoy the subtlety of the things like the emails that are sent (in which you can respond to in 3 or 4 ways), and watching the TV to see what is going on in the world.

The storyline is pretty good, I must say. I won't ruin what happens, or what it is - but it's really well done and fairly intricate.

Characters have relationships with you that are altered based on your reactions to them. Some prefer you being sarcastic, others prefer when you just act professional. But not every character will always respond to those things, someone who usually enjoys sarcastic remarks will hate one, if the time is wrong - which could lower your 'friendship score' drastically.

The thing I can see people disliking in this is the fact you're one guy, taking on multiple people. To which I will just tell you to watch a spy movie.

The AI in the game isn't the greatest, but it's definitely not the worst I've seen. I've only seen one glitch where I was right in front of a guy and he didn't do anything - and that was at the [i]very beginning of the game. Since then everything has been pretty decent AI-wise.

The customization of your character is pretty fun, you can change your facial features around to a few things that are either classicly spy-ish, or Russian lumberjack-ish. It is lacking in facial customization, but it's not enough for you to hate the game as a whole. You can put Ability Points into any catagory you want [much like in Mass Effect], but you can only 'Master' 3 catagories. Each option has [let's say] 10 upgrade slots. But the 3 you choose to master have an extra 6 or so slots to upgrade, making those your specialties.

If you like spy movies, I do think you'd enjoy playing this one. However if you're going for 100% top-notch realism with everything, stick to Call of Duty.

Default
06-17-2010, 07:46 PM
Sounds great. Been meaning to pick this up, I've always been a huge fan of Obsidian's work (Kotor2 > Kotor1).

I've never been a particularly huge spy-fiction fan, but the dialogue system really has me interested. And it's awesome to hear that the relationships have some actual value and fore-effect on the narrative.

It's too bad to hear about the AI (and from what I understand, a lot of the gameplay could be better), but I guess that comes with the territory. I wish Obsidian had the resources to compliment their narrative-drive, they always seem so close to achieving something great but fall short for the same reasons each time. Even still, Chris Avellone has my money every time

Fox 6
06-17-2010, 10:03 PM
(Kotor2 > Kotor1).


That is so wrong

KoToR one was way better than 2.

also

Bioware > Obsidian

Typhoid
06-19-2010, 05:59 AM
The intricacies of subtle things is pretty cool.


Without attempting to spoil anything;

I was doing a mission, and there were a government's agents in the building. I had thought I had tranquilizer rounds equipped, but I had actual ammo equipped (which explains why the girl kept yelling at me over the earpiece asking "What the fuck are you doing?") so after I completed the mission, the result of me killing said agents was increased bad attention from governments and whatnot, forever, and said girl didn't like me as much anymore.