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Alpha Protocol · The Long and Short of It

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  Thanks for checking out the long and short of it podcast.
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  You can find us on all good podcast platforms.
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  Please consider following or subscribing.
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  We hope you enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the Long
• 0:17
  and short of It, the podcast where we discuss each of the
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  games on the Metacritic Top 100 list.
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  My name is Dan and I'm joined by.
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  My name is Lawrence. Welcome to the podcast.
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  Welcome to the podcast for another of our own episodes.
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  What that means is these are games that we have selected that
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  we have nominated to go onto the Metacritic Top 100 list.
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  Sort of. A little bit, Yeah.
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  How are you today? I'm all right.
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  I'm joined by my cat today, so you might hear her squeaking a
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  little bit. I usually put her upstairs on
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  our record, but we're going to see how quiet she is today.
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  You've let her out of her. That's right.
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  That right. The cat cage.
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  Otherwise, you know, we'll keep her in a cat cage too long.
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  She can take me to cat court, and that's not where I want to
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  be. So yes, Spiro is is wandering
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  around. She might squeak a little bit
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  because that's what she does, but we'll see what happens.
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  Are you well? I'm okay.
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  I'm getting a bit tired. I know you've had a week off, so
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  you're rejuvenating. I think I also need probably a
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  week off to rejuvenate as well. But yeah, the gaming side is
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  good. But yeah, just getting a bit bit
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  tired, run down, I'd say yeah. So I need a bit of refreshing.
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  Yes, quite. I yeah, I decided to take this
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  week off, so I'm just having a little life reset, getting back
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  in the gym, catching up on some things, which is quite nice.
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  So yes, perhaps you can do the same soon.
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  Yes, I would like to. So today we are here to discuss
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  a game. The game that we are discussing
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  is Alpha Protocol, as revealed at the end of last week's
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  episode. So Alpha Protocol was released
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  in the year 2010 and it was developed by Obsidian and
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  published by Sega. So first I'm going to give a bit
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  of a brief rundown of the game so it is a spy RPG.
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  It was in the works at Obsidian for quite some time.
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  It was one of their first original titles.
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  Obsidian known for Koto 2, Fallout, New Vegas and recently
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  Outer Worlds. Outer Worlds or Outer World.
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  One of them. Outer Worlds or Outer Wilds?
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  I think it might be Outer Worlds.
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  I think it's outer. Outer Wilds is a different game,
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  yeah. So this game was actually
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  finished in the year 2009 and. They waited until the year 2010
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  to release it, but they weren't given permission to fix any bugs
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  and refine the game over that. Year And timing wise it was kind
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  of not the best time because it released couple of weeks I
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  believe after Mass Effect Two which was also another shooting
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  Scifi third person. RPG.
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  Third Person RPG and. Kind of took the window out of
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  their sales a bit. So at the time the highest
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  aggregate score it got on Metacritic was, so it received a
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  72 on the PC. And what I'm going to do just to
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  get give a bit of give a bit of a balanced viewpoint.
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  I'm going to read the highest rating critic comments compared
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  to the lowest rating critic comments.
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  So the highest rating critic comments said.
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  I think this was a translation, so bear with it.
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  Modern spy simulation game with little compromise, surprises in
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  every part. Sophisticated RPG system,
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  excellent story, catchy action segments and a precious
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  conclusion. Precious conclusion.
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  A precious conclusion. That's not the word I would use
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  on the conclusion, but okay. Precious is what it is now.
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  That's official. That's right, precious
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  conclusion. And the lowest, the lowest
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  scoring review. This really gives a bit of an
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  insight into the divisiveness of this game.
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  The abysmal AI, the absolutely disastrous PC controls, boss
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  battles that all but throw out the gameplay style that got you
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  there in the 1st place, and the complete and total logic of some
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  of the gameplay sections like the aforementioned Shields.
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  Also, to derail what should have been as memorable at the game as
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  I've played this year, so. Although negative, there are
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  glimmers of of positivity in there, torn down by aspects of
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  the gameplay, which I think is going to be a bit of a running
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  theme. It is a divisive game.
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  I alluded to that last week. Do you have a history of this
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  game? Nope.
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  I'd never heard of it until you suggested we play it.
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  I didn't know anything about it. No prior information.
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  Obviously I know Obsidian. One of the future games that
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  we'll be doing in my list is Fallout New Vegas, which is,
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  like you mentioned earlier, an Obsidian game, and they are
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  considered to be a very good development studio.
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  They are very good. But this was one I'd never heard
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  of, Didn't know anything about Alpha protocol.
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  So I was going into this entirely blind, Not watched any
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  videos on it, not watched any reviews or read anything.
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  Just completely like 0% knowledge on it going in.
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  Which is rare for me. I usually have heard something.
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  I know like a little bit about something before we play it, but
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  no, absolutely nothing on this one.
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  I remember this game at the time because it did catch my eye when
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  it released, and I remember looking at the back of the box,
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  probably in local game shop, probably game or game station.
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  That was the other one that was near me, Game Station.
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  So it would have been one of the two.
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  And I looked at the back of the box and I thought, oh, this
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  looks like Mass Effect. And then I kind of looked into
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  it a bit, saw the middling reviews.
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  I thought, maybe I won't give this a shot at the moment.
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  And I waited several years to play this, and I started seeing
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  retrospectives of this game with very interesting taglines, like
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  a brilliant mess. That's one that I remember.
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  Or sorry, a beautiful mess. And another that said it was
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  Obsidian's secret best game. So I read through those
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  retrospectives and I thought, oh, I've got to give this a try.
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  So I played the game probably in I think not that long ago,
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  actually 20/17/2018 and I found it flawed but very charming and.
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  I this was a late addition to my 15 games.
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  This was the last one added and it was on my short list, but I
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  really wasn't convinced I was going to add it.
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  But then I had that #15 spot and I was juggling between a few
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  games and I watched a trailer of this game and I thought, I want
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  to play this again. And I thought, well actually
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  I've got quite 4 memories of it. And not only that, I thought I
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  wanted you to play it, and given that this game is quite unique.
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  And we've really played nothing like this on the list.
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  A spy RPG. I can't even think of another
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  spy RPG out there. It's really quite unique in its
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  concept. So I thought, let's give it a go
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  for the episode. Do you want to give us a?
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  Actually, before we get into that, do you want to tell us
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  what version you played this? What platform you played this
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  on? Yeah, I played it on the PS3,
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  which is the version you advised probably most against playing,
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  just because it's probably buggy.
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  Yeah, bit choppy, quite buggy. But it was the cheapest 1 to
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  pick up. So yes, I got a copy off eBay
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  and played it on my PlayStation 3 because it isn't backwards
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  compatible. Is it on Xbox, Xbox, Xbox.
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  Unfortunately you got to play it on the 360.
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  Yeah, and mine isn't set up, so I thought I'd stick to the
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  PlayStation for this time. Which I think you are the
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  opposite, weren't you? Yeah, so your options for this
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  game in the 2023 are the the PC version, but this game is no
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  longer available on Steam because of licensing issues with
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  a single song I believe. Is that the the song in the the
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  boss fight? Breaker Yeah.
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  Yeah. Boss fight, yeah.
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  And then the other versions, again like you say, not
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  backwards compatible anywhere. So you have to go back a couple
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  of generations to either the PS3 or the 360.
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  I actually own the PS3 and the 360 versions.
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  I started playing the PS3 version a couple of months ago.
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  Before I'd maybe not even that. Maybe about a month ago, just to
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  see if I was going to put it into my list of 15 and it's.
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  It is very choppy and there is screen tearing all over the
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  place. The 360 version is a lot
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  smoother, so there's still screen tearing during cutscenes,
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  but there's none during gameplay that I can see.
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  So yeah, quite a big improvement there.
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  So I'm glad I played it there, but I played it originally on
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  the PS3 so it's playable. But yeah, it's issues.
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  Do you want to give us a very brief rundown on the narrative
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  probably not going into? Any of the decisions you made
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  yet? Because we're going to kind of
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  get there separately, but just a very loose overview.
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  Yeah, the the game you play as a special agent called Michael
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  Thornton who is pulled into a program called Alpha Protocol,
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  which is like a super secret spy agency that's kind of been put
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  together by the US government. But like, not even.
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  You know like super high level people know about its existence.
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  It is very much you know top classified tier stuff and the
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  game takes place where you are Michael going out on special
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  missions and you are tasked with taking out a shake in Saudi
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  Arabia who has missiles and upon.
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  Going to Saudi Arabia and completing the mission, you you
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  take out the Sheikh and find out that his terrorist clique I
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  suppose is being funded by a company called Halbeck who are
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  like a US contractor, and the rest of the game takes you
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  across. You start at Saudi Arabia, you
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  then have the opportunity to go to Moscow, to Taipei.
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  How do you pronounce it? Is it Taipei?
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  Taipei. Taipei.
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  And then roam with the fine after you've done all three of
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  those areas, the final level being unlocked to you, and you
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  make various decisions and various choices through the
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  games that take. A short pit stop to Greece in
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  the in the safe house just before you do The final mission
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  is apparently in Greece, so I wonder if.
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  Greece was another country that was planned originally.
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  There's a lot of content in this game.
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  Yeah, yeah, maybe so I I didn't know where that was.
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  I was just like Okay, that's a new safe house.
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  But yeah, you make various decisions through the game and
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  the decisions that you make will have impacts on the the outcome
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  of certain scenarios or outcome of what happens to certain
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  people, etcetera. But yeah, it's a story of
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  basically Michael Thornton trying to clear his name after
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  he gets designated being a rogue agent.
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  Half days mission in Saudi Arabia.
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  Yeah and and the whole principle of alpha protocol is that like
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  Mission Impossible the I MF from those films they can disavow you
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  if something goes wrong and in in in that mission they they
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  basically write him off they send missiles at him and they
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  they try to hunt him down and. With Alpha Protocol, they said
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  it's been restarted as a government agency several times
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  and just wipes the slate clean, pretended it didn't exist and
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  started a new company. So yeah, there's this that all
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  that corporate espionage that's present in this game.
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  What do you do in this game? It's it's an RPG.
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  It's a It's a third person game that focuses on.
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  A few different elements. So it's a third person shooter
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  effectively, where you have different options of how you can
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  tackle each mission. You can kind of go in all guns
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  blazing, you can go in via stealth, you can use close
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  course combat or martial arts as it's called in the game, or use
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  different gadgets to get through the process.
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  So it kind of feels like it's trying to take a vibe of like a
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  spec OPS version of James Bond. And as you proceed through the
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  game, you upgrade your skills, whether that's in, you know,
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  martial arts or different gun skills or your health or
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  stealth. And that's kind of how you
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  proceed through the game. It's a third person action RPG
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  that the gimmick is supposed to be.
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  You can play it however you want to play it, and you can
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  specialize in certain areas. However, the effectiveness of
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  that I question quite strongly. But.
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  Yes. It's very much like a third
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  person RPG from the late 2000s, and people will probably get an
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  idea of what that is. And now you've mentioned Mass
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  Effect, you can kind of see the similarities between them, 100%.
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  I hadn't clocked it before, but yeah, yes.
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  One of the things I was reading an interview with one of the
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  main developers and they said when they were creating this
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  game. Because there hadn't been
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  anything really similar before. They were trying to figure out
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  what it meant to be a spy RPG. And I remember initially that
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  they that they they were saying that they had lots of set pieces
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  and they had quite fluid gun play.
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  And they decided that that wasn't the course they were
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  going to go down because it wasn't really an RPG.
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  That was a shooter and lots of the shoots at the time were
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  doing it and and apparently Sager also intervened and said,
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  well we want this to be an RPG1 of the one of the reasons we
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  agreed to this was that we wanted it to be an RPG.
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  So the system that we got in terms of the gunplay in the end,
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  where the aiming is off points and yeah, some of the more
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  cumbersome mechanics, including all the hacking stuff, was at
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  Sega's insistence. Which is quite interesting.
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  I mean, I would argue that if they're saying they were trying
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  to work out what a spy RPG is during development, I'd probably
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  argue that I don't think they worked out what a spy RPG is
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  during development. And one of the things that they
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  said was when Mass Effect Two came out, they kind of cursed
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  and said. They did it.
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  They they've done it. They've gone and done it two
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  weeks before we came out, They've gone and nailed it and.
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  Pitched into the post we. Hadn't done that.
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  So yeah, that was that was one of the not not word for word
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  quote, but something along those lines.
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  Okay on to our present feature. Gameplay is king.
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  Is it fun to play? No.
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  Oh yeah. I I I completed it last night
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  and I I've been kind of talking to you through the week and I've
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  found myself quite frustrated with this game and there were
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  times where it would kind of win me over slightly and then it
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  would just go down in my estimations again.
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  I didn't find this game fun. I found it annoying and
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  frustrating. And the What were the high
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  points for you? The fact that you can make
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  choices probably, you know, the the the the fact that the
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  choices that you make have an impact and actually will lead to
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  certain things happening, like towards the end of the game and
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  as usual, quite spoilers. I guess there's a character that
• 17:08
  you make called what? What's the name?
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  Saint James in Rome? It's gone something, Saint
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  James. Yeah, yeah.
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  And you have a choice of basically you can either go and
• 17:23
  diffuse some bombs or you can go and save her, which is very
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  similar to the, the choice that Batman has to make in The Dark
• 17:33
  Knight. You know, go and save the
• 17:35
  person, like the woman, or go and save Harvey Dent.
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  But you know, you've got to go diffuse some bombs.
• 17:40
  And whichever decision you make, it's like that that.
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  You know, if you decide to go for the wrong one, then the
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  other person will die. And the choice was going to
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  diffuse some bombs or go and save.
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  Is it Madeline? Yeah.
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  Go and save Madeline. And at this point, she'd been in
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  the story about 30 minutes, 40 minutes maybe.
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  And I didn't have much of a relationship with her.
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  So there's no stakes here because I don't really care
• 18:05
  about who this woman is. I just want to, you know,
• 18:08
  diffuse some bombs. And then I wasn't sure if they
• 18:11
  would kill her off. But then yeah.
• 18:13
  Malberg, or whatever his name is, shoots and you're like, oh
• 18:16
  okay, I didn't see that coming. But yeah, I suppose the high
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  point in terms of game play would be the choices that you
• 18:22
  make actually having an impact on the the way the story would
• 18:27
  pan out. I suppose everything else in
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  terms of the game play, I found difficult and I find it
• 18:36
  difficult to compliment and. Madison St.
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  James. Madison That's it.
• 18:45
  Yeah, and the the, the, the, the phrase that I would use to sum
• 18:49
  up this this game plan I've been thinking about it for a few days
• 18:53
  is don't. Say yeah, because we've got the
• 18:55
  the part later on where I asked you to sum up the game in a
• 18:58
  word. It's not one word though.
• 19:01
  Okay, can you give me 7 words on that section?
• 19:08
  I can give you 7 words and then I would ask you to summarize it
• 19:11
  in a word. Okay, that's fine.
• 19:13
  But yeah, I I didn't find this game particularly fun.
• 19:17
  Did you? I I do find this game fun.
• 19:21
  There's the caveat with this is the way you choose to play it
• 19:27
  Now I the both times I've played this game, I've played it purely
• 19:32
  stealth, with the exception of those few forced action sections
• 19:37
  which are annoying. As in any stealth game, Splinter
• 19:41
  Cell games that the time they do it.
• 19:43
  It's always frustrating in a stealth game when you're forced
• 19:46
  into an action section where you haven't been going down the
• 19:51
  action route, especially in an RPG where you've not funneled
• 19:54
  your points into the action side of things.
• 19:58
  So I played this purely stealth and my and it's probably a point
• 20:05
  to make how you played this after after I've just.
• 20:08
  Wraps up my bit. So I funneled my points into
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  invisibility, the invisibility which.
• 20:18
  In the stealth section, yeah. So basically you become
• 20:22
  invisible for 25 seconds, and then you can unlock another
• 20:25
  ability that immediately resets it.
• 20:29
  So then you've got another 25 seconds of stealth.
• 20:31
  So basically you can do 50 seconds of stealth and you can
• 20:36
  go around and take down all the enemies in a single room just
• 20:42
  like that. So that was the way that I
• 20:45
  played it. And then you can you can dampen
• 20:47
  your footsteps. And yeah, playing that way, you
• 20:54
  become quite overpowered quite quickly.
• 20:58
  So a lot of the frustration wasn't there.
• 21:02
  My enjoyment of this game was turning invisible with the time
• 21:08
  that I had at any given point in the game, because obviously you
• 21:11
  upgrade that as you go along and working out how to take down a
• 21:14
  room, what the best route was to take them down without being
• 21:18
  caught. And there are a couple of rooms
• 21:21
  that are quite tricky and I found that a fun way to play.
• 21:25
  And you do become overpowered. And the game is very poorly
• 21:30
  balanced, especially for this play style.
• 21:32
  And with the exception of those forced action sections, yeah, I
• 21:40
  think it's a fun way to play what could very easily be a
• 21:46
  throwaway, frustrating game. I agree with that.
• 21:51
  I know you played it slightly differently, so do you want to
• 21:53
  elaborate on that? Yeah, I tried to do.
• 21:57
  I did stuff where possible. However, I found that quite a
• 22:01
  lot of the time. I didn't put that many points
• 22:04
  into stealth because I felt, well if this is a stealth game I
• 22:08
  should be able to play it without like basic stealth
• 22:11
  without having to throw a lot of points into it.
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  Because what I was finding that's the balancing issue with
• 22:16
  the stealth is you start off very underpowered and your
• 22:21
  stealth is rubbish and within probably sinking, I don't know 5
• 22:26
  levels into it you become. Quite overpowered, I found It
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  was more of an A I issue with the stealth than how overpowered
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  the skills are, because I often found that there'd be times
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  where I would definitely be hidden and then all of a sudden
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  I'd be seen and everyone starts going crazy.
• 22:43
  So I did stealth where possible, particularly in missions where
• 22:48
  it was like inside. So there's one mission where you
• 22:50
  go to like a CIA safe house to download some documents, and
• 22:55
  that one, I did it entirely stealth.
• 22:58
  And I usually try and play most levels like that until nine
• 23:03
  times out of 10 it went wrong, either down to my era or down to
• 23:07
  me saying that there was a slightly unfair thing And the A
• 23:11
  I was being a bit dodgy, which we've already said is is a bug.
• 23:14
  And you know, Obsidian weren't given the opportunity to fix
• 23:16
  those. So all you did you read about
• 23:20
  the A I by chance So no they said initially they made the A I
• 23:26
  far too challenging and then they they dumbed it down at the
• 23:31
  request of someone. I don't know if it was sage or
• 23:33
  internally they decided this but then they went gold and they
• 23:38
  were ready to ship and they didn't that they were supposed
• 23:41
  to increase the challenge of the A I again but they never got the
• 23:47
  chance to make that tweak. So yeah, it's it's, it's, I
• 23:51
  fully concede it's ludicrous at times.
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  So you will clear out a room and then you'll you'll walk to the
• 23:59
  next area and the next loss of enemies will appear on your map
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  and they'll be oblivious to the fact that you've just been
• 24:05
  gunning down a room, for example.
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  And there are times when you reload a section and you'll find
• 24:10
  no enemies in the map, because any enemy that you've taken down
• 24:14
  before for some reason disappears.
• 24:19
  There are, there are city things like that, and I think the
• 24:22
  single biggest failing of this game is the terrible AI.
• 24:26
  Yeah, and it is often the case that, like I say, I'd be doing
• 24:31
  it stealthily and I get seen and from there I just go weapons.
• 24:36
  I didn't really use gadgets that much other than things like
• 24:39
  grenades and like the health, the health region thing, but I
• 24:44
  threw most of my points into assault rifles.
• 24:49
  A little bit into pistols and then into martial arts and
• 24:52
  toughness just to kind of bolster the health, bolster up
• 24:56
  the the damage done by close quarters combat and then
• 24:59
  obviously the guns. But yeah, so I I played it a
• 25:03
  little bit more gung ho I suppose than than you did, but
• 25:07
  not through lack of trying to play stealth.
• 25:11
  It's just that sometimes it kind of fell to pieces when I was
• 25:14
  going for that. That approach and as I
• 25:17
  progressed through the game, I got slightly better with stealth
• 25:21
  in the in the times where it didn't kind of feel like I was
• 25:24
  being screwed over by the game. But yeah, it was a mix of
• 25:29
  probably 7030 Assault over Stealth.
• 25:32
  And one of the things I realized I've never gone down this route
• 25:36
  is that if you sink points into the handgun I recommended this
• 25:41
  to you before you you got there, you can, you can unlock sort of
• 25:46
  like a spin to sell. Like a tagging system, is it?
• 25:50
  Yeah, it's spin to sell. Blacklist doesn't mean, isn't
• 25:53
  it? No, it's the one before that.
• 25:55
  It's conviction. Conviction, yeah, that's where,
• 25:59
  yeah, that's where it was introduced.
• 26:00
  Like the the, the system where you can very quickly target and
• 26:04
  take down enemies and and rack up those hits.
• 26:08
  You can do that on buses and just decimate them.
• 26:12
  So some of those tough bosses you can just absolutely
• 26:15
  obliterate, which to be honest, I want to go back and and and
• 26:19
  try that. I won't.
• 26:20
  I won't be going back to this game quickly, but I will play it
• 26:23
  again. There's a, I don't know, I just
• 26:26
  find this game very entertaining in the sort of B movie, spy kind
• 26:33
  of way. And I think this game has a lot
• 26:36
  of potential and I think it's charming and has a lot of
• 26:40
  personality and I think that's why I like it.
• 26:44
  Okay on to the next question or point.
• 26:48
  So who did you make alliances with throughout this game?
• 26:53
  So I made alliance with Steve Hack, who you meet in Taipei, is
• 27:02
  it? No, the north is it.
• 27:03
  Yeah. Okay, There you go.
• 27:05
  So yeah, I work with Steve Hack and towards the end of the game
• 27:09
  when you make your final decisions.
• 27:11
  He was the handler that I chose. I had the highest relationship
• 27:14
  with him. I had like a middling
• 27:18
  relationship with Z. Like the Russian woman
• 27:24
  dominatrix kind of thing. The tough Russian?
• 27:30
  Yes, by stereotype. Cougar, I believe, is the word
• 27:33
  used through the game. And then there was albatross.
• 27:38
  Who are the is it GCC? Albatross.
• 27:44
  Yeah it's like they they've got the troops with like the the
• 27:47
  night vision goggles on and and they were my lowest and the tech
• 27:51
  group. Yeah, they were my lowest one.
• 27:53
  However, they did help me out at the end of the game as well.
• 27:55
  So I didn't kind of completely break ties with anyone, but
• 28:00
  Steve Heck was the one that was my highest relationship, I
• 28:04
  suppose. What about you?
• 28:06
  Yeah. I also allied with him and I I
• 28:13
  had a good relationship with Albatross and his group, and I
• 28:17
  kind of left, see Or sigh. I had the initial interaction
• 28:22
  with her, which was positive, but I kind of she she she says
• 28:26
  we'll meet again. And I never did meet her again.
• 28:30
  So, all right, Okay. In.
• 28:32
  Yeah, in in mine. She helped me push on Braycox
• 28:39
  mansion in Moscow and you have a choice just before you're going
• 28:43
  to fight him to either leave her because she gets captured and
• 28:48
  tortured. So you can either leave her to
• 28:49
  her fate or go and save her. I I saved her and added
• 28:53
  relationship points that way. But interesting, because
• 28:56
  obviously if you didn't ever see her again, then she wouldn't
• 28:58
  have been there with you at the mansion.
• 28:59
  And that wouldn't have happened to you, had someone else fit in
• 29:02
  that role and that was albatross.
• 29:03
  Right. I see, Yeah.
• 29:06
  So, yeah, never saw her again. And I think it's probably
• 29:09
  because of some decisions I made.
• 29:11
  So one of the things you do in this game is you've got these
• 29:16
  safe houses, and I think they're a really good idea, and they
• 29:19
  weren't originally part of the game.
• 29:21
  So originally you just go from mission to mission, but they
• 29:23
  introduced these safe houses where you could pick the
• 29:26
  missions that you wanted to do. You can also physically walk
• 29:31
  around the space, you can interact with certain items, you
• 29:33
  can see the view there, even there's even a character there
• 29:37
  at one point. And you can check your emails.
• 29:40
  You can go through the clearing house, which is where you can
• 29:43
  buy guns, Intel, gadgets and it's quite a nice this will
• 29:49
  stopping point between missions and you can respond to emails
• 29:54
  and based on that it will improve or decrease your
• 29:57
  relationships. And I think I probably did
• 30:00
  something via that e-mail trail that yeah, completely nullified
• 30:06
  my relationship with Psy. But yeah, it's just some of the
• 30:10
  some of the details. It's one thing I think this game
• 30:12
  does really well is that relationship system and how you
• 30:19
  could play this game the same as someone else.
• 30:21
  But you and I both started this game at similar times, but had
• 30:24
  quite different experiences based on the decisions we made.
• 30:29
  I think that's, I think it could have been clearer sometimes on
• 30:32
  what options we're going to do like towards the end of the
• 30:35
  game, Well, at the end of the game when you go to take on the
• 30:41
  Alpha Protocol Gray box again. Because I had a really good
• 30:45
  relationship with Mina and Leyland, who's kind of the the
• 30:50
  main bad guy, I suppose in in the game he acts as the final
• 30:54
  boss. He says okay, Well, you've got a
• 30:56
  choice now. You can either come after me or
• 30:58
  you can go and save Mina because we've captured her.
• 31:00
  And I would have gone to save Mina because I liked Mina and I
• 31:03
  had a good relationship with her, but it didn't let me know
• 31:07
  which which way. The the like either of them
• 31:10
  were, yeah, there's no way points or anything like that.
• 31:13
  No. So I was like, okay, well, I'll
• 31:14
  go forward cuz maybe that's where she is.
• 31:17
  And then as soon as I step forward, the roof collapsed,
• 31:19
  meaning I couldn't go back. And then two minutes later, she
• 31:22
  was on the screen and she'd been shot in the face.
• 31:24
  And I was like, oh, right. I mean, there's another one in
• 31:27
  that final mission. I don't.
• 31:28
  Again, I don't know if you Scarlets this.
• 31:30
  Yeah, with Scarlett, which you can quite easily miss.
• 31:33
  Yeah, I missed it. We have an opportunity to
• 31:36
  confront her. Yeah, completely missed it.
• 31:36
  But yeah, there's a there's a door off to the side, and if you
• 31:40
  go through, you can confront her.
• 31:42
  But yeah, it's very easy to. And at the end of the game, and
• 31:45
  like the debrief at the end of the mission, it was just like
• 31:48
  Scarlett's whereabouts are unknown.
• 31:49
  I'm like, oh, right, okay. So we're not getting a we're not
• 31:53
  getting a resolution to that. Never mind.
• 31:54
  But. Yeah, I feel that some of the
• 31:57
  stuff could be clearer sometimes on where you need to be to do
• 32:00
  certain things. But but then again, you know, in
• 32:05
  the museum, it's like go left to go and defuse the bombs or go
• 32:08
  right to go and save Madison. And I knew what I was doing that
• 32:11
  time. So it's kind of like 5050 just
• 32:13
  wasn't very consistent. Yeah, that's that's, that's why
• 32:16
  I think the key is it's consistency sometimes.
• 32:18
  Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they really don't.
• 32:21
  And I think it's that that balance that's missing across
• 32:25
  the entire game. It's like they didn't have much
• 32:29
  time testing it and they they just had to cart it out the
• 32:32
  door. Okay.
• 32:35
  Yeah. So other relationships I had
• 32:36
  were in Taiwan, I had the gang Lord, he was on my side and
• 32:46
  Breako, I had a good relationship with him.
• 32:49
  The shake I spared his. Life, yeah.
• 32:51
  I spared the shake, had a good relationship with him.
• 32:54
  I had quite a few good relationships.
• 32:56
  This time. It leads us on to the next
• 33:01
  section question, which is which I've titled Femme Fatale.
• 33:05
  Which is Which romances did you pursue?
• 33:10
  I wasn't really aware of how many people you could romance.
• 33:14
  So I literally just so I'm guessing that would be Scarlets,
• 33:18
  Mina, Madison, and Z? Yeah, okay.
• 33:24
  So the only one that I really pursued, and it wasn't really
• 33:27
  even me pursuing, it just kind of happened was Mina.
• 33:30
  Yeah, because I had a good relationship with her.
• 33:32
  And then like the day before that, you go back to our
• 33:35
  protocol to to, you know, do the last bit of the game, you have
• 33:40
  the opportunity to like say a few different things where we'll
• 33:42
  kiss her and then like, that's it.
• 33:45
  So I did that. And then the next day she got
• 33:47
  shot in the face. So.
• 33:51
  I did a bad job. And then the same with Madison.
• 33:54
  I didn't have a romantic relationship with her at all.
• 33:57
  But I died. Yeah, I got Michael to say,
• 33:59
  don't worry, I'll protect you. And then she, she got shot and I
• 34:03
  was like, oh, it's very Bondesque, isn't it?
• 34:05
  It's very, very Daniel Craig saying he'll protect someone and
• 34:09
  then just not doing it. I did the opposite with her.
• 34:12
  So I'd read her back story and it turns out later on that she's
• 34:17
  the daughter of one of the Alpha Protocol agents, and because of
• 34:22
  that, she's not got a back story as such.
• 34:24
  So I read her back story not knowing that, and it was, it
• 34:27
  said that prior to her coming to Italy, there was nothing there.
• 34:32
  So I thought, double agent, something's not right here.
• 34:36
  So I went from being nice to immediately.
• 34:40
  I had a conversation with her and then it ended with me saying
• 34:43
  something along the lines of I don't like you, you don't like
• 34:45
  me. We just do what we need to and
• 34:47
  then I just let her get shot in the next mission.
• 34:49
  So excellent. That was a fun one.
• 34:54
  And I originally. The secret one as well, yeah,
• 35:00
  Mr. Blobbit. Yeah, Mr. Blobbit, Yeah, there
• 35:02
  we go. So I'd throw that in a little
• 35:05
  bit earlier than we did last week.
• 35:06
  A nice romance with Mr. Blobby. That's what we all need in our
• 35:08
  lives. Yes, it very awkward when you
• 35:11
  kiss Mr. Blobby though, because obviously he doesn't have
• 35:13
  movable lips and he's got very strange eyes, but it was
• 35:17
  nonetheless a very welcome addition to the game.
• 35:21
  A welcome kiss? Yeah, Welcome kiss from Mr.
• 35:23
  Blobby. That's right.
• 35:27
  That's the tagline I want for this episode.
• 35:29
  Please. That's right, Okay.
• 35:30
  Let's see what I can do. Yeah.
• 35:33
  So when I first played this game, I I remember some things,
• 35:38
  but I don't remember. Obviously when you haven't
• 35:40
  played the game in some years, certain things you remember
• 35:43
  certain areas and certain things, you just blank.
• 35:47
  So I apparently looking at my trophies for that, I romanced
• 35:52
  MENA, Madison and Scarlets. And this time I just did MENA
• 35:59
  and Scarlets. And like I said, I went against
• 36:03
  medicine and. Got a shot in the face.
• 36:04
  Scott Scarlett didn't like me very much because I wasn't
• 36:07
  honest with her and at the very beginning.
• 36:11
  Throughout the whole thing, really.
• 36:12
  Like, I got on well with her at the beginning and then towards
• 36:14
  the end she was just like, I just need honesty.
• 36:16
  I was an oil Baron, yeah, same. And she's like, I just need
• 36:20
  honesty. And then I just was like, well,
• 36:21
  that would make me a really bad spy, wasn't it?
• 36:23
  So no. And then, yeah, she disappears.
• 36:27
  So did you feed her information as well?
• 36:30
  Yeah, occasionally. I'd occasionally sell stuff to
• 36:32
  the black market, and then occasionally I'd send it to her.
• 36:34
  I varied it a little bit, you know?
• 36:37
  Yeah, yeah. So they're your, they're your
• 36:40
  relationships. I like the way that the.
• 36:43
  I like the way that the relationships progress, but I
• 36:47
  don't like the way that you get to a certain point in the game,
• 36:50
  which is basically the end game. And it's oh, now I'm going to
• 36:54
  sleep with all of them. Yes, yeah.
• 36:57
  It just kind of comes out the blue.
• 36:59
  Yeah. The, the balance that something
• 37:01
  like Mass Effect has is just not here and it's just thrown in at
• 37:06
  the end okay. So I'm sure we'll discuss some
• 37:14
  other tangents in terms of the stories that we both, the
• 37:16
  individual stories that we both had.
• 37:19
  Next section I've titled Bond Bauer or Born and apparently
• 37:25
  when putting together the dialogue system they are
• 37:28
  assigned by Bond Bauer, Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne.
• 37:33
  So the professional option is Jason Bourne the.
• 37:37
  Aggressive, aggressive option is Jack Bauer and the suave option
• 37:41
  is James Bond. They're not really in keeping
• 37:44
  with those characters to be honest.
• 37:45
  I mean, the suave is is certainly not Sean Connery, but
• 37:51
  loosely speaking, it does. And sometimes you'll find that
• 37:58
  the responses are far more appropriate and fitting to what
• 38:00
  you want to say than other times where it's just random.
• 38:03
  And sometimes you'll get a fourth option which you can
• 38:06
  unlock via unlocking Intel or doing a certain thing or taking
• 38:11
  a certain action, which is quite cool.
• 38:15
  I quite like this dialogue system.
• 38:16
  I think all dialogue systems are flawed in their own way.
• 38:18
  I think no one's got this quite right, but I like this one
• 38:22
  because it's got the time pressure that counts down and
• 38:25
  you have to make a quick decision and.
• 38:28
  There is a problem with that though, because and I I saw a
• 38:31
  video on this that you're like you need to make the choice
• 38:34
  before the person finishes speaking and.
• 38:38
  Sometimes you have to kind of make a choice before you know
• 38:41
  what they're going to kind of finish with all the inclination
• 38:44
  that it's going to go. So it is a it is a good thing
• 38:47
  that it's timed. But at the same time, I think
• 38:49
  they probably could have given a little bit more of a window
• 38:52
  because it can sometimes be the fact that you're answering
• 38:54
  something in a way that maybe you didn't want to because you
• 38:57
  didn't get to hear the whole thing before you'd made your
• 39:00
  decision or had time enough to change it.
• 39:03
  Yeah, I agree with that. What I will say is that it's
• 39:06
  better than the binary systems that a lot of games were using
• 39:10
  in 2010, which was Allah Mass effects.
• 39:16
  Blue is good, red is bad, and you can pick your Paragon or
• 39:20
  your renegade and there's really no middle ground.
• 39:23
  Or if there is a middle ground, there's no advantage to taking
• 39:26
  that middle ground. Well, same with Jedi Academy,
• 39:28
  isn't it? You either be Dark Side or Light
• 39:31
  side. And I'd say again that most
• 39:35
  games today don't seem to have figured that out because you
• 39:39
  still get so many games, which is be the good guy, be the bad
• 39:42
  guy. And it's just so tedious now,
• 39:45
  isn't it so cliche? And when Mass Effect was doing
• 39:51
  it, it was, it was quite early on in terms of branching paths
• 39:56
  in stories. But yeah, now they've had
• 39:59
  decades to kind of come up with a better system.
• 40:01
  But. I feel like a lot of games still
• 40:03
  struggle with it, so here we don't have that.
• 40:05
  We've got a different set of options.
• 40:07
  And yes, you can go professional every time, but some characters
• 40:13
  will like you going suave, yeah, Or some characters will like you
• 40:16
  being aggressive. And one of the things that the
• 40:18
  game tells you is that there's no right or wrong in the way
• 40:23
  that you treat characters. By treating a character badly,
• 40:26
  you can gain something just as much from treating the character
• 40:29
  well. So good of so a good example of
• 40:32
  that actually. So, Krigori, what What did you
• 40:34
  do when you met Krigori I? Was professional for you from
• 40:38
  memory, I think I was professional with him.
• 40:41
  I just gave him some money when he asked me for it and then that
• 40:44
  was it. But I didn't know that you did
• 40:46
  something a bit different, didn't you?
• 40:50
  So Krigori is one of the moments in the game that a lot of fans
• 40:57
  of the game had as one of the the great moments and and just
• 41:02
  an example of the potential of this game because you have this
• 41:05
  conversation with this informant in Russia.
• 41:07
  You've never met him before and you can deal with it quite a
• 41:11
  number of ways. Yeah, you're in a bar, he's
• 41:16
  having a drink and it can benefit you to, to handle it in
• 41:20
  different ways. I decided to go in.
• 41:25
  He tried to extort me for money. The first choice that I had to
• 41:29
  make, I decided to take his bottle of probably vodka and
• 41:34
  smash it over his head. After that, he was terrified of
• 41:40
  me. And was that the suave
• 41:41
  motivation? That was the that was.
• 41:44
  The aggressive one. Okay, got you.
• 41:47
  Yeah, that was the 4th option just to attack him and just
• 41:50
  yeah, so so after that he was very compliant.
• 41:56
  He sent me an e-mail afterwards saying, I know not to mess with
• 42:00
  you now, but he did still provide me with information
• 42:03
  because he he saw the value in having a relationship with me.
• 42:07
  Yes, There's an interesting side effect to that, though, which
• 42:10
  probably a lot of people don't know.
• 42:14
  There's a mission later on where you're at the embassy in Russia.
• 42:17
  I think it's the American embassy and there are people
• 42:22
  attacking the embassy. But if you've aggravated Gregori
• 42:25
  beforehand, basically law enforcement will be there and
• 42:31
  they will fight the mercenaries for you.
• 42:33
  So you've yeah, you've got this side of things that treating him
• 42:37
  terribly and and and basically assaulting him actually goes in
• 42:42
  your favor. And that's one of the little
• 42:43
  wrinkles that this game has. Yeah.
• 42:46
  Of the areas in the game, so we've got, we've got the, the,
• 42:50
  the training area, which is also the area of the final mission.
• 42:53
  You've got Saudi Arabia. It doesn't say anywhere specific
• 42:56
  in Saudi Arabia. You've got Moscow, you've got
• 43:00
  Rome, you've got Taipei, and you've got the the very, very
• 43:04
  brief stint in in Greece, which is your favorite hub?
• 43:10
  Is it my favorite safe house or just my favorite area in
• 43:13
  general? Favorite area in terms?
• 43:16
  Of probably Moscow or Taipei, whereas I know that you're.
• 43:24
  You're the Other, aren't you? You're.
• 43:25
  You're Rome. Yeah.
• 43:26
  I like Rome. Yeah.
• 43:28
  I I found because each each area has its own kind of boss I
• 43:33
  suppose and and own thing that you're going for.
• 43:36
  So in in Moscow, you're going against this very annoying
• 43:43
  Sergey Sovian and it's head of government Sergey Sovian since
• 43:47
  the 21st of October 2010. There you go.
• 43:49
  I don't know if you heard that, but that was my my good friend
• 43:52
  Alexa telling me what's going on in Russia.
• 43:54
  So there you are. That's what you need.
• 43:56
  That's right, Kiss from Mr. So yeah, in in Russia there is a a
• 44:04
  boss called Breako who you have to fight the end who's
• 44:08
  irritating. Blobby.
• 43:58
  And what's going on in Russia? He's alright, but I found that
• 44:10
  the the boss is frustrating as he was at the end Oman Dang in
• 44:15
  Taipei. I thought he was quite a good
• 44:19
  villain, though he didn't get any back story that the best
• 44:22
  kind of. Sub boss Back story was Marburg
• 44:26
  or Malburg or whatever his name is in Rome.
• 44:29
  I really didn't like him. They did a good job of fleshing
• 44:32
  him out as an unlikable villain where there's the others were
• 44:34
  just kind of there, if you know what I mean.
• 44:37
  But no, I'd say Rome was my least favorite part to play.
• 44:40
  I think so. Rome was apparently stitched
• 44:43
  together because they apparently was the area that they've done
• 44:47
  quite a lot on before They changed tax about halfway
• 44:50
  through development. So the Rome missions are
• 44:53
  stitched together from previous missions, and because of that,
• 44:57
  you've got quite an eclectic mix.
• 44:59
  You've got like the sniper level, You've got the very small
• 45:01
  safe house, yes. And one of the things it does,
• 45:06
  it sets up with Saudi Arabia that it's going to be quite a
• 45:08
  conventional mission system. But then when you go to other
• 45:11
  places, you get the dialogue missions and you get the sniping
• 45:14
  missions and you get the other odd missions here and there,
• 45:16
  like the safe house. And he likes to play around with
• 45:21
  it quite a bit. And you'll you'll also return to
• 45:23
  certain locations, but you'll uncover a lot more of the
• 45:25
  location and so on. And there was one I know that
• 45:29
  you were planning to do in Russia, but it was obviously a
• 45:33
  time thing in the background. And I lost the opportunity to do
• 45:35
  it. Yeah.
• 45:37
  So there's there's like a ticking system going on in the
• 45:40
  background of this game, and I like it for that.
• 45:44
  Do you have a favorite mission? Maybe maybe the one way you go.
• 45:50
  I think it's Rome. I don't think it's Moscow where
• 45:52
  you go into the warehouse and there's a shootout with.
• 45:56
  The. Russians and the CIA and you've
• 45:58
  got to identify a body and grab some stuff and then get out
• 46:02
  before the police show up. And that was that was stand out
• 46:05
  I suppose amongst all of them. What about you?
• 46:09
  I think Marburgs Villa is my favorite just because it was a
• 46:14
  like a fully realized full level that sometimes it felt like some
• 46:19
  of the levels were cut short or they were missing bits, but that
• 46:23
  felt like it was a proper level that you you almost might find
• 46:28
  in a spin cell game or something like that.
• 46:29
  It felt like a complete level where you go outside you, you go
• 46:32
  through the Villa. I thought that about the hotel
• 46:36
  in Taipei, yeah. And that was that was a good
• 46:38
  mission as well. It did give me very loose
• 46:43
  thoughts of the Bangkok mission in Hitman 2016.
• 46:47
  Yeah, that that was a good mission.
• 46:48
  I like that one, actually. I forgot about that one.
• 46:51
  And that one's cool as well because you've got certain
• 46:53
  allies that you're taking in and you meet them at certain points
• 46:56
  in the mission as well. Okay, Let's talk about the
• 47:02
  visuals of this game quickly. I'll let you go first.
• 47:07
  It's weird because it's a 2010 game, but it kind of looks like
• 47:11
  it's from 2005. It I'd say 2007, probably early
• 47:16
  that early sorts of PS3360 era games.
• 47:21
  I'd like you better than PS. Two, I think you could argue
• 47:24
  maybe early PS3, but I think there would also be an argument
• 47:27
  for like very late PS2, like the PS2 games that were being
• 47:30
  developed whilst the PS3 was out, so when it was kind of at
• 47:33
  its Max capacity. And I mean it's quite choppy on
• 47:38
  the PS3 which we mentioned. So I won't hold that against it
• 47:41
  as a game because that's just the the platform.
• 47:44
  Well, you can't hold it against it as a game because that should
• 47:46
  have been ironed out. Well, it should have been, but
• 47:49
  in terms of the overall look of the game, I don't think I can
• 47:52
  say too much about it in terms of the the platform that I
• 47:55
  played it on, but I don't think it looks fantastic.
• 48:01
  It doesn't look bad, but no, it's OK.
• 48:04
  It looks very, very dated. It looks older than other games
• 48:08
  that came out in 2010, I'd say definitely, definitely.
• 48:11
  I mean when you consider when MGS Four came out, I'd say
• 48:16
  compared to this, yeah, I think some of the faces look all
• 48:19
  right. And I think some of the facial
• 48:21
  animation looks Okay, especially Thornton.
• 48:23
  I think some of his transitions look okay.
• 48:26
  But yeah, it's not. It's not a pretty game.
• 48:30
  And the animation is some of the animation is okay, like some of
• 48:36
  the action moves and the takedowns are fine.
• 48:39
  The the the Crouch animation is the worst thing that's ever been
• 48:44
  put to disc. It's like a weird an injured
• 48:50
  duck. Yes, it looks like he's got
• 48:51
  poorly legs. Yes.
• 48:54
  Yeah. It's really bad Crouch animation
• 48:57
  that I'm sure everyone will laugh at the first time they see
• 49:01
  it. Yeah, it's okay.
• 49:04
  It's just very, very average with a very unmemorable art
• 49:09
  style, I'd say. What about the audio in this
• 49:13
  game? Again, not very memorable.
• 49:17
  I can't really think the music in the breakout fight is decent,
• 49:23
  but like you said, that's licensed and that's the reason
• 49:25
  why it hasn't been ported or put backwards compatible or taken
• 49:30
  off steam or whatever. But overall, the music is very
• 49:33
  forgettable. The voice acting is all right,
• 49:37
  but the voice acting is solid. It's very a lot of the time.
• 49:44
  I thought the dialogue that you could choose for Michael was
• 49:47
  very much a bit of a Leon Kennedy Resident Evil 4 tongue
• 49:52
  in cheek thing. Yeah, just quite cheesy.
• 49:58
  Wasn't really in step with the rest of the game sometimes, but
• 50:02
  the voice acting wasn't bad. But I think the writing probably
• 50:04
  could have been better, I think. I actually think one of the key
• 50:10
  problems is it with this game is not the cast.
• 50:12
  I think the cast is quite interesting, but Michael
• 50:15
  Thornton himself is just such a generic looking sounding
• 50:22
  character. Even the name is just very
• 50:26
  generic, and to me, if you go down the suave route, for
• 50:31
  example, it's got none of the charm of the best James Bonds,
• 50:36
  not even close. And it just feels like a strange
• 50:41
  mishmash of these three spy archetypes that doesn't quite
• 50:46
  blend very well. Yeah, that's that's a real weak
• 50:51
  point for the game for me and and I think, I think if it had a
• 50:55
  more memorable, stronger protagonist, it would have done
• 50:59
  better. But here we are without that, so
• 51:04
  okay. So describe the game in one
• 51:08
  phrase followed by one word. The phrase I would use is Jack
• 51:12
  of all trades, master of none it.
• 51:15
  But I would maybe argue that Jack of all trades might be a
• 51:18
  bit too generous and I'd say trainee of all trades the the
• 51:22
  the thing that I found most. Frustrating with this game is
• 51:27
  that it tries to do so many things that it doesn't focus on
• 51:31
  one or two singular things to do well.
• 51:34
  So I think the stealth could be better.
• 51:38
  I think the shooting could be enormously better and the the
• 51:43
  shooting itself, like you mentioned earlier, there are
• 51:46
  quite a few sections where it is forced, particularly the last
• 51:49
  mission and because. There's no emphasis on a
• 51:54
  particular thing like shooting or like stealth or like
• 51:57
  whatever. The the four shooting sections,
• 52:01
  if you haven't been putting your points into shooting, I can
• 52:03
  imagine will be like a nightmare.
• 52:05
  Yeah, they weren't fun. And yeah, it it just feels like
• 52:11
  this game was trying to do far too many things to be cool, then
• 52:17
  focus on maybe a few different things that would have.
• 52:21
  You know, giving it a bit more. Focus in a few.
• 52:23
  Areas that would have made it a better game overall I I agree
• 52:27
  with you. I don't think it was to be cool
• 52:29
  though. I I think this was a a Goldeneye
• 52:33
  situation, except Goldeneye pulled it off when Rare made
• 52:39
  Goldeneye. They had no experience and they
• 52:43
  just happened to pull this amazing thing out of the bag.
• 52:48
  I think they had a real love for what they were making at
• 52:53
  Obsidian. So if you apparently if you go
• 52:56
  to the Obsidian development offices today, there are still
• 53:01
  posters of the characters from Alpha Protocol on the walls,
• 53:04
  including one of the cut characters.
• 53:06
  I think there was a real love for what they were trying to
• 53:09
  make but by their own admission, they didn't really know how to
• 53:14
  make that. They'd never made a game like
• 53:15
  this before. Obsidian's got deep history and
• 53:20
  I think they were involved in Pillars of Eternity and some of
• 53:25
  the old Borders Gate style games and they were, they were really,
• 53:30
  really renowned before this for those kind of games.
• 53:33
  But they they just didn't have experience making this start of
• 53:35
  game. And I think I will never
• 53:43
  criticize someone for being too ambitious, but at the same time
• 53:50
  you've got to acknowledge that that's what some of the
• 53:53
  drawbacks of this game are, because they were too ambitious.
• 53:57
  I think so. I think with because we we we've
• 54:00
  seen each other's lists and I don't know lots about all of the
• 54:05
  games on your on your 15. I know a fair bit about some of
• 54:09
  them and bits and bobs about others.
• 54:11
  And like I said, this is a game that I went into with no
• 54:14
  knowledge and because I I know. Because I've seen your list, and
• 54:18
  I know generally kind of what you're into, usually I found
• 54:22
  this one to be a bit of a surprise because like you said,
• 54:27
  you know that this game's flawed and divisive.
• 54:31
  Flawed. Yeah, 100%.
• 54:33
  And I think out of all of the games that we've discussed, this
• 54:36
  is the one in terms of you liking it, that I'm the most
• 54:39
  surprised by, just because I think because I found this game
• 54:43
  so frustrating and again, it does come back to that.
• 54:47
  That thing that we discussed with Jedi Academy, the nostalgia
• 54:51
  and previous memories with the game go a long way, and there'll
• 54:55
  be games on my 15 list that you're probably playing just be
• 54:58
  like, why? Why is this on here?
• 55:00
  Because it's so clunky and old, particularly some of the old PS1
• 55:04
  games I have on there. But this is the one that I'm
• 55:06
  most surprised by. Well.
• 55:08
  And also, I didn't play it that long ago.
• 55:10
  It was five years, I think. Yeah.
• 55:13
  So yeah, it's we'll get we'll get to we'll get into some of my
• 55:18
  wrap up thoughts of this game. So my, my, my, my words describe
• 55:22
  this game. Unlike Michael Thornton himself
• 55:28
  I think why I like this game. I in my mind I look for a few
• 55:35
  things in the game that may be on necessarily linear and one
• 55:40
  one that I really look for is atmosphere.
• 55:42
  I would say this is the most atmospheric game.
• 55:45
  Another thing I look for is personality and everything
• 55:50
  around Michael Thornton except for him himself.
• 55:53
  And I just find this game charming in a you can see it's
• 56:01
  trying so hard and I find there to be something admirable about
• 56:06
  that. And and the one thing that I
• 56:08
  think this game gets right is probably the stuff that no one
• 56:15
  sees which is all the stuff going on in the background or
• 56:17
  the relationship building or the decision making is that it's
• 56:21
  logging in the background that has an impact like side
• 56:24
  disappearing from my story completely like certain
• 56:28
  characters that you dealt with certain missions that you
• 56:31
  weren't able to complete because of time constraints.
• 56:34
  There's a lot going on in the background and I find that
• 56:36
  really impressive because we know that that's not always an
• 56:43
  easy thing to do for the biggest budget games.
• 56:45
  But you've got this game that obviously, quite obviously
• 56:48
  didn't have a huge budget. The fact that it's got the
• 56:51
  limping duck animation in there and that that wasn't picked up
• 56:56
  by someone and said what on earth is this?
• 56:58
  It obviously doesn't. Well, I was going to say I've
• 57:01
  just had a thought that. When when we're at university
• 57:04
  and and since then sometimes when I come and see you you're
• 57:08
  you quite enjoy and and you you take, you take pleasure in
• 57:12
  watching bad films sometimes don't you Just to see how awful
• 57:15
  they are. You find them quite funny.
• 57:18
  Like B, Like B movies. Yeah.
• 57:21
  Well, some, some. I like cult films.
• 57:24
  I like some cult films. And I remember when you and me
• 57:28
  used to watch bad horror films. Huge or or or just bad B movies
• 57:34
  in general, you'd quite enjoy them and and be be entertained
• 57:39
  by just how ridiculous they were.
• 57:41
  And a lot of the time I'll just be watching them.
• 57:43
  Like why are we watching this? Like, I hate it so much.
• 57:46
  And this game makes me think back to then when you and me
• 57:51
  used to watch these films and you would find them very funny
• 57:54
  and just you'd be able to laugh at the ridiculousness of them or
• 57:58
  the charm of them. And I would just kind of be sat
• 58:01
  down, like, why? I don't know.
• 58:05
  I'd have to have an example. And I'll tell you how I film
• 58:09
  now. I do think you take away budget.
• 58:14
  You take away. I tell you what I like in games.
• 58:19
  And I think you'll see this in not all of the games in my list.
• 58:22
  Some of them are very well respected and I think there is a
• 58:25
  there's a really good argument for why they they deserve to be
• 58:28
  on the Metacritic top 100. You'll see it with a few games.
• 58:32
  A few other games though. One thing I like, and I think I
• 58:36
  like as a person is going against the grain.
• 58:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 58:41
  I'd say that about you as well. And I think I'm replaying Near
• 58:47
  at the moment, which is another game on my list.
• 58:49
  And one of the things I loved about Near when when I first
• 58:52
  played it was, and again I didn't play that at the time
• 58:55
  either. But when I first played Near was
• 58:57
  that it takes Japanese role-playing games and other
• 59:02
  other games and it spoofs them and it it takes what you expect
• 59:07
  and does something different with it.
• 59:09
  And Alpha Protocol. It's not, it's not Near and it's
• 59:14
  not it doesn't do that to the extent that Near does.
• 59:16
  But there's something about it that is unconventional in its
• 59:19
  ambition in that it didn't play it safe.
• 59:22
  It could have been. This is the way I see Alpha
• 59:24
  Protocol. It could have come out and been
• 59:30
  completely forgotten. But you do get those
• 59:32
  retrospectives. There are certain games that
• 59:35
  we've played on the list that you search for videos on YouTube
• 59:38
  and there's nothing. There's no one even having an
• 59:41
  opinion. On that no one talks about 2023,
• 59:44
  yeah, they just they are gone and.
• 59:46
  Which is why we've got our podcast to shine a light on
• 59:50
  them. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:52
  And you've got this game that somehow is resonated with not
• 59:58
  everyone. Very divisive game I read before
• 1:00:01
  you even played it. I read someone talking about
• 1:00:05
  this game saying it was complete drudgery and they hated every
• 1:00:11
  second of it. So there are obviously different
• 1:00:16
  sides of the coin with this game.
• 1:00:17
  Some people say this is a great game to play while you're having
• 1:00:20
  a drink and. Yeah, you said that to me.
• 1:00:23
  Yeah. And just just here's a good
• 1:00:27
  example. I love the James Bond films, you
• 1:00:29
  know that you do and and I can watch the the James Bond films
• 1:00:34
  that are considered bad and find merit in them and enjoy them
• 1:00:37
  fully. So that is a good example of
• 1:00:38
  that. I do think there are merit.
• 1:00:41
  Maybe that's just my indulgence with James Bond.
• 1:00:44
  I don't think so but I yeah, I don't know.
• 1:00:47
  But I I see this as sort of one of the not classic James Bond
• 1:00:53
  films really entertaining something that you can just I
• 1:00:58
  don't know you have a bag of popcorn and and play it.
• 1:01:01
  It's just fun, just something just fun about it.
• 1:01:03
  And I think that's my my we've not even got to the question of
• 1:01:07
  the week, so I'm going to ask the question of the week before
• 1:01:09
  we get too far into the conclusion before.
• 1:01:15
  So once our protocol was released, Obsidian started to
• 1:01:18
  put together plans for a sequel, and they described the sequel as
• 1:01:26
  it would have ironed out a lot of the issues that people had
• 1:01:29
  with the first game, but built on those strong points that
• 1:01:32
  people were aware of. So if there had been a sequel
• 1:01:38
  that wasn't kiboshed by Sega, which it was, what direction
• 1:01:42
  would you have liked to see the sequel go in?
• 1:01:47
  Firstly, can I say I'm glad that there's no sequel to this game,
• 1:01:50
  because I think that you'd suggest that I play it and I
• 1:01:53
  don't think I'd enjoy it. But I don't know, like spy games
• 1:02:00
  are hard to get right, I think. You and me have discussed spy
• 1:02:04
  games before, and realistically the only ones that ever get a
• 1:02:08
  look in a games like Hitman, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid,
• 1:02:13
  and they're arguably not spy games.
• 1:02:15
  No Espionage Self Action, yeah. Disguise and I think, I think in
• 1:02:21
  terms of what this game is trying to be, Hitman is possibly
• 1:02:27
  the closest to it, but isn't that close at all.
• 1:02:31
  No, it lacks the talking, doesn't it?
• 1:02:32
  Yes, and they has the glamour. It has the globe trotting.
• 1:02:37
  I think that what a sequel for Alpha Protocol would need is
• 1:02:42
  just something like a much bigger budget, because I think
• 1:02:45
  if they'd had more time and more money to put into this game, it
• 1:02:50
  would have been better. And maybe take out a few of the
• 1:02:53
  elements like the like the gadgets.
• 1:02:57
  I don't think that those are necessary, unless you like.
• 1:03:00
  Super focused on those being a big element, Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  And I think, you know, if you are going to have big action set
• 1:03:09
  pieces like what you have in the game, every mission, you can go
• 1:03:12
  in with a pistol and with a shotgun or an assault rifle or
• 1:03:16
  SMG's or whatever. And if they're using, I've not
• 1:03:19
  seen the Bourne films for a very long time and I've never watched
• 1:03:22
  24. So I don't know anything about
• 1:03:24
  Jack Bauer. So putting it against Bond, if
• 1:03:27
  you think about let's say. Let's say No Time to Die, which
• 1:03:33
  I know is your favorite James Bond film that's ever been
• 1:03:35
  released and you love it very much.
• 1:03:38
  But if you if you think about No Time to Die, there are I don't
• 1:03:46
  want to. If you do, it's your favorite.
• 1:03:48
  But there are there are points in that that film where Bond
• 1:03:52
  will like like the section in Cuba when he's.
• 1:03:56
  When he teams up with, I can't remember the character's name,
• 1:03:59
  Anna Diamas, and there's some action and there's some SMG's
• 1:04:03
  and there's a few assault rifles, but it is primarily just
• 1:04:06
  a secluded like shoot out with pistols from the rest of the
• 1:04:10
  film. Yes, and I feel that what Alpha
• 1:04:14
  Protocol could have done differently, or what a sequel
• 1:04:17
  could do differently is you look towards the end of No Time to
• 1:04:21
  Die where. Bonds on the island and he's got
• 1:04:25
  a load of different weapons with him and got you know brings the
• 1:04:29
  kitchen sink with him to take on whatever his name is Rami Malik.
• 1:04:33
  And I feel that Alpha protocol in the bits where you go through
• 1:04:39
  Moscow, Saudi Arabia. Michael Thornton is always fully
• 1:04:42
  kitted up like he's always got his AR.
• 1:04:45
  He's always got his gadgets, he's always got and Bond doesn't
• 1:04:48
  always have that stuff with him and.
• 1:04:52
  I think that's where I struggle with this game being a spy game
• 1:04:55
  because it feels more like an action game to me, with a few
• 1:04:58
  stealth sections, kind of a few stealth bits popped in there to
• 1:05:03
  say that it's stealth or spy RPG, where to me this feels more
• 1:05:08
  like a Spec OPS RPG then Spy, if that makes sense.
• 1:05:14
  Yeah, it's very gungho at times. I suppose it depends how you
• 1:05:17
  define Spy, doesn't it? Because James Bond could be a
• 1:05:22
  spy or it could be like Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy with George
• 1:05:28
  Smiley. Yeah, George Smiley, the
• 1:05:30
  character who is who is very much people described like a
• 1:05:34
  real spy, which is that he doesn't actually do much, but
• 1:05:37
  that that's what real Spy did. Yes.
• 1:05:40
  Or does. So James Bond is fictionalized.
• 1:05:43
  It's action heavy and it's not. It's not realistic.
• 1:05:48
  It is entertaining, isn't it? Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  And you know, I might even go as far to say that I don't think
• 1:05:54
  that Jason Bourne is a spy. Jason Bourne feels like a again,
• 1:06:01
  like a spec OPS agent that will occasionally, you know, go and
• 1:06:06
  get information from somewhere from what I remember from the
• 1:06:09
  films from long ago. But to me, a spy is is, James
• 1:06:15
  Bond is. Infiltrating parties or
• 1:06:19
  infiltrating government buildings and and and hacking
• 1:06:22
  and getting information, which this game includes.
• 1:06:25
  But it just feels like it's too action heavy to be classified as
• 1:06:29
  spy, which is why I say spec OPS.
• 1:06:32
  And I think what a sequel of our protocol could or should have
• 1:06:36
  done would be to. Really rein it in in terms of
• 1:06:42
  the action heavy pieces. And make it a much quieter or a
• 1:06:47
  much slower game. And maybe just just get rid of a
• 1:06:55
  lot of the elements that aren't necessary to it and spend more
• 1:06:59
  time focusing on the things that are going to be crucial in it.
• 1:07:02
  Like if you are going to have action heavy pieces at the end
• 1:07:05
  of the game, make sure that your action heavy pieces are good to
• 1:07:08
  play and not just all over the place.
• 1:07:12
  And and that's. And the theme of me talking
• 1:07:14
  about this game is that, and it is all over the place.
• 1:07:17
  It completely is. It's.
• 1:07:19
  You know, some portions of it are bordering on not unplayable,
• 1:07:25
  but very much, very much like how it's a roller coaster, isn't
• 1:07:32
  it? Yeah, like a few bits of this
• 1:07:35
  game. I was like, how has this got
• 1:07:37
  through? It's like the the the Crouch,
• 1:07:41
  the Crouch animation. How is that not being picked up
• 1:07:43
  and? Yes, I wasn't that offended by
• 1:07:45
  that, but it is funny. You.
• 1:07:47
  You saw it beforehand. When I first saw that Crouch
• 1:07:50
  animation in in 2017 or 18, I thought you'd seen it in a video
• 1:07:55
  before. You sent to me.
• 1:07:57
  I looked at it and I thought, what is this?
• 1:08:01
  What is this? How is this in the game?
• 1:08:03
  Yeah, I don't know what you mean.
• 1:08:05
  It's. Yeah, it's just it's like I say,
• 1:08:09
  Jack Fortrey's Master of None. Just focus on the bits that you
• 1:08:12
  really want to get right and just remove all of the jank
• 1:08:16
  because there is so much jank in this game, which to me makes it
• 1:08:21
  very difficult to play janky. It's very janky and it's just a
• 1:08:25
  hard, hard sell. I wouldn't recommend this game
• 1:08:28
  to to someone I just yes. But that's what I would do with
• 1:08:34
  a with a sequel. Rain it, rain it in.
• 1:08:37
  Read it back. Yes, what?
• 1:08:40
  What? What do you think?
• 1:08:42
  I'm. I'm going to answer in my
• 1:08:44
  conclusion because, yeah, all right.
• 1:08:48
  So before I answer, though, I want to ask you, and I know that
• 1:08:54
  I'm not knowing the answer, A resounding yes.
• 1:08:58
  Do you think it deserves to be on the list?
• 1:09:00
  Kissing Mr. Bobby. Only the Kissing Mr. Bobby
• 1:09:03
  section of the game. But, but before I answer that,
• 1:09:07
  what? What did you think that I'd
• 1:09:09
  think of this game going into it?
• 1:09:12
  Because I think, I think this game over the past three years
• 1:09:16
  usually will agree on on a game. And I don't think I can think of
• 1:09:20
  a game from recent memory from the past year or two, where I've
• 1:09:26
  differed so far from from you in an opinion of a game.
• 1:09:31
  I think this is probably the first time where it's been like
• 1:09:33
  a. A really kind of long distance
• 1:09:37
  between our opinions on the game.
• 1:09:40
  So what did you think that I'd think of it?
• 1:09:44
  I think you're intrigued by this game because I know that of your
• 1:09:52
  own accord. You were going away and watching
• 1:09:54
  videos about it. Yes.
• 1:09:56
  And I think in theory, had the game play been where you wanted
• 1:10:02
  it to be, I think you'd have got a lot more enjoyment out of this
• 1:10:06
  game. Yeah, quite possibly.
• 1:10:07
  And my my thoughts were, and I said it to you last week, if you
• 1:10:14
  can get past the hurdles, which I said was the game play, I
• 1:10:20
  think you would enjoy parts of this game and what it's trying
• 1:10:24
  to be. And that's where I still stand.
• 1:10:27
  I think this game I find interesting, I find it curious,
• 1:10:33
  I find it fascinating. And I think that's what I
• 1:10:39
  probably neglected in my thinking of that is.
• 1:10:44
  I think I would say that I'm quite a lot more patient than
• 1:10:48
  you at times, and especially with games and I think a lot of
• 1:10:54
  time in person. I'm not always the most patient
• 1:10:57
  person, but with games I can be very, very patient and I don't
• 1:11:00
  know why that is and I don't know where that comes from.
• 1:11:04
  I I'm the kind of person that can sit and wait for 10 minutes
• 1:11:07
  to find the right time to take someone down in a self game.
• 1:11:12
  So I think that's the bit that I neglected.
• 1:11:15
  I didn't. I didn't really consider that.
• 1:11:19
  Yeah, that, that, that's fair enough.
• 1:11:21
  And and The thing is, I think these these 15 games each for
• 1:11:25
  us. There probably will be more.
• 1:11:29
  I'll tell you what I was worried about, and I know this is, this
• 1:11:31
  is going on a bit as a as a longer episode, but I do think
• 1:11:35
  it's all worthwhile. When you were playing this, and
• 1:11:39
  with my reaction to Jedi and I, which also wasn't, it wasn't
• 1:11:44
  glowing, was it? I thought we're going to be
• 1:11:48
  playing through each other's 15 games and we're going to each
• 1:11:51
  hate each. Other Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:11:54
  So that was, that was a bit of my concern.
• 1:11:56
  I'm not, obviously. We're looking for the games that
• 1:11:59
  we both enjoy and I think that's part of the reason we want each
• 1:12:02
  other to play the other's games. Well, I think, I think that the
• 1:12:08
  next 28 games that we're going to be doing are going to be very
• 1:12:12
  interesting because up until now we've been playing games that
• 1:12:16
  are, you know. Universally critically
• 1:12:20
  acclaimed, mostly. We're now playing games that
• 1:12:27
  from your list. A lot of them are games that
• 1:12:30
  I've either not heard of or don't know much about.
• 1:12:32
  And from my games, a lot of them are all PS1 games from like the
• 1:12:35
  90s or the early 2000s that I quite openly will admit probably
• 1:12:41
  aren't great. So it will be in.
• 1:12:42
  I think we're going to have more episodes like this where.
• 1:12:45
  One of us is just going to be like, what?
• 1:12:48
  Like what? What?
• 1:12:49
  Why? You know, I think that's Okay as
• 1:12:52
  well. It's not.
• 1:12:53
  Yeah, it's. 100% And you know, you and me know each other well
• 1:12:57
  enough that I'm never going to say to you like, why the hell do
• 1:13:01
  you like this game? That's outrageous.
• 1:13:02
  You've got bad taste. And I know that you wouldn't say
• 1:13:05
  the same to me because you and me, even though we are quite
• 1:13:08
  similar and we know each other very well.
• 1:13:10
  We do have quite different tastes.
• 1:13:13
  We do when it comes to that cross section in the middle that
• 1:13:16
  that that we we cross over on. But we do have different tastes
• 1:13:19
  and and and to be honest those those people that say, oh, for
• 1:13:26
  for someone to be a friend or for someone to get along with
• 1:13:28
  someone, you need to have exactly the same taste.
• 1:13:30
  I've never agreed with that. No.
• 1:13:31
  I think my my friendship group is an eclectic bunch and really
• 1:13:36
  quite random. And when I come to get married
• 1:13:38
  and I'm quite intrigued to see those different groups meet each
• 1:13:41
  other because it's going to be funny just just seeing people
• 1:13:45
  interact, being completely different from each other.
• 1:13:47
  So yeah, that's going to be a fun one.
• 1:13:49
  Yes. So yeah, I'm, I'm looking
• 1:13:52
  forward to the next few games that we're doing because I think
• 1:13:54
  we're going to have more conversations like this.
• 1:13:56
  But to answer your question, other than the Mr. Blobby
• 1:13:59
  kissing, which obviously we we know is universally loved and 10
• 1:14:02
  out of 10, that is a 10 out of 10.
• 1:14:04
  I don't think this game deserves to be anywhere near any top 100
• 1:14:08
  lists and I'll be quite honest and say that I hope I don't have
• 1:14:13
  a play again. I'm really glad that I finished
• 1:14:16
  it though because we we agreed at the start of this that each
• 1:14:21
  of us has 2 gal of jail, three cards.
• 1:14:24
  So if we're really not getting on with the game, then we can
• 1:14:27
  say, look, I can't finish this one to each other twice.
• 1:14:33
  There are games on my side. So this game I wasn't sure where
• 1:14:37
  you're going to fall. There are games on my side that
• 1:14:40
  I'm sure that you're going to fall on the negative side
• 1:14:45
  because I know, for example, there are some horror games on
• 1:14:47
  there. I know you're not the biggest
• 1:14:48
  horror game fan. I think you're going to struggle
• 1:14:50
  with some of those, so I I think you are wise to complete this
• 1:14:55
  one and probably save those two passes for other.
• 1:14:57
  Games I, I, I also didn't want to be like okay.
• 1:14:59
  The first game that we we take care of your choice.
• 1:15:03
  I'm going to take a pass on please because yeah the the The
• 1:15:08
  thing is I I can tell when things are important to you and
• 1:15:13
  I can tell when you you really want an opinion on something and
• 1:15:17
  when you want input. And I know that this was one of
• 1:15:19
  them. Yeah, this game.
• 1:15:21
  I mean, I'm not, I don't have a, I mean, you'll come to see when
• 1:15:25
  I do my conclusion for this that my thoughts, I'm quite open to
• 1:15:33
  the fact that this is a very divisive game with with a lot of
• 1:15:35
  flaws. And then sometimes you can
• 1:15:37
  accept that, sometimes you can't.
• 1:15:39
  And that's just the way it is, isn't it?
• 1:15:41
  Yeah, I think the, the, the one, the one positive thing that I
• 1:15:46
  will end on. Talking about this game is I'm
• 1:15:49
  glad that it wasn't longer. Yeah, it doesn't outstand.
• 1:15:53
  It's welcome. No, it it's long enough, but it
• 1:16:00
  it could have been shorter. But yes, it it wasn't.
• 1:16:04
  It didn't leave me feeling like I'd put a load of my life into
• 1:16:09
  something that I didn't enjoy, which is always appreciated with
• 1:16:12
  games. So yes, my my opinion is I
• 1:16:15
  didn't like this game and I. I don't think it should be on a
• 1:16:19
  list, but now your turn. I feel that it's going to be
• 1:16:22
  slightly different from what I say.
• 1:16:26
  As I said, this game was my final addition to my 15 games
• 1:16:31
  and we talked about wild cards a bit in the in the lead up to
• 1:16:36
  this. In the years and years of lead
• 1:16:38
  up into this, this was very much a wild card in that I knew it
• 1:16:41
  was divisive. I know that it's still divisive.
• 1:16:44
  I know that a lot of people love this game.
• 1:16:46
  Yeah, that every single person that loves this game
• 1:16:50
  acknowledges that it's got a tremendous amount of flaws and
• 1:16:54
  the balancing is all over the place.
• 1:16:56
  The A I is all over the place. It's it's kind of a sewn
• 1:17:02
  together game from the previous versions of the game.
• 1:17:09
  As you said when we did Jedi Knight, I think your conclusion
• 1:17:14
  was that it doesn't deserve to be on the list.
• 1:17:15
  But you knew that and yeah, this I for me to sit here and say
• 1:17:24
  this is one of the best games of all time, I couldn't say that
• 1:17:28
  with a straight face because because I couldn't.
• 1:17:33
  That's not it would be a lie. Yeah, But I will say that I got
• 1:17:43
  more enjoyment out of this and I really enjoyed it just playing
• 1:17:45
  it this time as well. I got more enjoyment out of this
• 1:17:48
  than a lot of other games than we played on the list.
• 1:17:51
  Yeah, Which is, which is what it's all about, isn't it?
• 1:17:54
  Yeah. This to me is, as I said, one of
• 1:18:00
  the lesser James Bond films. It's the equivalent of that.
• 1:18:02
  It's the equivalent of your Die Another Day.
• 1:18:04
  It's the equivalent of your Octopus.
• 1:18:06
  It's the equivalent of. I mean, I could name one of
• 1:18:09
  those films for each of the bonds, really.
• 1:18:13
  So it's it's the Bond films that really don't have any layers.
• 1:18:22
  And what I mean by that is this is not Casino Royale where James
• 1:18:28
  Bond is, is mulling over his decisions while sitting in a
• 1:18:31
  shower. This is not the James Bond film
• 1:18:34
  where Sean Connery's James Bond is on a train angry.
• 1:18:40
  That's the Bond girl because his friend has just died.
• 1:18:45
  This is not that. It's more Roger more than
• 1:18:48
  anything else, isn't it? It is, yeah, very much so.
• 1:18:50
  And and sadly for Piers Brosnan, in some of his films he
• 1:18:55
  inherited a lot of that Roger mooreness and I I like Roger
• 1:19:00
  Moore. I think he's entertaining his
• 1:19:01
  bond. But yeah, the the the depth is,
• 1:19:04
  is not there really, is it? This is B movie Bond
• 1:19:11
  entertaining, something that's fun to play over a weekend for
• 1:19:14
  me, and I enjoy it for its links to Bond and I can find merit in
• 1:19:22
  it. But I'm not proclaiming that
• 1:19:24
  it's one of the best games ever made.
• 1:19:27
  I think it's got a lot of personality, got a lot of charm,
• 1:19:30
  got a lot of hearts. That's how I describe this game.
• 1:19:33
  I think it's brimming over with the developers intentions for
• 1:19:36
  what they wanted this game to be.
• 1:19:38
  They wanted it to be more than it was and I think you can see
• 1:19:41
  that. And I'd much rather have a game
• 1:19:44
  that has that heart than another dreary sequel that borrows the
• 1:19:51
  same template from its predecessor, which we've had far
• 1:19:54
  too much on this list. So yeah, I think I'm going to
• 1:19:59
  draw the line there and say that it doesn't deserve to be on the
• 1:20:02
  top 100 list. Damn, did I have a good time
• 1:20:07
  with it. And that's the main thing, is
• 1:20:09
  it? Yeah.
• 1:20:10
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:20:11
  Fair enough. Well, all right.
• 1:20:13
  So what's coming up next time from your side?
• 1:20:15
  So next time we have quite a short game.
• 1:20:17
  I know that you've you've already sunk a few hours into
• 1:20:20
  it. We're doing a bit of an indie
• 1:20:22
  game called Thomas Was Alone, which I think came out about 10
• 1:20:28
  years ago. Maybe it's just a?
• 1:20:32
  Like a 3-4 hour game. That's the platformer with some
• 1:20:37
  nice narration of someone who I originally thought might have
• 1:20:39
  been Stephen Merchant doing it, but it wasn't.
• 1:20:43
  But yeah, it's just a little platform about some shapes.
• 1:20:46
  And you know, going from Okay, let's talk about the best video
• 1:20:50
  games of all time. So can do a little indie game
• 1:20:53
  where I was just talking about some shapes that I've got names.
• 1:20:56
  It's very different, but. Yes.
• 1:21:00
  You've played a few hours of it so far, haven't you?
• 1:21:04
  So what would you say to me? I know I've started playing this
• 1:21:08
  already, but what is there to keep in mind when I'm playing
• 1:21:11
  this game? I don't really know to be
• 1:21:13
  honest, because it's a very simple game, isn't it?
• 1:21:16
  I'd say the thing that I keep in mind with this game is just
• 1:21:21
  enjoy the writing and enjoy the narration and maybe.
• 1:21:27
  Look into how this game was made or why it was made, and you can
• 1:21:32
  learn that through playing the game, really through the
• 1:21:34
  narration. But that's what I'd say.
• 1:21:38
  This isn't this isn't really about the game play Thomas Was
• 1:21:41
  Alone. It's more about the experience,
• 1:21:44
  I think, as a little puzzle platformer, if you know what I
• 1:21:47
  mean. And how do you think I'll find
• 1:21:50
  this game? I think you'll find it all
• 1:21:53
  right. I think you'll find it fine.
• 1:21:55
  I don't think that you're going to walk away having, you know, a
• 1:22:01
  really deep experience with it, which I didn't either.
• 1:22:03
  But I think it's one of those games we'll be like, yeah, that
• 1:22:06
  was, that was nice. That was, that was all right.
• 1:22:09
  But that'll be it. It isn't, you know, it isn't
• 1:22:12
  going to change your life, you know.
• 1:22:15
  Okay, we we will see next week TuneIn for my reaction and your
• 1:22:19
  thoughts on the game as well. Yes, quite so.
• 1:22:22
  Yes, that's all, as usual. All as usual.
• 1:22:26
  That's all for now. As usual, you can find us on
• 1:22:29
  social media long and short of it.
• 1:22:31
  Podcast. We're on.
• 1:22:33
  We're on Twitter, we're on Facebook, We're on Instagram.
• 1:22:36
  Threads. Although we already use threads
• 1:22:38
  because it seems like a dead app at this point.
• 1:22:42
  But yeah, we hope you've enjoyed this episode.
• 1:22:45
  It's. One of the longer ones that
• 1:22:47
  we've had in quite a while, isn't it, which I wasn't
• 1:22:51
  anticipating, but here we are. No, me neither.
• 1:22:53
  So, yes, that's everything from me today.
• 1:22:55
  Anything else from you? Nope.
• 1:22:57
  That's it from me. Lovely.
• 1:22:58
  Well, we'll see you next week, for Thomas Was Alone.
• 1:23:01
  And in the meantime, take care. Cheerio.
• 1:23:03
  See you on the next one.