The Weekend Gamer

Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, Alpha Protocol is the latest in the story-driven Shooter/RPG market. The main story is pretty straightforward: You are the good guy who gets selected to work for a special team called Alpha Protocol. You pick a character background for your character, assign some skills and climb right into the gameplay. Throughout the tutorial you are introduced to basic combat, skill usage and dialog. The dialog itself is presents is pretty straightforward, but definitely key to maintaining the story. Each possible turning point in the conversation, you are presented with options of how to respond and/or react. Gone are the days of being able to ponder for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, though, because here you only have a few seconds to make a choice. It may seem simple, but it adds a sense of realism and depth to the whole process.

I will just come right out and say it: if you have played Mass Effect, you have played this game as well. I don’t like making comparisons, but Alpha Protocol is done in the same grain as both ME and its sequel. The story is strong, the combat is still fairly intense and the decisions you make as your character give you the impression that you are shaping the story. The plot itself is rather thick so I do not want to divulge anything, but there are three main locations that the character finds himself in: Rome, Taipei and Moscow. Each of these locations provides you with a “safehouse” to use as a base of operations and a miniature story arc to complete. All of these come together, though, at one point or another so do not think of them as independent from one another. Your missions in Moscow may effect the way some people treat you in Taipei, for instance.

Considering that combat is a major portion of the game (nearly every mission involves some sort of combat), there had to be a sizable focus on how that was handled. The skills your character chooses will effect what load-out he brings into the field. Even if you emphasize stealth, technology and sabotage, it is worth it to drop points into one of the four weapons categories (Pistol, Submachine Gun, Assault Rifle, Shotgun) as well. Increasing ranks in skills brings new passive and active bonuses as time goes on. These can range from bringing time to a near stand-still to take aim and fire several shots at once to something as simple as re-charging all of your skills that currently have a remaining cooldown. Making use of these skills becomes more and more important as the game goes on, so don’t be like me and forget that you have them until 60% of the way through the game . Also, perks are acquired throughout the game that help to boost your stats in various ways and add fluff so that you feel like your decisions have left marks on you character.

There are some random features that crop up throughout the game that are definitely worth mentioning as well. Each safehouse is configured similarly and provides some options for you to pursue in your downtime between missions. There is a computer terminal for you to access your e-mail (this provides some interesting story options since you can reply to messages) and acquire weapons through the black market. There is an area for your character to customize his appearance with different hair styles, skin tones, facial hair and eye wear. These options expand as you progress through the different parts of the game so it is at least somewhat dynamic. Another neat little easter egg is that random trinkets from your journeys will show up in places throughout your safe house to server as reminders for what you accomplished. One final detail that must be mentioned is the ability to customize weapons. It is a bit redundant as time goes on, but being able to add four different modifications to each weapon can really help to balance a particular gun or make its extremes that much more noticeable. Simple things like silences and scopes can add a sense of practicality as well.

The game was executed well, but it definitely needed some polish. The combat was either simple or over-the-top challenging at times. Moving around in the world and accessing certain menus would create stuttering that would stop your screen for a second or two; this could be a huge problem when entering into a new area and not being prepared for an enemy walking around the corner. The mini-games (hacking, lock-picking and the re-programming) also felt like poor console ports. They were possible, but the mouse created issues for me in the hacking scenarios more than once during the game. There were also realism issues that came up with the modification of the weapons and combat in general. Overall, though, I do not see why people are being so critical of the gameplay or the story. I felt like it was a solid plot that, even at its worst, was just plain entertaining. It provides a solid 20 hours of gameplay that consistently gives you new things to do and new ways of interacting with the other characters which turns out to be the most rewarding experience Alpha Protocol has to offer.

Imagine a game like no other, an MMO so full of player interaction that its economy could be measured by real-world analysts. Imagine a universe laden with political intrigue, espionage and wars encompassing over a quarter of a million players all on the same server. Take yourself out of the mindset of a single avatar in a game world and put yourself behind the controls of a spaceship capable of doing practically anything you see fit. Take a step back, re-think how an MMO is traditionally played and delve into the world of New Eden. Delve into the world of EVE Online.

To fully understand EVE can be quite an undertaking. On the surface, the game looks a bit like a third-person science fiction game of some kind, but it is so much more than that. The game is more of a real life simulation in some ways and, because of the gameplay mechanics, it is able to give the player nearly limitless options for living out that simulation. The foundation of all of this comes from roots similar to that of every other massively online game: character creation. New Eden, the name of the actual universe within EVE, is comprised of four different races: Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar and Amarr. Each of them represent a different faction of the human race within this new universe and, as with every game, each has their own background story. The good news is that the racial backgrounds are not just fluff, they are solid enough to provide a foundation for even the most seasoned of role-players to work with. When it comes down to actual gameplay value, picking any one of the four races is just as viable as the next. Every character, regardless of race, is open to the same possibilities as every other character in the game.

Racial decisions aside, the next major step in the character creation process is to move on to the skills section. Skills are the meat and potatoes of EVE and, without them, the game would not have worked nearly as well as it has thus far. As you walk through the creation process it will give you some options as to which direction you want to head with your character. If you want to fight, you go that route, if you want to trade, you go that route, and so on and so forth. Each set of options leads down a path that slowly assigns skills to your character. These will form the foundation for what you will do later in life, but, once again, will not define what your entire career in-game will turn out to be. This process is merely a stepping stone and they are to be taken as a method of getting your feet wet with the game’s skill system. Once you have chosen your paths, you assign your attributes. Attributes work differently than they do in other games and should be paid attention to more closely than other games as well. Advancing skills in the game is based off of their corresponding attributes. If I want to increase Gunnery by a point, it comes from my Perception and Willpower scores. If I want to increase my Science by a point, it uses my Intelligence and Memory. Charisma is pretty self-explanatory and refers to skills involving more social aspects of the game: Social, Leadership, Trade and the like.

For the sake of time, I will omit the section on the tutorial as it has changed drastically since its inception several years ago. Once your character has been made and you enter the game world, Aura, your in-flight assistant, will guide you through the rest of the general gameplay mechanics. As a note, though, I highly recommend that any player give the tutorial a full play-through. The information it gives is truly invaluable. It will introduce you into the wide world around you and, beyond that, it will start some of the storyline missions that will help link you to agents for goodies later on in the game.

After completing the tutorial and working your way through some of the basics of the game, you are now handed the reigns and given the opportunity to do practically whatever you want. Gameplay is left entirely up to the player at this point and, with this, I wish to highlight one of EVE’s best features: freedom of choice. The sheer number of possible career paths within this game universe is astounding. Many people tend to want to focus on combat since that always sounds like it would be the most exciting part of the game. Combat is far too vague, though. How about a Tech II Minmatar-focused, shield tanking, artillery specialist? Or maybe the Gallente-focused, armor tanking, passive reconnaissance tackler? Also consider your motives for fighting. Do you want to be a pirate that preys on miners and traders or do you want to be the savior of those in need? Perhaps combat doesn’t fit your style of play. Maybe you would rather build things so that you can profiteer off of those pesky adrenaline-junkie pilots. Alright, well pick a race to focus on, snatch some blueprints up from the market, rent a manufacturing slot and start building anything from ammunition and small modules on up to massive battleships and space station components.

Aside from the traditional roles one can fill out in the game, there are the other roles that are not normally found in MMOs. There are no guilds in EVE, but there are corporations and those corporations can be members of alliances. These alliances can control vast amounts of space and, because of the amount of political turmoil associated with holding space, many positions within an alliance’s ranks become available. Corporations need members for politics and other diplomatic relations, handling forum and website issues, conducting recruitment and even managing the finances. You can actually be a CFO (chief financial officer) in this game. Another viable option is to become a spy and actually infiltrate the ranks of an enemy corporation or alliance. The options for job possibilities within the game are only limited by the imagination of those who play it.

Regardless of what role you choose, the game is still focused around ship combat and so there are quite a few avenues with which you can follow. The four weapon groups of consistent of hybrid, lasers, ballistic and missiles. Each of the game’s races tend to pick favorites here and give bonuses to those weapon groups. Caldari favor missiles and hybrid weapons, Gallente favor hybrid weapons, Amarr favor lasers, and Minmatar favor the ballistic weapons. Picking a race to focus your skills on usually entails focusing on the correlating weapon groups as well so that you do not end up becoming spread too thin. With any direction you choose, actual combat plays out the same and it involves quite a few factors to keep in mind. Your velocity, the enemy’s velocity, your own skill, your enemy’s skill, your enemy’s shields and/or armor, your range and your ammunition type all come together to form the actual amount of damage you deal. You move in with your ship, select a target, navigate towards it and, once you are within range, one fire by activating all weapon modules. Battle starts the beginning of a dance that goes back and forth as you and your enemy exchange punches, repair portions of your ship, and navigate skillfully to create the most difficult target to hit.

Combat is, once again, just the beginning, though. There are many ways to actually pursue a combative lifestyle. I touched on piracy and anti-piracy earlier, but these are only two specific lifestyles. Running missions, defending miners in your own space, freely attacking people in lawless space, launching wars on a small (or large) scale and a thousand other ways to generally pick a fight. People have even been known to load up their ships with smart bombs and literally suicide into other ships, it really does get downright creative when it comes to people finding ways to kill each other. There are corporations with different goals for combat and, depending on your combat role, you may choose to go for a smaller or larger corporation. Some focus on piracy, some focus on mindless killing, some act as the defensive arm of an industrial-focused alliance, some even declare war on their opponents so that they may freely kill them anywhere in the world.

Overall, though, EVE Online is a world that tinkers with the imagination. Being able to do anything to accomplish your goals (even meta-gaming!) is quite an enticing offer for anyone. Scamming players, stealing in-game money (while in character), robbing people of their possessions through piracy, sacking player owned stations, all are viable options for turning a profit in New Eden. The game is entirely skill-based and, because of this, your character can head in any direction you see fit. Deciding to change from one role to another is as simple as training a new skill and working towards that new goal. With over a quarter of a million people playing, there is always something going on and, thanks to a wonderful development team, new content is being added on a regular basis all at no cost. Now has never been a better time to check out this wonderful game and all of its possibilities so I suggest you run over to download a free trial for yourself!

Anyone who has ever played an MMO understands that there are several development stages the game in question must go through. For the majority of the time, the game is kept in an environment of internal testing where only the developers themselves, and possibly their friends and family, actually have access to the game content. Normally, after a given period of time, the developers look out into the community for those who appear to be the most dedicated and, after some serious consideration, they begin to start hand picking people to test the game. At this point, it can either be considered an alpha or a very closed beta. From there on out to release, the story is the same. The game becomes more and more open as time progresses and, in some cases, becomes totally open just before launch. With all of this beta excitement comes a lot of controversy, though. The debate between whether or not beta testing creates a positive effect or a negative effect is one that is heating up as more and more MMOs are right around the corner from being released.

Now, we all remember that very first beta invite we received in our e-mails. There was a sense of pride in knowing that we, as players, would be getting in on the ground floor of a particular game. One of the best side effects of this, though, was that we got to play the game early and we got to play for free. This, however, is actually the core issue behind this debate: whether or not to have a beta open to the general public.

Bringing the public into a beta can be extremely useful, but it can also be very problematic. When a game is far enough along in its development that it is ready to enter a public beta, it tends to create a lot of buzz and excitement. The fan base starts becoming restless with anticipation and they eagerly await the day they get that beta key comes in the mail. When that day comes and they log into the game for the first time, all of that anticipation comes to a head. Without something for all of that energy to be focused on, assumptions can be made very quickly and opinions can run wild quite easily.

The danger of releasing an unfinished product to the public is that the public itself can be very fickle. Someone’s opinion on a game can change in a few mouse clicks if things do not go well for any possible reason. If a login server is down, players get disheartened. If the patch client is broken, players get frustrated. These are still all issues found before the game even starts. Once someone is actually in-game, though, things get even more tricky. Issues like lag, graphical errors, glitches and exploits can all be solved through patches, but people will not always wait for that. In instances like this, most people tend to look to the development staff for answers. The best way to solve this kind of turmoil is communication, but that is easier said than done. During this time, that same team is normally working to fix the problems, not blog about them. Tracking down a customer service representative can be nearly impossible in cases like this and all that does is heighten the frustration.

Many players walk into these sorts of issues with open minds, but many others see it as a sign of weakness from the developer’s end. With these sorts of problems, players often run off and judge the game without giving it a second thought. More often than not, people skip over the word “test” in the phrase “beta test” and that is the root of the issue. If someone walks into a beta seeing it as a free trial, they have already gone into it with the wrong mindset. What is even worse is when someone does this during a very early stage of open beta, or even a stage of closed beta. It becomes difficult to retain a good public opinion when player communities are whispering about glaring flaws in a games design even months before it is set to be released.

Beta testing is not all bad and, even though I may have painted a negative picture about the process, it has some significant merit. If the development team has access to a set of good, understanding beta testers, it will often gather a great deal of important information from them. Working hand in hand with a developer should give anyone a stronger sense of pride and that is something many beta testers take to heart. Giving constructive criticism, suggesting features and tweaks, reporting bugs and exploits, and actively participating in the community can all help to build a better MMO. If a beta test goes very well, there is a chance that word will spread in a positive fashion and then flocks of people will line up to buy the game. If a development team is honest, communicative, forthcoming and open to its community, the community will begin to trust the developers. This trust can often be worth much more than good publicity ever could. Knowing that you have a dedicated player base is something any developer would love to have.

When it is all said and done, beta testing can be both a blessing and a curse. Bringing a game’s features into the public can be very helpful, but the opposite is true about any flaws that the game might have. The most important thing to remember is that being able to play a game early on is a privilege and it should be looked at as a test, not free game time. Developers understand this because they are on the other end of the story, but many players do not and that tends to cause problems in any MMO community. People running away from a game and blabbing about how it is bug-ridden is harmful for two reasons: It is giving other players a false impression of the game and it is usually breaking the non disclosure agreement you accept when joining the beta. I feel that beta tests can be helpful, but public beta tests, especially fully open betas, are best left for stress testing and not actual feature testing. Keep that core group of loyal players. Reward them by making them feel like they are a part of the development process because, when it comes down to it, they really are. Developers should be honest with their communities and, in turn, communities should have faith in their developers. When these two things happen, great MMOs are born.

For years now, players have been accustomed to the traditional school of thought where there is a very simple way to define who has advanced further in the game: levels. With the exception of some major titles like Ultima Online and EVE, this has been the dominant form of progression offered to players. On the other side of the coin, though, is the non-linear style of a skill-based progression. This other method gives players no hard cap with which to play towards; it instead gives someone the option to define where the end of the game is for themselves. This has all created an interesting dichotomy that has helped to split the player base between these two opposing viewpoints and it has created an atmosphere that fosters a much more judgmental attitude toward games.

The traditional progression of leveling has created a sort of comfort zone for many MMO gamers. Knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel helps a lot of players make their way through the game more comfortably. Many find it easier to know that there are only ten levels left before they may enter that dungeon or that there is only 5,356 experience points before they get their new mount. There is no ambiguity in this system and that is something that new players to the genre can really appreciate. Anyone can go to a website to find details on when one should enter “Dungeon A” or when they should try and kill “Uber_Badassmob_01”. Of course there will always be exceptions to these rules, but the majority of them remain true for the sake of argument. This means that someone who is still in the very early stages of MMO gaming can feel like they know where they stand in regards to the world around them. As a level 25 fighter I know that a level 40 dungeon is totally out of reach and I know exactly what point I need to get to before that stage of the game becomes available to me.

When considering a player versus player environment, there are also many consequences to having a system centered around levels. A novice player may not feel comfortable entering into battle with someone they know is five levels above them because they can reasonably assume that their opponent is better equipped, has higher skills, more hit points or all of the above. The same situation can be approached from the other end of the battle, though, as well. A player who has reached the maximum level in a particular game automatically feels that they have dominance over the vast majority of the player base below them. If someone is level 40, they are more than capable of killing two level 30 players in almost every situation. Skill certainly becomes a factor here, but that is an entirely different topic of discussion. The fact remains, though, that this level 40 player would be standing at a much stronger advantage when compared to their level 30 enemies.

This is a very linear way of thinking and, despite its overwhelming impact on the genre, is certainly not appealing to all. Many people favor a system that abolishes levels and, instead, focuses on skill progression. The most important thing to consider when looking at this system is that there are very few things set in stone, at least when compared to a level-based system. Knowing when to attack and when not to attack is left in the hands of the player and their own confidence in their skills. With a 100 in his or her primary weapon skill, a player may feel that anything can be accomplished. The problem arises when the player forgets that their armor skill is absolutely terrible. With this situation, there is no way of accurately representing the player’s chances against an opponent. Knowing when to fight and when to run is left in the hands of the individual and not under the advice of a guide found on some website.

Once again, touching on the player versus player aspect shows a stark contrast between the two systems. Here we have a situation where one player has virtually no idea how skilled the other player is. In the case of a game like EVE, one can reasonably assume what level of skill their opponent is at based on the age of their character, but that is often more of a vague idea than a strict guideline. A great deal of personal skill comes into play here because one person may be incredibly focused and excel at one particular style, while their opponent may have spread their skills out across several styles. The fact that there is no clear way to determine how dominant you are over someone else makes things much more exhilarating and certainly gets the blood flowing a bit more than when you go into a fight knowing that you will come out victorious just because you spent an extra week questing on your character.

Having a skill-based system allows the player to define his or her own character quite a bit more than the alternative would allow. Being able to craft a character instead of having to follow a strict set of rules would give anyone a stronger sense of personal freedom. Knowing that my level and/or class would restrict me to using only one type of weapon would take away from the game severely. There is no sense of immersion when I cannot pickup something that I am not totally proficient with and at least attempt to bash someone’s skull with it. There is a strong stigma attached to mass leveling and the notion of having to “grind” is something that should have never been considered a viable option for character advancement. Creating content for the sake of it being a time sink was even more ridiculous, but that is another topic of conversation as well. With this in mind, of course not all skill-based systems are going to be perfect (I am looking at you, Darkfall), but the potential is far better for a system that gives people a stronger sense of freedom. Valuing achievements should always be far more important than gaining your next level. Skills support gameplay, whereas levels define gameplay.

When it comes down to it, there are certainly pros and cons to each of the two platforms. Different players have different needs and these systems help to define what those needs are. One certainly favors a simpler, more user-friendly approach, while the other provides more options to someone who fully understands the system. One caters to the mainstream while the other favors more of a niche market. There will always be differences in opinion as to which system is “better” or which system is more “hardcore”, but the best players respect that each person has their own way of enjoying an MMO. With all of this in mind, though, there is one thing that is for sure: with so many new games on the horizon, there is no telling what the future holds for character progression. There may be something entirely new just around the corner and we, as gamers, are going to be tasked with decompiling this new system in the hopes that we may someday fully understand it.