Obsidian fanboys are so retarded they want Alpha Popamole 2

[Vibalist]

I wanna bang SIE. Damnit.

Always choose aggressive responses and she'll get wetter and wetter and choose her as your handler for the final dungeon and then when you're tied up she'll come in and rape you.

I meant in real life.

 

[themadhatter114]

There are huge consequences in the game for some of the choices.

Care to post them?
Because everything you posted is

You can allow both Nasri and Shaheed to live.

Letting them live will allow terrorist activity to continue to escalate in the region.

But where are consequences?

Shaheed will possibly feed you intel throughout the game if he lives, and will even ask you to betray the United States in an end-game conversation if you choose to meet with him.

But where are consequences?

If you save Madison but allow the bombs to go off, Madison will become a crusader against ineffective anti-terror legislation that just creates more tension and lines the pockets of government contractors. If she dies, Senator Darcy will exploit her death to push for new sweeping anti-terror legislation that would put the PATRIOT Act to shame.

But where are consequences?

You just prove that the game has nothing but flavour text.


Here is an example of C&C from Fallout 2. You choose to join one of the families in New Reno instead of just remaining an associate - that means that whenever you'll go into areas controlled by other families they will try to kill you and you will never be able to get any jobs from them. However this also opens additional stuff to do with your family.

Now compare this to AP with its "oh you will get 2 lines of flavour text in the end"

Additional stuff = go somewhere else, kill different guys wearing different clothes, push the same buttons on the keyboard. Where is the consequence?

 

[circ]

Nowhere. Because once the bacon gets to your table, with the ketchup soaked fries and maple syrup dripping giant crispy waffles, AP is a poor man's BioWare game.

 

[Azrael the cat]

There are huge consequences in the game for some of the choices.

Care to post them?
Because everything you posted is

You can allow both Nasri and Shaheed to live.

Letting them live will allow terrorist activity to continue to escalate in the region.

But where are consequences?

Shaheed will possibly feed you intel throughout the game if he lives, and will even ask you to betray the United States in an end-game conversation if you choose to meet with him.

But where are consequences?

If you save Madison but allow the bombs to go off, Madison will become a crusader against ineffective anti-terror legislation that just creates more tension and lines the pockets of government contractors. If she dies, Senator Darcy will exploit her death to push for new sweeping anti-terror legislation that would put the PATRIOT Act to shame.

But where are consequences?

You just prove that the game has nothing but flavour text.


Here is an example of C&C from Fallout 2. You choose to join one of the families in New Reno instead of just remaining an associate - that means that whenever you'll go into areas controlled by other families they will try to kill you and you will never be able to get any jobs from them. However this also opens additional stuff to do with your family.

Now compare this to AP with its "oh you will get 2 lines of flavour text in the end"

SPOILERS AHEAD (vague spoilerish - I'm mostly leaving out names and trying to keep it as vague as possible)
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This is just a couple of examples of non-flavour C+C (as I've listed many times, Deus Ex has NO non-flavour C+C, so I'm not agreeing with Skyway that cosmetic changes don't count):

- finding out that (a) a certain NPC is the daughter of another major character, and (b) that NPC is murdered by a certain (very difficult to kill) NPC will transform a later scenario from one in which (i) the character utilises turrets and marines against you, to one in which (ii) the character lets you through and instead tries to kill the badass villain, unsuccessfully (he shoots him in the shoulder) but making a subsequent fight against the wounded opponent MUCH easier.

- of course, if you don't piss off that aforementioned opponent enough in earlier conversations, he won't be there for you (or the aforementioned unfortunate character) to fight, as his faction is still hoping to recruit you. In fact, you won't get a chance to fight him at all unless you go out of your way to get ultra-low rep with him so he 'breaks his cool' and makes an in-person unfriendly appearance.

- the opportunity to take over control of the bad guys' organisation and keep on running the conspiracy, just with yourself in charge (ok, that's a flavour ending, but a damned cool one) only exists if you gain rep with the right characters and make a particular series of choices;

- becoming friendly with different handlers/NPCs isn't just a matter of different clothing for the same troops. Some NPCs won't have any troops but will simply bring their badass self (Heck, for example). Others will bring squadrons, but the AI is quite different depending on the faction. Actually that ends up being a bad thing, because G22 troops are pretty much the only ones who are any use to a stealth player, as they are ultra-conservative and take cover, giving you time to take out the snipers and turrets, while most other factions either rush in to get slaughtered in front of you, or are otherwise too noisy). I suspect the attempt to write different AIs for different factions led to some of the factions having stupid AI (see Deus Ex 2: IW for another example of that occurring).

- At several stages of the game you get a 'do A or B, there's probably not enough time for both!' choice. Usually it's a matter of saving someone or stopping a catastrophe. Sometimes you actually can do both (but you have to be quick) and sometimes you can't. Yes, sometimes it is just a flavour choice. But I can think of a few cases where saving the person leads to them being your ally later (e.g. in one case you might save a faction head before disarming a bomb - doing so means that he will later give you turret and troop support during a later fight, and if you didn't kill his henchwoman in an earlier encounter she'll help out as well. If you let him die, you won't have that help - it isn't a matter of 'each ally has the same benefits in different clothing'). On other occasions, not preventing the catastrophe has ramifications (in terms of the intel you receive, letting you know an ally is using/backstabbing you and providing an opportunity to turn the tables, or sparking direct confrontations).

I'm not saying it's all implemented well. But it certainly isn't a case of Deus Ex-style flavour conversations either.

 

[Drakron]

You can allow both Nasri and Shaheed to live.

Letting them live will allow terrorist activity to continue to escalate in the region.

But where are consequences?

Well this:

Keeping Nasri go means you have normal access to the weapons inventory and also that your enemies in Saudi Arabia will retain their normal gear, killing him or imprison him means they get worst gear.

If you send him to jail then in the "investigate weapons" Mission there will be a laptop with money in the underground area.

Letting Shaheed live means the Terrorist Cell in Rome are give orders to let you go without attacking you, that impacts a mission a bit.

So there is your C&C besides flavor text.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I'm guessing the point that skyway is making is that while the C&C changes some of the content of the missions, it is pretty much green or red guys. You don't get different missions for different paths. It actually would make subsequent playthroughs much less interesting. It would be one thing if siding with G22 gave access to their intel which would lead to different missions, while siding with VCI led to a different set of missions. The way it is, the consequences are, for the most part, just flavor text/ending vignette shit.

 

[circ]

Good call. I was amazed at how being all friendly with Shaheed suddenly made a dozen terrorists not shoot at me. Or even notice me. I WAS ALL LIKE: C&C! IN YOUR FACE!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Incidentally, since when did 'side with one family, become enemies with the others' in New Reno become any different to 'fighting enemies in different suits'?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Incidentally, since when did 'side with one family, become enemies with the others' in New Reno become any different to 'fighting enemies in different suits'?

Because it's in Fallout 2, which is an old game, which automatically makes it awesum. Not to mention that you get the consequences of ENDING SLIDES!!1

 

[circ]

The point being here, that siding with so and so in Fallout 2 has its consequences as it shuts down so and so paths. Siding with so and so in AP doesn't do jack shit for the missions in the end.

 

[Azrael the cat]

The point being here, that siding with so and so in Fallout 2 has its consequences as it shuts down so and so paths. Siding with so and so in AP doesn't do jack shit for the missions in the end.

See my points in my earlier post above. AP shuts off paths both subtley and effectively. Thing is, that isn't enough to make a great game. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that C+C, whilst a great thing for a game to have, is becoming overrated as the 'be-all-and-end-all'. PS:T, Deus Ex, SS2 all lacked path-shutting non-flavour C+C and were great games. What's more, PS:T and Deus Ex FELT like they had loads of C+C, much more than they actually had, because of the quality of the writing. 'Flavour-text' C+C seemed to matter - you cared about whether Paul lived to plead with you not to blow the world to the stone age, or whether that same speech was given by some random X51 scientist. You cared about whether and to what extent your party survived in PS:T - the only ultimate change you can enforce at the end of the game, given that you end up dying and going to hell regardless.

I think I'm going 360 on what makes a crpg - or a shooter with strong rpg elements - great. Obviously the gameplay has to be decent - though many would argue that PS:T, Arcanum and perhaps even Deus Ex somehow overcame that. But I used to think that great writing was what elevated the great games over the timefillers. Then games became all about interactive movies, Mass Effect and KoToR happened, and I started to change my mind and think that it was the lack of interactivity that was dragging things down. I'm thinking maybe I was wrong again - or right the first time around. Great writing makes you think small C+C matters. It makes you care about wheher one family in Reno or one boss survives and you get to kill the others rather than work for them. It makes you replay multiple paths simply to see different flavour text so that you can find out every hidden bit about the conspiracy in Deus Ex, or whether there's a plot behind your rapid rise to power in Bloodlines, or about whether you're the 'chosen one' in Arcanum. In games without good writing, you go 'meh, that's just a piece of text, big deal! Why would I want to grind through that'.

Thing is, games that FOCUS on writing, have to really fucking deliver or else you get Mass Effect or some similar (barely) interactive movie. Whereas a game that has decent gameplay doesn't need a story at all, but will keep you hacking and blasting away without thinking.

So what do I want, being an indecisive bastard? I guess I'd say companies who don't want to spend huge on writing talent, and who lack the financial backing/risk to back those writers, should focus on making fun gameplay ala the 1980s and early 90s. Hopefully the better writers would migrate to companies where they'd be backed, or could work freelance when they produce a sufficiently 'gold' script. Then we'd get a lot more brainless-but-fun games, as well as the occasional story-driven gem. Where we'd take our marginally different flavour text and love it, just like we used to

 

[circ]

Ok commie, let me try and explain to you, the difference between paths being shut down in Fallout, and paths being shut down in AP.

In AP, depending on who you side with, all missions are open to you. There are no side quests for different factions. If AP were longer than 10 hours, and that's stretching it, then maybe it wouldn't be so obviously.. obvious.

In Fallout 2, if you decide to side with one faction, you suddenly can't do quests for another one. And they're not even all the same! How about that! You can if you so choose, even choose not to pick up a kick ass side kick near Reno, since we're apparently talking about the Reno section. Or if you do, this side kick can be a kick ass one, or total shit.

You're a bad alt commie.

 

[circ]

Oh what the hell, all this Fallout Reno talk just got me thinking about the Vault.

Remember how you can get citizenship what is it, three different ways? Or how you can gain entry into the city, what is it, two different ways? And you can even backstab the guy. And then how you can go about solving the Vaults ghoul problem, several ways. And once there, there are several.. You get the idea.

Remember how in AP you can be nice to one guy, and so his guys won't be aggro to you? Yeah, that was nice of him. And how if you're an asshole, you will meet with more opposition. Yeah, it's crazy I know.

 

[MetalCraze]

So does AP has at least something that isn't LARP C&C?

Better gear on more enemies is just a lazyass design.
Pissing off one character makes the game to force another character on you which is also a lazyass design.
It's just flavour stuff.

AP shuts off paths both subtley and effectively.

Yeah it's so subtle that noone was able to find where exactly it does that.

 

[sirfink]

Pop-a-Mole: the new "also, kingcomrade" of the Codex.

 

[1eyedking]

Because it's in Fallout 2, which is an old game, which automatically makes it awesum. Not to mention that you get the consequences of ENDING SLIDES!!1

Are people in the Codex getting so stupid that they forget C&C in FO2 such as pissing Lynette off and getting banned from Vault City, which consequentially made finding the GECK a hell of a lot harder?

In AP if you piss someone off ITS AWWWRIGHTTT because to quote the developers "there are no wrong choices", and instead of fighting blue guys you fight red guys; or slightly weaker/stronger guys; or miss on some flavor text; or in a very small section of a mission getting some (questionable) support; etc. There's also level-scaling, for crying out loud, the motherfucking bane of C&C in all games.

People are forgetting that wrong choices in games are were there so that you'd be using your brain so you wouldn't hurt yourself - i.e.: stirring up an entire town against you, getting an important NPC not to divulge important information, losing out on bigger rewards, losing out on entire areas/sections, solving quests in a blatantly wrong way (such as fingering a random suspect in the Wright murder, murdering Westin in an obvious way), getting massacred on the worldmap for venturing into highly dangerous areas, etc., etc.

Did you fuckers even play FO2? For fuck's sake. In shit like BG, FO3, Oblivion, ME and AP it's either flavor text or models get switched (or don't show up at all). In the latter this could have been partly fixed by making the game fucking ass hard, in a way that not having G22 support means you're pretty much fucked if you're going covert and the missions get practically impossible to complete unless you're a hardcore popamole veteran. Instead, this game is so goddamn fucking easy you can pop the moles without removing yourself from cover by pre-aiming with the pistol.

 

[Mangoose]

Yes, the consequences are not very significant compared to FO 1/2 and the classics, but they are more than just red/green enemies.

I don't know about that. What significant in game consequences were there in FO 1/2? Maybe having Necropolis wasted or becoming a slaver or having a different faction in charge here or there? The REAL influence of your actions seems to be in the content of the post game slides. AP is a much more personal tale and mission based so it's hard to compare fairly as it's not populated with loads of civilian NPC's that may or may not care what you have done.

I haven't played FO2 in a while and I don't play it religiously like an upstanding hivemind soldier, so I was using it more of an image to represent good C&C.

Also, FO ending slides are better than the short lazy audio broadcasts at the end of AP.

Anyways, while AP is a personal story, a lot of the choices you make want you to consider repercussions outside of the personal story. A short list: Sung/riot, Rome bombing, any time there are civilians or US guards.

Moreover, I am playing the game the second time, and there really needs to be some kind of mission branching for C&C. The only significant occurrence of this was me missing out on SIE my first playthrough, but I've not noticed many other missions being closed off to me due to time or choice.

So does AP has at least something that isn't LARP C&C?

Yeah. Again, not the worst C&C ever, but not nearly the best either. Sometimes, mediocre happens, and Obsidian is good at that. Joking aside, it's good enough so that since I enjoy the game, I do feel like I am a different personality the second time through. But I never feel like I am making any strategic choices - considering long-term consequences - in any part of my gameplay, which is what good C&C is supposed to do.

Yeah it's so subtle that noone was able to find where exactly it does that.

You can definitely go against both Halbech and AP, but I think that just results in a different set of enemies in the endgame.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

MOAR LIEK ASS FOLDEROL

 

[Dragula]

So what game has the best C&C of all time?

 

[Felix]

IRL, it also has the most realistic graphics.

 

[1eyedking]

So what game has the best C&C of all time?

FO2.

 

[Dragula]

So ending slides are awesome consequences?

Let me rephrase then, what game has the best c&c visible in game, of all time?

 

[treave]

Dwarf Fortress.

 

[Dragula]

Yes, that game is awesome. In fact I might have to play that now.

 

[roll-a-die]

Pick a 4X game, any 4X game. Dwarf Fortress counts.