Painfully Obvious → 2010 → June

Month: June 2010

Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol

Verdict: 61/100 (Minimum score is 0; maximum is 100.)

The Zero Punctuation review of Alpha Protocol fails to convey just how awful the core gameplay is. It feels like they wanted to adapt the Unreal Engine in the same way that BioWare did for Mass Effect, but got only halfway there before they needed to ship.

Yahtzee does mention, however, one of my other frustrations: the game fails to convey the consequences of possible actions. Twenty minutes in, you find yourself standing in front of a computer terminal at the headquarters of the titular agency. The game offers you the option to hack the terminal. A guard is standing right next to it.

[USA] players actually look like they like each other and are having fun. England, on the other hand? I have never seen a more joyless group of players in my life. They are having no fun. It’s no fun watching them.

I can handle [Russell Brand] in 30‐second clips every month or so, and I think he’s hilarious. I have a sneaking suspicion that any longer exposure to him would instantly make me want to hit him with a shovel, therefore I can never see a movie in which he stars, or read his booky‐wook. Don’t tempt me, Russell. I have a shovel.

mdemone

If a player doesn’t happen to share a language with the referee, he might yell in his native language just to convey that he’s upset. “Any kind of fellatio comment is inevitably understood,” says Alexi Lalas, who was on the U.S. World Cup roster in 1994 and 1998.

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Feast on slides: How Custom Events Will Save the Universe, a talk I gave yesterday at TXJS. (Travel can be fun, but you can’t beat conferences held where you live.)

An excellent illustration of how the procedural complexities of Congress make it hard for non‐wonks to understand what the hell is going on. Even if government were 100% transparent, we’d still need people familiar with parliamentary procedure to “translate” for us.