Alpha Protocol First Hour Impressions

So back in 2010, Alpha Protocol was released and at the time I ignored it after hearing some pretty lack luster reviews and just generally having no personal interest in the game.  Then about a year ago I managed to pick it up on steam for some stupidly low price and now finally I'm getting round to actually playing it

So far, it's not an awful game, it's playable at the very least but oh lord are there some problems with it.  First of all, the plot is just dull, not so much because it's cliche but because all the characters involved are just boring and I end up forgetting their names straight after any given cut scene.  I'm trying to pay attention but I've seen this kind of plot so many fucking times that I probably don't even need to pay attention in order to figure what goes on.  But I only played for an hour so it could get better at least.

Who are you again?

The biggest problem with this game is it just has technical bugs crawling out the arse and no it's not just a case of my computer being bad.  I get that 3rd person games nowadays like to have over the shoulder cameras but this goes WAY overboard, where the camera is just constantly riding up the main characters back and it sometimes makes seeing anything quite difficult.

This guy was just running into that wall, probably hoping if he couldn't see me I couldn't see him either...

Speaking of the main character, I don't really like the skill points system in this game for some reason

I took this picture pretty near the start, so I've got a few more points since then, but no matter how much I load down on assault rifle skills, the guy is still a shit shot with it.  It's not me not being able to aim either, if you move or fire the reticule goes WAYYYYY off target, so I'm having to fire only 1 or 2 shots at a time to actually hit anything, and if I was going to shoot a gun like that, I'd just get a pistol for fucks sake.  That said, if I don't aim the gun, hitting shit seems to be a bit easier, so why in the hell does carefully trying to aim my gun make things HARDER TO FUCKING HIT!  Although there is a possibility that this will change over time too.

The last thing I have to touch upon in this first impressions post is the hacking mini-game.  I fucking hate this mini game, why does it have to be so fucking stupid?!

Basically you have to line up the 2 codes at the top with the codes in the big grid.  Everything that isn't the code changes constantly so you basically have to search for the line that isn't moving.  It's not hard, at all, but it's really fucking annoying and moving the right hand code piece with the mouse is a pain in the ass and I've sometimes failed hacks because it doesn't control properly.  But on the other side of the spectrum, you get the most insultingly easy lock pick mini game I've ever seen, so maybe this bullshit is the make up for that.

Despite all the complaints, I'm not sick of it just yet and I'm willing to at least try to get to the end.  What I will say though is that if it costs more than 5 bucks to pick this up, it ain't worth it.