Going from KC:D1 to its sequel is comparable to reading a traditional King Arthur tale, then halfway through the author succumbs to outside pressure and distances himself from the core audience while bringing in an army of sensitivity consultants. The modern westernized style is all over this one, so if you want to protect the integrity of the unfinished masterpiece that was the first game, its better just to replay that instead.
2010 was an exceedingly bleak period for RPGs, but even within that barrel crater there was a ray of hope. Playing through the first segment of Alpha Protocol you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The opening takes place in the middle east, which for many years was the tiresome setting of nearly every single uninspired military shooter. But hang in there because only an hour or two later you'll be getting the full Bond experience. Exotic locales, oddball villains, and romance options galore! For an RPG it's relatively short, yet the game's reputation system is a web of intermingled results that add so much replayability. Reputation comes from in-game actions or timed dialogue sequences that lends a cinematic flow to conversation, with three stances (aggressive, suave, professional) leading to diferent outcomes over time. Negative reputation can offer benefits too, and it's really fun to commit to a certain personality type. That said, there are problems. The game is as unbalanced as Steven Heck, with the Skyrim stealth archer meme in full effect. Specalizing in pistol/stealth skills transforms you into a demi-god that not even bosses can touch on the hardest difficulty. It's also built for consoles with checkpoints and vanishing bodies. If you can look past that, Alpha Protocol is a unique and memorable one-off.
A lot of complaints surrounding the initial release of this game didn't make sense to me. Some, like the simple gameplay loop being unable to sustain the exorbitant length, are valid concerns. Others, like not being given the option to play a purely lawful police chief, seem to hint at an unfamiliarity with the genre. It's noir. There's no 'right' choice and evil joke option. Noir is all about corruption and moral ambiguity. It's akin to criticizing a Lovecraft-inspired game for making you feel that you're an insignificant speck in the universe. That's cosmic horror, fella. What were you expecting? It'll be a shame to dismiss This is the Police based on the conventions of its genre because you'd be missing out on two and a half hours of comic book narration by the voice of Duke Nukem (seriously, he's great) with punchy dialogue, beautiful minimalistic art, and a 1950s style of music that you'll catch yourself humming for weeks. The limited gameplay loop is far surpassed by the sequel, but I still think the first game is worth it for the story alone.
The expansion goes great lengths to remove the frustrations of its predecessor. The inconveniently timed construction proposals that went straight into the dustbin if you didn't have the budget in that moment, and couldn't possibly be planned around without foreknowledge, are gone. You no longer need the experience of a prior playthrough or a walkthrough on hand. Rizia's monarchy offers a more proactive approach with a huge list of decrees that can be enacted at any time. This enables better planning and consistency in building a specific style of kingdom from the get-go. All of this is tied together with the series' immersive writing which is some of the best in the genre. Even your previous save file is transferred over. Decisions you made in the base game affect events in the expansion as the timelines overlap, and you'll see familiar faces like Alphonso and Smolak from a different perspective. If you liked Suzerain, this is everything you could want from an expansion. And they just keep adding more. New mechanics, more music, expanded storylines, etc. The updates have been tireless and even encompass the base game (since they're tied into each other), making an already great series even better.
I put Terminator: Resistance in a special category of games that are so sublime in their presentation (Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, The Witcher 3) that they elevate the otherwise mundane gameplay. Renditions of iconic music, the crisp sound of plasma fire, recreations of future war sets, and fanservice nods all tie together to form the most faithful adaptation of the franchise since Terminator 2. There's a level of respect here that could only have come from a development team that's passionate about the source material, respect that has not been present in Hollywood for the last decade or so.
Try to imagine a western studio making Stalker. Even if they were to attempt a 1:1 conversion and followed the basic design principles as closely as possible, the cultural beliefs of the development team would seep into the bones. ATOM is Fallout, and yet not Fallout. The eastern European flavour doesn't merely amount to an occasional cultural reference, but also manifests in survival elements (it's a Russian thing), and unsanitized writing that opens up roleplaying opportunities most modern western RPG developers would balk at. ATOM cannot eclipse Fallout, but it's distinct enough to avoid being labelled a lesser copy that makes you wish you were playing Fallout instead.
Suzerian is a political choose your own adventure that leaves you a paranoid wreak, clinging to power on broken fingernails. Everyone has an agenda, everyone wants a piece of you. Make alliances and shady backdoor deals, try to keep your marriage afloat, juggle the needs of various factions, and become Sorland's saviour... or its tyrant. The gameplay boils down to choosing between dialogue options, leaning heavily on the writing and worldbuilding, which are excellent.
A definite contender for best point & click adventure as well as the best movie-licensed game ever made, Blade Runner not only a faithful adaption with recognisable sets and actors, but a masterpiece in its own right. I actually played the game before watching the movie, and would say the game has one advantage its counterpart does not - its essentially perfect. From top to bottom the game is consistently excellent, randomly generating a human or replicant identity for several characters who must be hunted down via a web of interconnected clues, and making the protagonist's own questionable identity a central premise rather than an afterthought. No cartoon logic or obscure puzzles here, all the information you need is laid out for your convenience in a handy clue database which filters relevant information.
Rebel Cops is billed as a spin-off game to This is the Police, but in practice its more like a standalone expansion with an old school early 90s mentality, presuming a high skill level from the get-go. Those who have no experience with This is the Police 2's tactical combat missions need not apply. The strength of This is the Police 2 was variety. You took the role of police dispatcher, staff manager, and combat strategist, which was all tied together with stellar voiceacting and artwork. Rebel Cops is simply the combat missions, minus everything else. Even the interesting music that gave the series so much personality has been replaced by forgettable looping tracks designed for long playtimes. But what about combat? If they focused on combat to the exclusion of everything else, surely its amazing? Eh. Nowhere near enough to justify an entire game. This is the Police 2 had 21 perks, Rebel Cops has just 9. The only choices in your team's development are to select the order you want those perks, meaning every cop is identical once they reach maximum level. Perhaps the biggest point of contention is the save system. Saves are a limited resource to be used sparingly. Even if you're not staunchly opposed to limited saving (I'm not), Rebel Cops has a tendency to front-load the hardest missions to make the idea look unattractive. The first mission has a strict time limit. The second is a massive sprawling 4 hour map which could be mistaken for the finale. I did like a few things. I like that you're underfunded force is barely able to scrape together a couple of pistols at the start. I like how the level design covers casinos, hedge mazes, and shopping malls. I like channelling my inner Garrett and looting the treasure dotted about these levels. Its just unfortunate there's not a whole lot to spend it on. Its hard to recommend Rebel Cops even to the most hardcore fans of the series who're in love with this noir-tinged universe.
Some of the design choices in this game beggar belief. Take your pick. There's the inexplicable decision to lock down the majority of locations until after the main campaign has been finished. There's the total lack of cosmetic or mechanical customisation (6 of 8 pilot skills are passives) turning pilots into interchangeable blank slates. Or there's the absence of any internal conflict outside of low morale events you'll never see because its virtually impossible to go broke even on higher difficulties. Imagine commanding a mercenary ship where everybody gets along and an employer showers you with riches for completing missions that are significantly easier than side jobs. Welcome to Battetech. A child slamming two action figures together could come up with more compelling drama than this. All this stuff would be somewhat forgivable if the mechs blew each other up real good, but we don't even get that simplest of pleasures. The combat has no bite, lacking lethality and leaving one feeling detached from the battle, with the closest thing to a game-changing move being the jet jump strike. Its a curious thing for Battletech to avoid any exciting gambles outside of this one solitary instance despite how much it would compliment its heavy RNG nature, but I suppose it makes about as much sense as the rest of the game.
