Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Gamesradar: First Look

“Yeah, Alpha Protocol has much of the edginess of the new James Bond movie,” smiles Ryan Rucinski, one of Obsidian’s senior producers. “Although the development of AP actually started before the release of Casino Royale. So when the movie came out and we saw the results, we knew we had made the right decision. There have been a lot of movies that have influenced us during the conceptual creation - Mission: Impossible, the Bourne films, Ronin... However, one of the main contributors in look and tone was Syriana. If James Bond is where the action comes from, Syriana has a big influence on the theme.”

Yet what Obsidian want to stress more than anything is that Alpha Protocol is a role-playing game. You’ll have multiple missions open in different hubs around the world (locations currently being bandied about include Taipei, Rome, Moscow and Saudi Arabia) and you’ll be able to flit between them at will - each one containing one overarching operation and a cavalcade of minor missions leading up to it - be they stealing sensitive data on a hard drive, tailing suspects or extracting information from grumpy NPCs through bribery, diplomacy or murder most foul.

“The mission structure is designed to present Thorton with an Operation, and then there are several avenues he can explore to tackle it using the skill set or preference of the player,” explains Rucinski. “We don’t want to force you through a linear series of levels, we want to treat every operation in the game like a mini-hub, where you get a number of missions you can tackle in any order, just to give the player more freedom.”

It’s a mundane example, true, but Alpha Protocol’s over-the-shoulder chase-cam action does seem to be a step up from your average RPG. Combat will have you running and gunning, taking cover or sneaking about the place - but that’s not to say you won’t be able to build your character towards the hand-to-hand fisticuffs recently in vogue.

Mixing your own skill with increasing RPG capabilities (weapons, hacking, electronics, traps, stealth or whatever) will gradually move further and further into comic-book heroism - but that isn’t to say the game ignores realism. “Realism is important to Alpha Protocol. We’ve tried to create situations and themes from actual news items and hypothetical scenarios,” says Rucinski. “Our technologies and equipment are also realistic. We made it very clear early in development that we wouldn’t have a near-indestructible bipedal robot running around shooting things. If we used a robot, it would look like what the military or SWAT would use, with wheels and treads instead of legs.” Near-future is the byword, so as to allow for more gadgets and gizmos than ever before - but again, this is a Casino Royal style of spy, not the Die Another Day “OMG invisible car and surfing on melting CG iceberg” exercise in Ian Fleming grave-turning.

Conversations will whip along at a realistic pace, with you selecting changes in how Thorton responds to maintain the flow of real-life chatter. Gaming’s former forays into the lives of secret agents, Deus Ex aside, have only ever focused on the guns-blazing elements, and perhaps a pretty lady or two in cutscenes. Alpha Protocol wants you putting in the legwork, doing the reconnaissance, chatting up the receptionists and looking moody in fancy hotels - it knows the excitement isn’t all in the violence, but in the setup, the situation and the supporting cast. In premise and pedigree, it’s a sure-fire license to kill. Let’s hope the execution is as flawless as it needs to be.

[SPTO]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

This game is sounding better and better!

[davin]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Sounds pretty interesting, will really look into this in the future. Hope it can be a great game, and hope it doesn't feel rushed like KOTOR 2 did.

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Alpha Protocol Aims Ambitiously For RPG, FPS Fans

Obsidian Entertainment says it's found the right mix of action and RPG, balancing subtlety with "over-the-top" visual style, and weighing realism carefully against the "abstraction" of fantasy elements.

Alpha Protocol, though billed as an "action-RPG," sounds a bit weighted more toward the former than the latter, aiming for a happy medium that hopes to make RPG elements accessible to twitch fans, while still adding the depth to please RPG purists. Not only that, but the team's touted a heavy emphasis on character interaction and player choice.

It sounds like a a tall order to fil, but when the developers' pedigree includes projects like KOTOR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2

The Obsidian team held a conference call today to answer tons of questions about the game. Is it challenging to do a modern, realistic RPG (especially with Star Wars and NWN in your rearview)? How do the action elements balance with the RPG elements, and just how much influence will the players have? What kind of man is hero Michael Thorton?

"When we made Alpha Protocol, we had just finished up Neverwinter Nights 2 [which was] pretty traditional, pretty rules-based... and we wanted to do something a little more action-based, a little bit more accessible," said Obsidian executive producer Chris Parker.

"We really liked the spy genre," he said. The team also thought it would be cool to give the player the experience of developing from a green rookie agent into a "modern-day superhero." Thorton will have many traditional weapons, but will level up on a skill-based curve.

One of the things the team said was that they hoped to welcome more traditional FPS players into the RPG fold by allowing the player to simply auto-level on a class-like track, while still allowing more experienced RPG players to develop whichever skills they wanted, and allocate their points on their own.

While they hope to offer a good deal of character customization, players won't, Obsidian said, be doing the "traditional 'make your face' type modifications" — instead, customization for Thorton is more about his skills, abilities and accessories, along with subtle appearance factors like hairstyles.

Interactions with different characters will influence which factions ally with you and which oppose you - in particular, the team said you can expect your endgame to be heavily influenced by your actions in the game. The conversation wheel, the team said, resembles Mass Effect's a bit, but with less looping back and more of a real-time feel; it's also possible to choose a single "stance" and carry it through all of your interactions.

Even though Alpha Protocol is a modern spy thriller, the team decided it shouldn't go too far into realism. "We originally went for a more realistic version of gameplay and the way Thorton interacted with the world, but that wasn't as exciting as having some kind of magical abilities," said Parker. "Michael Thorton is a super-agent, so we have added some abstraction, and something... like super-powers."

One such special ability will involve Thorton being able to stop time and line up shots to kill many opponents at once.

It was also a challenge to balance realism with an engaging RPG, the team said, so in terms of the story feel, they took inspiration from the post-processing effect film style of Syriana. For the visual style, though, the design team wanted to elevate the artistic language. "We wanted to stay away from just having guys in suits... it helps gameplay-wise if they have over-the-top characteristics."

The team also hopes that the game's opening events will draw players in on an emotional level. At the story's opening, a tragic event sends Thorton on a mission - "something that has value to the world and to other people immediately." From there, the world gets turned upside down when Thorton is forced to go rogue to unravel the mystery.

"It's a unique opportunity for the player to have an effect on real world events... basically, the player can affect things happening in the news, in the financial market... to bring down a real bad corporation, or the government if that happens to be the case. There's a chance for the player to affect things happening in our world right now."

Alpha Protocol, in co-development with Sega, is slated for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC for February 2009.

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Dev Diary #1 (Shows some gameplay)

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/alphaprotocol/video/6201453/alpha-protocol-dev-diary-1?hd=1

...

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

1UP Q&A

1UP: For people who might not know about Alpha Protocol, can you describe it in just eight words?

Chris Avellone: Well, that's a very perplexing question, as you're asking us to be brief, and that's not how we usually answer. OK, here are three ways, though they aren't all as concise as you're wanting them to be: If you were given an unsigned government check, and asked to save the world, what would you do? If you had the choice to stop a global conspiracy, would you? Be Bauer, Bourne, Bond, in any combination.

Chris Parker: I can tell you that mine pretty much suck. I have "live the story of your own espionage agent" and "espionage role-playing with an awesome story!"

1UP: "Espionage" nowadays can mean a lot of things. It can mean stealth like in Splinter Cell, or high-octane action like in a modern James Bond movie. What kind of espionage feel does Alpha Protocol have?

CP: It does encompass a little bit of all of those things. Our conversation and role-playing system are cued to let you try to build whatever kind of agent you want, so when you go into a mission, how you fight or deal with that mission will depend on how you built your character. You can go in and stealth around to set up traps and take out bad guys that way, or go in with guns blazing for some "high-octane" action that you mentioned. When I think of Bourne or Bond, I also think of a lot of conversations with people, and a lot of manipulation of various forces at work. That takes place during the story aspect, while the action element is a bit like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear, but more "shootery." We do a lot of different things, and we leave it up to the player to pick which ones are the best fit for their character.

1UP: Can you talk a bit about the combat system -- what does it feel like moment to moment?

CP: You play in a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective, running around behind [protagonist agent Mike Thorton]. Your most direct form of combat is with guns, and there are four different gun types, each with their own unique upgrades and so forth. Each of the gun types has a different "personality" that complements different play styles; the pistol is an elegant weapon that can be very quiet, the shotgun would be a room-clearing weapon, while the sub-machinegun is also a room-clearer, and the assault rifle is more of a soldier's weapon. The gunplay works a lot like other shooters.

Or you can use close-quarters combat; you can stealth up to someone and do a silent kill like in a Splinter Cell, or just pummel people in hand-to-hand combat. Or use traps and grenades -- there's a lot of different options available to you. On top of those basic options, you gain special abilities, which are basically modern-day versions of spells. For example, with the submachinegun you can do a Bullet Storm, which basically does a ton of extra damage for a limited time. You don't even have to worry about reloading, so that'd be one way to quickly clear a room of guys by using an ability. You have a lot of options for the player, but at its base, you have a traditional third-person over-the-shoulder action game where you have a choice as to how you take on most of your enemies.

1UP: When I hear about a game that you guys are doing, I think of previous writing-heavy titles like PlaneScape: Torment or Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. Can you talk a bit about the writing and dialogue for Alpha Protocol?

CA: What we're trying to do with Alpha Protocol is tailor the dialogue system to reinforce the feel of the game -- give it more of a 24, or "timed momentum," feel. When I say that, I mean that in a lot of our previous games like PlaneScape or KOTOR 2 or Mask of the Betrayer, the conversations in those games are very interrogation-based, in that you can go through each dialogue option repeatedly and explore everything that character has to say. In Alpha Protocol, that is a lot different; there is one path during the conversation, and it keeps going in a forward direction -- you don't usually have the chance to go back and talk to people again. We call this overall system the Dialogue Stance System, which was developed by Brian Mitsoda who worked on Vampire: Bloodlines. The whole intent of the conversation system is to make conversations feel more real, so a lot of the Stance choices you make won't loop back on themselves; they'll take one path of the conversation, and you'll see reactivity and results based on that choice.

1UP: OK, what about you, Chris Avellone? What's the coolest thing you've seen in the game recently?

CA: The way we have conversations set up is that you don't always directly talk to somebody face-to-face in the game. Between the cinematics team and how we structure the Dialogue Stance System, we have it so that you can pop open your PDA and talk to people through that, and we saw the first polished version of that. It's like having a little person in your pocket that talks to you! When I saw it, it just looked pretty amazing how the team finally pulled it off.

[jfsolo]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

When the time comes I hope Sega goes all out on the promotion of this game, because otherwise I think its going to be a game that flies way under the radar despite probably being a masterpiece(Hopefully)

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

I'm not an RPG guy but this game does have my interest if it is action centered. I'm a little concerned over the devs talking about how easy the game is if you choose a soldier to start with.

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

OXM Preview

RPGs have done plenty of swords and sorcery. They’ve secured the future of countless dewy-eyed princesses, and they’ve even bristled with lightsabers. But what they haven’t done before is spies. Alpha Protocol wants to make you feel like 008…but first you gotta start all the way down at 001 and work your way up.

As Obsidian executive producer Chris Parker tells the story, the game’s concept was born when “we had just finished Knights of the Old Republic II and were working on Neverwinter Nights 2 — two D20 games with hardcore rules systems. As we were putting together pitches for our next game, [we wanted to make] something more action-y. We started talking ideas, and one was spies. What about letting you be Jason Bourne? You’d start out as not much of an ***-kicker, but would become one over the course of the game…while figuring out what kind of espionage agent you’d make if you had the opportunity.”

Whoever you want to be, your name is Mike Thorton, who Parker describes as a competent, well-trained field agent on his first mission. You customize how he grows as a spy, but ultimately, he’s still Thorton. We need him to be this kind of leading man,” he explains. You spy on behalf of Alpha Protocol, a secret branch of a U.S. government agency that handles deniable operations. When things go tragically wrong on Thorton’s first op, “you’re doubly screwed,” laughs Parker, because not only will the U.S. not acknowledge you as an asset, but your own agency appears to be thrusting knives in your back as well.

Striking out on your own, you have just enough leads to start piecing together the big picture, and while the game is certainly about getting to the bottom of that, it’s also about learning your motivations as the player. Do you want Thorton to operate out of love of country? Or be a purely good guy if the U.S. is up to no good? Or wreak vengeance and retribution on all who harmed him?

Those decisions are a main thread of Alpha’s gameplay. “A big thing we wanted to go for was reactivity and consequences for your choices,” Parker says. Every call you make — a dialogue selection, a life spared or extinguished — will pay off with both equally valuable in-game rewards and changes to future missions and conversations. “We’ve all had a game culminate in a different ending,” offers assistant producer Nathan Davis. “But…we have different middles. Those can be subtle, or they can be big story points.”

Primed with that setup, we grabbed a controller and headed out on the first mission, which finds Thorton awakening in a medical bay, dazed and confused. Immediately, you choose whether to rip out your IV or leave it in. Of course, much weightier matters are often yours to decide, from the fate of major NPCs to whether you want to try to sweet-talk the ladies, you superspy you.

But at first, we blasted through a horde of guards in what turned out to be a cool mini-surprise that we ain’t spoiling. Alpha Protocol felt much more like a third-person shooter than an RPG — and that’s intentional. “Our biggest concern was that when you play a low-level D&D character, you kind of suck,” Parker says. “We spent a lot of time on a rules system that allows for player skill, [while granting] a lot of advantages based on your character’s [level] over the course of the game.”

So while you will see XP earnings pop up in all the usual places, we were also able to deftly connect with headshots right from the start. And in another mission, where Obsidian bestowed a much more advanced character on us, we got to see how those skills pan out. You can level up Thorton in 10 areas — half involve combat, but there’s also stealth, hacking, gadget use, and health. Improving in each earns you special abilities that Parker freely admits “are kind of like spells. They’re well beyond what a normal human can do.”

For instance, if you focus on stealth, there’s an evasion ability that gives you an extra second to retreat back out of an enemy’s line of sight before they notice you. Or, as Davis puts it, “you can just take that time to shoot them!” With a submachine gun, though, it’s hard to not have fun hosing down a room with Bullet Storm, which grants you unlimited ammo for a brief, reckless interlude. Or you can earn a Chain Shot with a pistol, which pauses the action like Fallout 3 does with VATS so you can plan and then unleash three shots.

Thorton can also earn perks, which are little rewards “that we toss at you all the time,” explains Parker. They’re not as powerful as Fallout 3’s and are more like Achievements. If you kill a bunch of enemies with a remotely detonated mine, that slaughter might net you a +5%-damage perk for any future mining you do.

The dialogue system also lets Alpha Protocol’s RPG flag fly. Cinematic in a way that recalls Mass Effect faster than Wrex can drop a grumpy one-liner, conversations present you with three options: professional, threatening, or suave. And there’s a timer running, so you’ve got to act fast. “We felt it was important for the genre of espionage that you need to make split-second decisions,” Parker says. In our game time, the choices affected how NPCs responded to us more than they changed far-reaching story points, but there will of course be some biggies, and the cumulative effect of changing NPC reactions will have a big impact over the course of the game, Parker tells us.

We put down the controller liking the framework that Obsidian has constructed for this game. Alpha Protocol is in early enough form that we salute Sega’s decision to push it back from a March release to the summer. And if Obsidian can use that time to weave together a complex, entertaining spy thriller that doesn’t take itself too seriously, we’ll be eager to earn our license to kill.

[jmood88]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

I'll definitely be getting this.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

I'll definitely be getting this.

Same here. I'm definitely picking this up day-one.

[jfsolo]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Obsidian's storytelling abilities, in an espionage themed game, with their first homegrown gameplay mechanics and A.I., makes this my most anticipated non-sports game of the year.(I'm not expecting ME 2 till 2010)

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Twitter/Obsidian_Ent

Obsidian is hosting Game Trailers TV! The segment on Alpha Protocol should air on March 13th.

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

Along with being the feature game on this weeks GTTV, Alpha Protocol will be in this months episode of Qore.

[Flawless]

Re: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

GTTV episode with Alpha Protocol is online.

http://www.gametrailers.com/gametrailerstv_player.php?ep=51&ch=1&sd=1

Find out why Obsidian went spy-espionage and where we're going in Alpha Protocol. Plus we've got the first gameplay trailer. Find out who Michael Thorton is and what he'll be up to. We learn about the RPG elements within Alpha Protocol. We cover the weapons and uncover the ladies in the game.