Alpha Protocol (Obsidian's new action-RPG)

[trobinson97]

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

I will probably be waiting this one out until a price drop or a nice used copy for sale.

Same. Looks interesting, but not enough to be a first day buy.

[SPTO]

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

October 6th is perfect time for me. I rarely if ever buy anything other then sports games and the middle of football season is my least active in my hobby so i'll have the funds for this one

[Flawless]

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

Dev Walkthrough #2:

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[SPTO]

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

Wow I gotta say this is one of the more customizable games i've seen in a loooong time.

Thanks for posting.

[MC Fatigue]

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

This game is looking brilliant. I'm definitely going to have to keep my eye out for when this releases.

[CMH]

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

Why does this look like a PS2 game?

[moose1619]

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

This game has a Syphon Filter feel to me. I believe I will be picking this up, looks like a fun game to me.

[SPTO]

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

Why does this look like a PS2 game?

I'd take PS2 level graphics if it means the gameplay will be extremely deep and involving.

[pfunk880]

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

I'd take PS2 level graphics if it means the gameplay will be extremely deep and involving.

I was going to say the same thing. If they have to sacrifice graphics a little for a deeper game, I'm all for it. And to me, the graphics look like late-PS2 quality at the very worst, they are not bad by any stretch.

[MC Fatigue]

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

I was going to say the same thing. If they have to sacrifice graphics a little for a deeper game, I'm all for it. And to me, the graphics look like late-PS2 quality at the very worst, they are not bad by any stretch.

Ditto. Case in point - Prototype. Downgraded graphics = massive city with hundreds of people/things going on at the screen at any one time.

[Flawless]

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

Eurogamer Preview

Adaptation to your play-style, not punishment. In fact, Alpha Protocol could even be said to be rewarding you for playing however you like. While clearly this is only one example, if Obsidian can stretch this philosophy across all 30-odd hours of the game (which sounds short for an RPG, but the 120 hours of dialogue hint at huge scope for replay) it could achieve something role-playing developers have been chasing in vain for years: a game that's truly shaped by you, not one that simply tumbles into arbitrary good, bad, and somewhere-in-the-middle.

Alpha Protocol's theme helps, of course - you're not Sir Amnesiapants, with a fixed destiny to save the entire world, even if you are a tad prone to biting the heads off children en route. You're a spy. Spies do bad stuff as part of a grander plan to achieve their mission. In a sense, your morality is already fixed by the character you play as - you're always going to be Michael Thornton, Super-Spy, with a remit to bring down threats to civilisation (though there are strong hints you'll be deciding which threats are ultimately greatest). You can choose to give Michael a silly beard or a bald head, but while that makes the cut-scenes funnier, it doesn't change their outcome. He's a man with a job to do, and he'll achieve it by whatever means he and therefore you deem necessary. "We try and make it so there's no bad choices," says programming producer Nathan Davis. "We want to reward you for playing in the style that you want."

This includes the combat as well as the conversation: the pow as well as the pow-wow, if you will. While superficially the action and the levelling up/abilities system is reminiscent of Mass Effect, it's a lot more integral to the game as a whole, as opposed to an extra lump stuck on the side. There isn't, it appears, much in the way of wandering around hub locations picking up quests and making idle chat-chat: the conversations happen during missions, and then shape the directions those missions go in, and where you go next. On the one hand, this promises a tight flow and a naturalistic narrative, rather than the strange, ancient RPG hangover that sees guys delay saving the entire world to go find someone's lost teddy bear in the hope of earning a few coins and a pat on the head. On the other, it could severely limit the sense of world and place, in favour of a series of arenas with cut-scenes in between.

On the other, other hand, the one with knuckles made of steel, those arenas are impressively flexible. Wanna kill everyone? Kill everyone. Wanna avoid everyone? Avoid everyone. Wanna kung-fu everyone? Kung-fu everyone. Wanna, er, gadget everyone? Gadget everyone. This is a game chock-full of toys. Again, the game responds to what you do, rather than boxing you into a corner - keep on kung-fuing folk and you'll be rewarded with perks for it (many of which are paired with Achievements/Trophies) that unlock ultra-attacks. Switch to sub-machine-gunning goons in the face and you'll earn a few perks from that too. Again, there's that shining promise of replay value - a game that shifts down new paths in on-the-fly response to your actions is never going to play the same way twice.

On the other, other, other hand, the one with seven fingers and weeping sores on the palm, it's not an especially pretty game in either its technology or its art style, none of the demonstrated characters stick out as especially memorable and some of the dialogue seems a little stuck between the rock of run-on exposition and the hard place of attempted James Bond camp. Again, though - it's impossible to demonstrate an RPG in anything less than several hours if you want to convey a meaningful sense of what it's like to lose yourself in the character. And that's what Alpha Protocol aims to do above and beyond anything else. You're a secret agent, after all. Nobody tells you what to do - except you.

[CMH]

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

Ditto. Case in point - Prototype. Downgraded graphics = massive city with hundreds of people/things going on at the screen at any one time.

Prototype still looked next-gen.

This looks like a pack of pixels beat down every advanced element of character design.

I'm just saying. There have been deep games with amazing graphics. So, I'll wait and see if this game is actually deeper than any other. GTA IV with it's huge world still had better graphics.

[Flawless]

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

Eurogamer Interview

Eurogamer: What are our relationships going to be like with those 20 main characters? Are they mission-dispensers or can we make friends and have them join us on our journey?

Chris Avellone: We wanted to keep the cast list much smaller than our previous games, so you can have more interactivity with them. The basis of the relationships in the game was also more spy-focused. What I mean by that is in previous games, like Knights of the Old Republic II, the morality scale and the interaction with the characters in that game was very much geared towards the campaign world, in the sense that you have the Light Side, Dark Side, it's very black and white. In the espionage and covert-ops genre things are a lot more complicated, and it's much more about how much you trust and respect the other person and what the methods of the other person are and how you feel about that.

To give that more clarity: the way we have it set up is that you can build a reputation level with the characters in this game that runs the range from animosity to friendship or respect, and each of those ranges will give you different bonuses. So actually there will be instances where having someone furious at you and hating your guts can work to your advantage.

Eurogamer: Do you ever assemble a party to accompany you, or are we all lone rangers?

Chris Avellone: You will have an opportunity over the course of the game to team up with some of the characters both physically in missions and also as handlers over your ear-piece. And by that I mean, depending on your relationships with some of the characters in the game, you can actually switch off the person who is talking to you over the radio and they will give you different advice and objectives in the mission and give it a different personality than with other handlers.

Eurogamer: What sort of character progression will he go through, both visually and mechanically?

Chris Avellone: Well, visually on the character we try and provide the player with a number of customisation options, like skin colour, tone, any sort of facial hair they want, hair styles, different clothing sets or armours sets that they want to wear. And that will extend to the mod upgrades for the weapons as well: you can visually see the mods on the weapons as you customise them.

For gameplay mechanics the evolution of the character takes a few routes. One is it being level-based and skill-based - you can choose to specialise in a number of different skills. In addition, after you're done with your first mission you have a chance to specialise to a number of other classes - I guess the closest analogy would be Prestige Classes in Dungeons & Dragons. So that helps you set yourself apart from other players playing the game and achieve extra skill levels and skills that other characters cannot.

Eurogamer: How do dialogue choices affect the world?

Chris Avellone: It affects the game in a number of ways. It usually affects the reputation level of the person you interact with and potentially other characters you're talking about in that conversation. You can get reputation pluses and minuses in those conversations.

The other thing that takes place is you can gain dossier pieces, and dossier basically represents the amount of research you've done on a faction or individual. Once you achieve a full dossier or you find out secret facts about a characters, that will also give you game bonuses as well.

Another aspect that comes into play is, depending on the choices you make during a conversation, you can gain new gameplay mechanic quirks. For example, if you take a very heavy Jack Bauer route through the game and you decide you don't want to leave any enemies behind you, if you'd rather not talk to people and shoot them in the knees and have them spill their guts to you - you really don't have time to figure out where the missile is - we allow you to do those options and we award you perks based on those choices in the dialogue choices.

Eurogamer: How different are these hubs going to be? And what sort of freedom of exploration will we have in them?

Chris Avellone: Obviously you can choose whichever mission you want to go on. But there's an added feature that when you go to each mission you actually get a choice, when you get there, of a series of missions and which order you want to tackle them in. And you can choose those based on your expertise or what missions you want to go on. So if you're playing the James Bond suave character it may be more to your benefit or interest to go talk to contacts first and find out what they know about stuff and then use that to get the critical missions in each hub. Or the commando character may go on various assault missions to try and get the information they need. We made sure the players had those optional missions to choose from to open up the core missions.

[Flawless]

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

Alpha Protocol: The First Three Hours

After the first half hour or so, things really open up. You have control over your character's look, adding goofy beards and berets as you see fit. While you can't change every aspect of your face, there's a decent level of customization, though the best are those that lean towards the ridiculous.

The real fun comes in upgrading your character's stats, customizing weapons and picking your gadgets. Every character has nine stats: Stealth, Pistols, Submachine Guns, Shotguns, Assault Rifles, Sabotage, Technical Aptitude, Toughness and Martial Arts. Each time you gain a level, you earn points to distribute amongst these stats. Not only does a higher stat mean you are better at something, but each provides bonus abilities. Level 3 of Stealth, for example, adds the Silent Run ability, which makes your footsteps inaudible for 10 seconds. Level 11 of Sabotage earns the Remote Hack ability, which is as useful as it sounds.

Alpha Protocol can be played as a stealth game, a straight up shooter or a mixture of the two. How you choose to level up your character largely determines how you'll tackle missions.

The conversation elements are really the most interesting part of Alpha Protocol and tie in to a complex web of alliances. You are not good or bad, you're a spy and will always fall in the grey area. But sometimes you need to make tough choices. Do you let a mass murderer go in hopes his friendship will lead you to an even bigger threat? Do you kill someone who's committed atrocities but is willing to give you a discount on weapons? Again, it's not that you're good or bad for making these choices; you're just doing your job.

The missions are less spectacular than the setup. Most are fairly linear and while the objectives may change, the approach seems the same. Sneak your way across an area to get to the target. Or you can run and gun. Or, more likely, you can try stealth until you're spotted, then kill folks.

For all the promise I found in the set-up and conversations, I came across an equal number of issues in the field. Keep in mind, this is still an early build, but as it stands this is not a very attractive game. The AI is pretty simple-minded and it's not always clear when you are fully in cover. But the troublesome aspect is that the game is incredibly buggy. Normally I'd give the benefit of the doubt to preview code such as this, but I feel I have to give it mention due to Obsidian's development history. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Neverwinter Nights II are both games with some great ideas, but also tons of bugs. Seeing so many glitches in Alpha Protocol makes me more than a little nervous. Hopefully the next build I play has many of these issues ironed out.

Alpha Protocol definitely has some good elements to it. I like the dialogue system and the impact relationships have on the narrative, but I'm certainly not overwhelmed by the actually gameplay. The next month (and the impending review code) should be very telling of Alpha Protocol's success. Fingers crossed.

[Spectre]

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

Right now, I'm gonna pass on this.

I hope I'll get excited over the next month but as of now, the brilliance of Mass Effect 2 is kinda drowning this guy out.