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Alpha Protocol photo depository thread

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KvP:
Since the game's 5 months or so away, and the E3 thread's pretty much done for, so I'm making this thread for those of you who are interested. These new pics are from Leipzig.

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So basically, for those not in the know (and given Sega's promo performance, that's most if not all of you) Alpha Protocol is an espionage-themed Action RPG from Obsidian Entertainment slated for release in February (man, that spelling annoys me). It's made by the same dudes who, in the past, have made Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2 and the Icewind Dale games. Specifically this is being designed by the guy who did KOTOR2 and PS:T.

Basically, the gist is thus - you are Michael Thorton (no N like Billy Bob), a trained CIA operative who goes on a mission that, of course, must go haywire. You are framed for something or other and you go Alpha Protocol (off the grid and on the run to complete a mission) while you are the only person who is aware of a global conspiracy with malevolent intentions, and you alone have to stop it. You have a list of informants and safehouses spread across the globe, and you go about trying to find out what's what.

Before these screenies were released the game looked a lot like Mass Effect, and it still sort of does, mainly due to both of them using UE3, but it's slowly setting itself apart. The character models are less shiny, and there's actual CQC (the dev in charge of melee fighting says it's American Kenpo) that looks very promising (certainly my first playthrough) The primary inspiration for animation and combat is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which I've heard very good things about but haven't played because boo hiss Sony.

The dialogue system is like ME, but it's even simpler. It's much more like Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit for you euros) your responses are timed, and you're given a very simple summation of the actions you can perform. "Draw gun" "smooth talk" "bribe" "threaten", etc. It should lead to fewer "but I didn't want to shoot the guy!" moments like the sort you got from ME. In general there will be 3 different "conversation paths" you can take. There's suave (Bond), brutal (Bauer) and professional (Bourne), more or less. You can choose one of these "paths" and put the controller down as the timer ticks down and automatically chooses responses indicative of the path, or you can switch at a whim. The devs have promised that once you've gone through a dialogue tree, you can't go back through it. So you have to be sure of what you're doing.

One thing about the game that people are skeptical of at this juncture is that it looks like the game will have unlimited ammo. You're likely going to be made to choose your weapons and mods at the beginning of a mission (like Hitman) but you won't be able to retrieve enemy weapons. Among the strategy enthusiasts this doesn't sit very well. You'll have to reload your guns, but you'll have infinite clips and can thus go full Rambo for an entire mission if you wanted to. The tone of the game is sort of hard to pin down. There are camp elements, given that they're drawing somewhat from the Bond legacy, but they're also trying to ground the game in the real world, even if that world is exaggerated (CQC, for example, is an absolute last resort for any real soldier or fighter)

Here's a more recently released preview from E3.

Storm Rider:
Jeez, I just realized that February 2009 only is a little over 5 months away. It seems so much longer. I am hoping that this is the game that finally makes Obsidian into a premier RPG developer. I mean, NWN 2 was fine, but it was buggy as hell, and of course everyone knows the trials and tribulations around KOTOR 2's development. I hear Mask of Betrayer was great, but in the grand scheme of things it was just an expansion pack. I'm curious, do we know whether Obsidian owns this IP themselves in the same way Bioware owns all their original IP, or does Sega own Alpha Protocol?

Sega certainly seems to have a lot of faith in the Obsidian team, since they handed them the development keys to the Aliens RPG that they're working on next as well. If Alpha Protocol hits it big, I wonder if Sega tries acquiring them like they recently did with Creative Assembly.

KvP:
The IP was developed internally and then pitched to Sega, if I recall correctly, and Sega farmed Aliens out to Obsidian at the same time they commissioned Gearbox (there is also apparently some overlap between the two games, storywise / artwise / characterwise)

It'd be interesting if Sega were to buy out Obsidian. They seem more of a mid-level publisher than an EA or Activision. But I'm wary of it. Troika set out to become the "pet RPG developer" of a few publishers but it didn't work out at all, mostly due to Troika's staggering inefficiency and propensity for pissing them off. Obsidian seems more savvy than that, though. They're making games more of the times, at least.

Storm Rider:
As I understand it, Sega contracted Obsidian for Alpha Protocol (which of course was still secret at that point) and the Aliens RPG at the same time, probably around the same time they partnered with Gearbox for the Aliens shooter. I feel like Gearbox is doing something else for Sega beyond that and the Wii remake of Samba de Amigo, but I can't remember it offhand.

The reason why I brought up the acquisition issue is that it's an increasing trend in the modern video games market. As technology increases and game development costs rise, along with gamer culture increasingly recognizing names and teams that produce quality product, publishers want safe investments in the form of talented studios. The Bioware/Pandemic deal earlier last year proves that pretty much nobody is off limits, but the thing is that right now, Obsidian is still relatively small in comparison so they'd be much cheaper to buy out. I think that Sega is obviously interested because quality western RPG studios are few and far between anyway, and with Bioware owned by EA and Bethesda still tied to 2K for the time being, Obsidian is really the only one left that has significant name recognition without a clear allegiance to a publisher. I bet they probably would have already tried if they had the cash on hand, which is why I'm guessing if Alpha Protocol does well commercially they'll just use the profits to offer Obsidian a deal.

That being said, I really don't think acquisition would necessarily be a bad thing for Obsidian. They very clearly have their shit together to a much bigger level than Troika ever did; their first couple of games had their bumpy development for sure, but since their publishers were Atari and Lucasarts I doubt very much of that was their fault to begin with. And I really think Sega has finally turned the corner from the post-Dreamcast slump: they're partnering with talented teams (the aforementioned deals with Obsidian and Gearbox, and also with Silicon Knights and Platinum Games), and I really think the Aliens initiative could end up being the prime example of licensed games done right. Those Aliens games have been in development in some capacity for nearly two years now, and they got good studios to work in genres they're comfortable with, so it's clearly not just some shitty cash-in like we're used to publishers putting out.

Statik:
So wait... they contracted a dev studio with released but unfinished games under their belt to make a sickeningly complex RPGish game?

Oh, I'm so looking forward to it...



To clarify, I know it's probably not the soley the devs fault that KOTOR2, Fallout2, etc were released buggy and unfinished, but still.

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