HanSh0t1st

Isn't Sis only sixteen? I doubt they'd make her a romance option for that reason alone. Also, on several occassions they've mentioned in videos being able to romance up to four women and then showing concept arts of four women (implying that these are the romanceable characters) - Mina, Sie and Scarlett being the three I can remember and the fourth definitely not being Sis.

Yeah, that's when the guy's tied up and someone is looming over him looking as if he's about to pour detergent over him - presumably intending to immolate his prisoner. And, yeah, I noticed that as well - that the detergent was one of the trophies on display in a safehouse in the latest walkthrough trailer. I also noticed that near the end of the same video (it was either the same video or Dev Diary #4) you could clearly see the man who had being holding the detergent speaking to Michael on a screen in a same manner as Sie and Albatross - implying that he is a potential handler. And, isn't the last bit of your post pretty spoilerific?

Which explains why you post under the name "Londonboy"

Meh. I preferred LoF's thread asking if AP would force the player to be 'an American Imperialist, furthering Western interests while trampling over local democracy' (my summary of his post) By comparison, though, this is pretty uninteresting

If true, then it's only being delayed by a few weeks - that's hardly Duke Nukem Forever or Too Human. At this point, an optimist might point out that this is showing that Obsidian are making sure to take their time on this game to make sure that it's not buggy or incomplete - a frequent criticism levied at them over K2 and NWN2 (though, I never had any complaints about the former and was never really into NWN in the first place.) But anyway, I am really looking forward to AP now so I'm sorta hoping it isn't true - though a 19 day delay would not be the end of the world.

I know that the characters are pretty eccentric and the abilities are meant to be a bit over-the-top but I'm junder the impression that it is still grounded in reality and the combat and story are meant to be at least somewhat realistic - the combat we've seen at E3, though, seems to suggest otherwise - which is strange as we have been told that a more tactical/ cautious approach is equally playable. To be honest, I don't really like the idea that you can run around in the open and take as much fire seen in the G4tv demo without being killed pretty quickly. I thought that you'd have to make at least some use of cover to stay alive when AP is set to the normal difficulty level (which may explain the demo, if it was set to easy). EDIT: I also agree about the AI needed to be improved - that's something that I've been unimpressed by in most of the videos where it has been shown (I actually meant to address AI in my original post - damn! ) Certainly, I think that - while the characters are meant to be eccentric in their design - the AI and the combat seem to be undermining the tone. I'm not sure if this has changed, but their intention seemed to be to create a tone somewhat akin to Syriana/24/the Bourne series but without the feeling of tension or danger being present in combat then this won't happen. I think that since then they might have started moving away from being completely realistic, but they still have to maintain that tension - otherwise it just won't work.

First off, I'd like to say that so far Alpha Protocol looks great. I think that the graphics look great and I think that the gameplay has the potential to be brilliant - certainly, AP has the potential to be awesome. Having said that, however, and having followed quite closely for the last few months, I do have some criticism of it, based on what I have seen so far. My first point is (and I know that this is possibly just how the game has been played in a few videos we have seen) that I think the running and gunning-style combat looks a bit ridiculous. I was really quite happy with how the combat looked in the earlier IGN walkthrough vid (the one which showed some of the Embassy mission from different perspectives) yet I'm not so certain about it, as it has been shown in more recent videos. The G4tv demo, for example, shows Thorton running in circles around enemies while he shoots at them. Even the gttv walkthrough vid that we saw, and which shows stealth gameplay to an extent, ends up with Thorton running around like an idiot. My original impression of the stealth was that Thorton acted as a saboteur. Ie, sneaking past enemies, taking some down before it turns into a full fight and using technology to gain the upper-hand (hacking, setting off missiles, etc.) I realise that you get to chose your approach in combat but the stealth gameplay we saw degenerated pretty quickly into running-and-gunning. So, is it still an option to handle the situation tactically, use cover and use stealth? I don't expect to be able to avoid open combat, but I'd at least like the option to take a more subtle approach My second point - and it's not a major one, but it's fairly important to me - concerns the look of the game. Now, I think that the graphics look good but I'm slightly concerned by the GUI. A complaint that I've seen is that the game looks too arcadey. Certainly, I'm hoping that it won't turn out that way in combat, but I have another concern. More specifically, I don't really like the look of the xbox button prompts and the buttons in dialogue. I just think they look rather goofy and arcadey. Compare how they look here http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-alpha-protocol/50419 and how they looked here http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/7947...7001122548.html I just think that the second makes it look much nicer and, more than anything, maintains the image of AP as a serious espionage RPG (as I said, I think it looks a bit goofy in the first link) Anyway, I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but I'm hoping for some sort of affirmation/ discussion and still look forward greatly to AP's release in spite of any criticism I might have

AI's a major concern for me as well. I don't think I've been completely convinced by the AI in any of the videos so far (except for, perhaps, the second walkthrough video, where the problems were less noticeable...but I still think the convo GUI was nicer back then )

The graphics look great and I really look forward to playing it :D One thing I did notice, though, was that the GUI seems to have been changed slightly - aesthetically. The xbox prompt buttons now look slightly different and I noticed in the hands-on interview/demo thingy that a similar change seems to have been made in conversation as well. I don't really know why the changed it. I would have been happy with this one ( http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/7947...d=39p7og6utfbr7 ) I have to say, though, the graphics do look brilliant and I do look forward to it.

Hmmmm.... I watched both again and I probably am just seeing things.

I'm not one to complain about graphics, but is it just me or did the graphics in the last trailer look better than the graphics in this one?

Ah, ok... I suppose that makes sense. So that's what, four weeks away? Sounds good. I'm hoping that this year's E3 will be really good - apparently Mass Effect 2 will be making a showing, with a lot of new info being given. Given that AP is apparently coming out this fall I'm also hoping for some new footage/info...

An open question to any dev: do you any idea when we might see the next walkthrough trailer?

I'm finding it difficult to imagine how you can't realise the reason why so many people are referring to you as a troll. With an opening statement like "it's gonna be bad" (which, incidentally, appears to be based on a fairly tenuous grasp of the incomplete knowledge currently available) you surely must have expected to be accused of trying to cause an argument - such an unfounded statement, supported by such stubborness in response to the few people who have decided to try an form a discussion out of this thread screams "troll" to me. Nevertheless, if you are willing to have a decent discussion then I'll reply to some of your points. I think that the answer to that is contained within the question. As you said, the AK-47s are "cruddy". Really, while a reasonable choice of weaponry for any paramilitary force, I can't imagine that these would be of any more use to Michael Thorton than his own, cutting-edge weaponry and I certainly don't understand why he'd trade this. Explain to me an advantage of allowing MT to pick up these weapons. If it was for pure realism's sake the I can't understand the appeal either. To me, the idea of a soldier/ operative/ spy or the like picking up a dead enemy's weapon to use in place of his own seems to align more with action movies than any sort of real-life tactics. You're supposed to think about your choices and think about how you want your character to act. The morality bars are usually meant as more of a reference point, not as a moral compass. It's this particular part of the post that makes me think that you're an idiot (if any particular part of the post needed to be singled out to show this.) I'm not quite sure what you're looking for in an RPG but I don't think that you're likely to find it here. Or anywhere. Moving bodies works in Splinter Cell because it's fairly slowly-paced. AP, however, is not meant to be. Stealth, of course, would mean a cautioned approach, but I really can't see the fun in adding this as a gameplay dynamic to AP. Besides, I get the impression that this sort of stealth is more takedown-and-move-one than takedown-and-clean-up-so-that-no-one-detects-you. With that in mind, I don't think that lingering around, moving bodies and attempting to hide them, while you are forced to suspend your disbelief that Serkhov has not been killed yet, would be conductive to this kind of gameplay. What are you, Fox news? It's a gameplay choice. In a game. Don't like it, don't chose it. Object completely to it? Don't buy the game and get on with your life.

That seems probable. Though I'm fairly certain we've seen an older video which showed PS3 buttons in their place rather than generic white dots.