Starwars

Oner, I don't think they recorded anything more than that even though they apparently continued streaming afterwards (I went to bed so I didn't see it). By the way, I loved that little line in the middle of the mission where Mike screws with the missile launcher things and Yance asks what he just did. Small stuff, but fun.

Oblarg, it is the first mission you do after the tutorial. Aside from the level itself, there is nothing we haven't seen before (we've seen both conversations in other vids and they appear to be of fairly little consequence in the grand scheme of things). The commentators really annoyed me though, kinda ruined my excitment for seeing some AP.

Things you might see carry over are good writing and choices (likely more choices in this game, we'll see how much they affect things). But I mean, first off the setting is way different than those games. Even though it's a bit "over-the-top spy movie", this obviously won't be as fantastic as something like Mask of the Betrayer. Secondly, the gameplay is very much an action-RPG and this includes the dialogue system as well. Going into the game simply based on feelings of nostalgia for the good ol' days will leave you disappointed.

Well, mission accomplished at last. The game looks like a lot of fun overall, the most negative thing I saw is that the enemy behaviour seems a bit funky at times and there was some strange collision errors near the beginning with one particular guard. A positive thing is the number of times the guy actually died, it does seem like you can really screw up and die. Granted he was probably distracted with all the other people in the room but even so. Which brings me to another point, god those people are annoying. Would've been a helluva lot more informative if they had the guy playing plus one person keeping an eye on the chat.

So a test stream is going on now with the game. I hope they remove that big ugly watermark when the real stuff starts.

No idea, could be that the password is for the people working on the site so they set up a bit before and make sure everything works.

That's one snobby fetus.

I might watch it depending on how sleepy I'm feeling. It's not until 2am my time.

The guy just mentioned that it seems like you can stun enemies by kicking up doors in their face.

Judging from further comments, it doesn't sound like he's a hardcore roleplayer. He says that stealth seems to be very hard. But I'm not sure on his skill allocation, he hasn't pumped his stealth skill at least. Some other points of interest that he's pointed out are that conversations, while they are cutscenes, still take place in "real-time" which means that it can be beneficial to keep a guy talking for as long as possible after combat if you want to go into combat again, because stuff like armor regen and cooldown on skills are happening in the background. Also, when using stuff like Chain Shot, apparently your skill level in Pistols still affect the reticule. So it's still possible to miss the shots. EDIT: He also mentions that CQC is fun, and his favorite weapon after the assault rifle.

Yep. Still, I don't think it's an all-together unfair point to bring up in a game with action-y gameplay where you also happen to play a spy, as well as the fact that he feels the game doesn't communicate this to the player. I mean, I think I'll like it the way it is personally, but it could be a problem if some people feel that the game "tricks" them.

A guy on the SomethingAwful forums says that he's been playing the preview build a bit, and here's what he has to say.

That's actually a pretty good idea for some of the animals. It'd be great if they could implement something like that.

Eh, I'm not a particularly visual person when it comes to games (meaning I usually don't see the technical aspects of it) but I really don't know how anyone could think the Dragon Age looks better than AP. But yep, I have a hard time telling which games look "good" technically and vice versa. At any rate, it's certainly something that will work against AP in terms of sales. But I don't really care personally. Knights of the Chalice was one of my favorite games last year and I think playing that would cause a lot of todays gamers to pluck their own eyes out and eat them.

It's the Unreal Engine, just not the newest version (that Mass Effect 2 used afaik). I think the game looks comparable (a bit better) to Dragon Age. Both games were in development for a really long time, so neither game is up to par with the current visual heavyweights.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/04/26/...play-episode-4/ I have no idea what this is about or if there's any new info/footage of Alpha Protocol in the preview, but I figured maybe someone had seen it or would be interested.

The constant critters got extremely annoying after a while I think, especially certain critters like the radscorpions. I know a freeroamer has to have some content in the game while you travel, but there are times in the game where I've stood on a high place in the terrain and looked around and saw freakin' robots, radscorpions (which often come in pairs at higher levels it seems) and other crap in the same general idea. There's not much in the game that can annoy me as much as hearing the combat music starting up and finding that a radscorpion has spotted me from a mile away and is now superintent on following me to the end of the world.

I think as far as reviewers go, the scores will generally be in the 80s range with occasional dips into 70s as well as occasional peaks into 90s. I don't get the feeling that people will go gaga over this game like they do with the real "blockbusters" so to speak.

http://www.gamersdailynews.com/article-244...eview-X360.html This one is very positive overall. Thinks the gameplay is great overall and cites the stealth bits as being well done. On the other hand, he finds the story to be clich

Mostly very good info. Boxing gloves seems like it could mean we get another boxing arena type of deal. Reload animations sound good as does the general improvements to the combat. Gambling sounds good and fitting (hope Luck does play a really big role). Having a Vault where everything was decided by gambling sounds rather weird but I dig the fact that it's now turned into a casino. Love the different currencies. Not sure about the background to the city though. I've never been big on robots being sort of plentiful in the Fallout setting, and I admit I had wished for something a bit more... well, seedy and sorta run down in New Vegas. But maybe that's just not coming through, I hope there is still plenty of despair to be found in the city. Really glad that we're not seeing the whole mob bosses deal again at any rate. Hope OEI puts their good writers to the test when it comes to this Howard Hughes character.

It really isn't anything new when you look at the mechanics. I mean, Blade Runner has a keyword system and speaking main character like that as well for example. I guess the thing they made it new and flashy was that they pushed for a more cinematic vibe. I don't really view the Dialogue Stance System as something innovative either, but I think it's far more fitting than the ME system for a cinematic approach. I don't think the Mass Effect system pushed that design particularly far, and I don't feel the pay-off was worth it in terms of losing the "full dialogue options on screen" approach. Mind you, I'm not convinced personally that I'll love the DSS either, but it seems to me that it's a much better designed system for a cinematic game, with the whole making choices as you go along (keywords can be read much faster). But yep, there will be (and has been for that matter) many, many, many people pointing out comparisons to Mass Effect and how OEI jumped on that bandwagon etc. There are similarities of course but it kinda annoys me that people aren't able to see how much of a difference there is between the two dialogue systems for example, the gameplay in conversations alone will end up being vastly different from the design decision of having the flowing dialogues.

Neither do I, but I *do* wish that it's better than what we saw in that video. Because that just looked weird. Not even close to a gamebreaker for myself, but even so...

From what we've seen so far, I think he's handled the aggressive stuff especially well. He sounds awesome when dealing with that bearded guy in the video.

In what way Hurlshot? Sounds like it's gonna be a real good deal for both companies, given the short development time.

Another fairly level-headed preview: http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/alpha_pr...eview-2332.html Mentions that ME2 sorta casts a shadow over AP in a way, and that some parts of the game (graphics for example) would've been more warmly received if it had been released earlier. He also mentions that the gunplay isn't as satisfying as ME2, but considering how much he praises the ME2 combat here (seriously, it wasn't that good man), I'll dismiss him as a bit of a loony. On the other hand, he feels the strengths of AP really are in the choices, whether that's in combat or stealth or in gathering intel and how you handle NPCs. He seems to feel those areas are really strong in the game.