Cl_Flushentityhero

So short, yet so tantalizing. The editing at the beginning was rather reminiscent of the new Bond trailers. Also, the voice of Thornton sounds pretty much spot-on. P.S.- the neck break is goofy

I've heard that explanation before (with Max Payne for example), and I can't help asking: "what are these real life places that have first aid kits?" Unless all of our battles occur in hospitals, private residences, or at sporting events; I wouldn't really expect to find a whole lot of them. It's hard enough finding the prescribed-by-law fire extinguishers in most buildings, much less a medical kit suitable for treating gunshot wounds.

And scavenger hunting it is . . . maybe going light on weaponry will allow us to carry enough medkits to avoid that.

Uh, I think he was just messing with you, hence the smileys. Also, the term (and hence suffering of the victims) is often exploited to stir up support for virtually unrelated for-profit operations overseas. So, while you're technically right, I can see why people have a problem with using the term. Hmm . . . maybe the AP plot hook is good after all.

My forecast is at the rate of teen angst.

I contemplated putting this in the "way off-topic" forum, but it really isn't all that off-topic. I just saw the movie today, and have to disrespectfully disagree with the critics bashing it. But, on to the quasi AP-related discussion, I often found myself thinking "this is what spy stories ought to be." The movie is reluctant to spell things out, with a lot of subtext and false (or not false?) plot hooks sprinkled throughout. When it *does* spell things out, the character doing it always has a personal angle that they're working. Obviously, the movie pulls no punches on morality either, being fairly unsympathetic towards all characters rather than giving them all *really* compelling motives. The movie also *isn't* about one mastermind behind it all or one character consistently outsmarting everybody. If anything, it's Ridley trying to outsmart the audience, and I'm okay with that. In sporting fashion, you'll always get a hint of what's really going on, but it's obscured among other hints to throw you off (hence the title). If I had to level criticism (and I do), the action sequences were very frontloaded in the film, making the end a little anticlimactic. I suppose that could be written off as verisimilitude, if you're into long words. What is there action-wise is pretty well done, with the CQC sequence getting special mention (hah! Like you'd expect anything else from me). I also felt that the movie lingered on less important or easily-understood shots and had a tendency of speeding past the significant stuff. The end effect was that I simultaneously felt like the movie was long-winded while wishing for more of it. All in all though, a very solid offering with a vivid and entertaining delivery of a message many people might not want to hear. Or, maybe I'm a Ridley Scott fanboy.

No . . . but it does sell better, in theory.

Oh yeah, I don't suppose this was the "big" announcement by any chance?

Hmm, I suppose a passenger airline being shot down is a rather morally unambiguous plot hook, lending itself to a morally unambiguous plot. I give Obsidian full credit for being able to complicate matters though. There's no saying that some "evil mastermind" in the U.S. is responsible, or that we will spend the game searching the caves of Afghanistan for the culprit. As in real life, it could just as easily be negligence or something we did that "seemed like a good idea at the time."

I suppose "painful and potentially incapacitating close-combat techniques" doesn't have the same ring to it. While this may come off as sarcastic, congrats on squeezing another month out of SEGA. Oh yeah, and it's cool that AP has a website too.

Well, yeah. The problem with shooter/RPG hybrids is that they tend to be worse-funded and attempt to do more feature-wise than pure shooters. Inevitably, something has to go and technology/graphics tend to be it. AP looks decent to me, but I'm notoriously un-picky about my graphics. Re the balance of roleplaying and action, in what sense? I mean, so far we have the example of the arms dealer at the end of a mission whom players can choose to spare, kill, or arrest. Based on that, I get the impression that it will be similar to SC: Double Agent in that most of the time you're just doing your thing and occasionally a plot-relevant decision will pop up (either during or between missions). Hopefully there are more decisions than SC:DA, though. This is all speculation though, which is pretty much how I roll on the AP forums.

I thought it was pretty enjoyable. Nothing new, but good production values and the action felt right. The CQC system was clever too.

Can Thornton do the splits? This r serious question. After extensive discussion of the logistics of a genocide playthrough, I'm turning over a new leaf. How much do non-combat approaches factor in to each mission? Are they mostly tools to make combat easier? Or will we be able to talk our way through a mission? It'd be great if you could play a pure diplomat or a pure stealth character, but . . . . it seems like a long shot. Even Fallout expects the talker to crack some skulls.

Excellent points taken together. You actually have to determine the reasonable amount of damage for stealth, diplomacy, melee, and firearm-based characters for each mission (heaven forbid the many hybrids I plan on playing). If the health distribution is *only* balanced towards, say, Kenpo-ing your you way through missions, then health management would be a joke for the other character concepts. It seems like a lot of work to put into a system that, supposedly, won't disrupt the flow of the game as long as the player is doing reasonably well or using a combat-light character concept.

The Deus Ex games required you to scrounge extensively, which is not exactly the system you propose. A significant point about BIA, the first three Rainbow Six games, etc., is that you have fodder. You can order your AI squad to distract the enemy and essentially take fire in your stead. While Thornton will occasionally be able to play factions against each other (US Marines in the embassy vs. mysterious attackers), he doesn't work with a squad as a general rule. As such, he doesn't have the same means of avoiding damage that the player does in squad-based titles.

That assumes that conserving resources is or should be a core part of gameplay in general. You mean like ammo? My thoughts on the matter are similar: it makes sense that Thornton would bring enough gear for the mission, however much that was. A large open-ended game like Fallout is practically *about* the resource management. There are missions, but you retain control of the character for everything between them; scrounging, travel, etc. To me, that is the sort of game where resource conservation makes sense as a mechanic. Honestly, the most tactical singleplayer shooters I know of right now (Rainbow six Vegas series, Gears, Army of Two) all have regenerating health systems (and ammo supplies copious enough to be a non-issue). I'm not saying AP should include a chainsaw bayonet, but nor do I really see how counting health packs would = fun. Is there a game I should play that will change my mind?

Okay, I can see the logic behind that. At the same time, I find that such a system typically encourages or even requires save monkeying (quickloading until you do each fight perfectly) or, in the case of limited saves, retrying the mission until you get everything perfect. It's fine to have these as an option, but I'm against making retries integral to a certain approach. You may argue that a series of unconnected firefights is tedious, but what about replaying the exact same firefight countless times to take an acceptable amount of damage? I also tend to favor damage systems that are not conducive to deciding how many bullets you're going to eat with breakfast. The advantage of regen is that you can make death an immediate threat without also turning it into a long term number-crunching problem for the player. I still get the impression that you dislike regenerating health in general, rather than as a specific property of AP (which they've made no announcement either way on to my knowledge).

Hey, mass murder *is* an experience of roleplay in my book

I can see that as a general argument, but what is it that's unique about AP for that purpose? The last good game I remember that used the approach you describe was Hitman: Blood Money; and the game was specifically designed to reward stealthy play. The game was, in essence, punishing you for going in guns blazing because that isn't the hitman way of doing things. My understanding is that AP is supposed to make each approach viable, so the Hitman style of indirectly telling you the "right" way to play the game doesn't apply.

So, if you ever run out of medpacks as a combat character, you should just give up and restart the mission? IMO regenerating health is a mechanic that makes good sense in most shooters (or games that offer gunplay of some sort). I missed the original thread, so could you restate what it is about AP that makes regen bad?

May I suggest cross-dressing as a happy medium?

"Can't" and "would rather not" are two different things, and I think we're talking about the latter. By the same token, not everybody who thinks they can or enjoys roleplaying the opposite gender is any good at it. Also, to another poster, I think romance was cut from Alpha Protocol; probably by the McCain administration and their supposed family values.

I tend to prefer playing male characters (as a male myself). By that token, it's difficult to begrudge those who prefer female characters . . . yet somehow I manage. If something has to go, I'd rather it be gender options before plot or gameplay. This opinion might be different if the majority of video game protagonists weren't already male . . . but I stand by my principles for now.

I agree that character is a huge limitation among the necessary components. Quite simply, most current developers either can't do it or choose not to (for fear of alienating the lowest common denominator). By this I don't mean to say that the characters aren't believable or interesting on some level, merely that they seldom develop along a compelling arc. Upon reflection, I think the main problem is a failure to give characters anywhere to go in the story. Static characters are not inherently bad, but they have to be used with care if they get any reasonable amount of screen time. Important plot events, IME, are only poignant if they occur in tandem with important character development events. One of the clearest examples I've ever seen of this is the ending of last year's 3:10 to Yuma remake. By the end of the movie, you find out that both Bale and Russel's characters had compelling personal reasons to act as they did; not just some generic imperative to uphold justice. Mass Effect is a perfect example of a story that is interesting in theory, but rather bland in practice. The universe and characters are meticulously detailed. You can find out the entire life story of many characters, and seldom does anything jump out as "oh, that's stupid/poorly justified." At the same time, I found myself asking "why should I care?" Even my favorite characters remained pretty much the same from start to finish and while the characters have distinct personalities, they're still pretty generic. There are events significant to specific characters, but usually in a very impersonal way (i.e. because Wrex is a Krogan). Furthermore, the entire impetus behind the plot is pretty much "because we want to save/destroy the organic life forms of the galaxy." They may be able to establish auxiliary reasons for trying to do either, but none of them are particularly compelling. Good graphics, interesting setting, good music, decent voice acting, yet the overall experience falls a little short (don't get me wrong, I love the game, but it's missing that extra something). Honestly, I think the best storytelling in ME is probably done in the sidequests such as the ghost ship or the survivor back-story mission. Contrast with Khelgar's arc in NWN2. His desire to become a monk should initially evoke the response of "yeah, right." Through the main plot events, however, he comes to understand the abstract monastic concepts on an emotional level. This is something that, on paper, actually sounds pretty cheesy. A synergy between writing, voice acting, and the settings in which events occur (the church moment was probably my favorite), however, sells the character. Well, it did for me anyway. Like a good story has a beginning, middle, and end; so does a good character. With the protagonist, the ideal is to have important personal events coincide with important plot events. It may be possible to deliver a compelling story with these separate, but offhand I can't really think of any. This is why flashback and other time-trickery is such a major device in film. To be honest, I'm not sure Thornton himself is set up to be a particularly compelling character. Bear with me a moment. At the beginning of the game, Thornton is (so far as we know) pretty much a blank slate by design. This suggests his background is either pretty generic or something that the other characters don't talk about (thus allowing the player to fill in the blanks). His values, priorities, etc. will be chosen by the player during the game. The theory that we'll shape him into a compelling character through the decisions we make in game is an appealing one, but with no real starting point beyond the circumstances of the plot I'll believe it when I see it. It is challenging to make a compelling character arc for the protagonist in a story, it is *extremely* challenging to make several. That said, I suppose if any current developer were up to the task, it'd be Obsidian. Alternately, perhaps Thornton is only a blank slate in terms of his skills, and the character arc is mostly predetermined with a few deicisions that slightly tweak the existing plot. It sounds like I'm badmouthing this version, but in truth it probably has a higher chance of success.

Naturally, I can't speak on AP; but I can talk about the general subject. It's my impression that whether a game "moves" people is an emergent quality. By this, I mean that it is the sum of many parts rather than a standalone aspect of a game. Typically, we think of character and plot; and those are important, but presentation counts for a lot as well. It's the sort of thing a lot of games set out to do, but until everything comes together you don't know whether it's going to work.