Sannom

Is the red shield really necessary? At first, I thought that it would indicate to the player that his damage-type wasn't really effective against this enemy, but apparently it only appears when the weapon is really useless and doesn't do any damage. Shouldn't that be obvious to the player even with the problem "Is my weapon ineffective or does he have a huge amount of HP?"?

Gamesradar is having a contest too, this time for free copies of the game and some sort of "spy watch" : http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/alpha-protoc...313162054421046

After the character vignettes at Destructoid, Gamesradar is the second website to have a 'AP week', this time about features of the game. No videos, but articles, and here is the first one, which deals with the importance of dialogues in AP : http://www.gamesradar.com/f/alpha-protocol...429123013224041 And here is the program, resuming on Monday May 3rd : Monday 3 May: Combat and Weapons Tuesday 4 May: Gadgets and Gizmos Wednesday 5 May: Stealth Thursday 6 May: The Femme Fatales I'm especially interested in the last two ones.

I think I said it already, but the limited number of activations doesn't bother me for a solo game like Alpha Protocol. My main problem with those is if I deinstall without the internet working : do I lose that activation, since the de-activation is made through a program in the launch interface???

Well, the voice-acting complaint is focused mostly on Michael, and it must have been quite the hard task to balance all the different stances. And he stills says some of it is really good (what's "vocal interruption" by the way?). I would say that this preview is mostly positive, and the few criticisms can be overlooked and or put on the fact that it is only a preview (the story especially...). Nothing to really worry about, but still look out for them in reviews.

Maybe that he meant that the "playable" parts would have felt like a finished game? As in, not all the parts in the game with probably not all the features, but with few bugs, a nice-looking engine and combats that were enjoyable? And was that game supposed to be turn-based??? Or did the journalist made a mistake (or a joke) there???

Yeah, some big spoilers in that one Although you're safe if you stay clear of the three last paragraphs. There is a french magazine who also made a preview of the game in their latest issue. Apart from the confirmation that there will be a french translation (at least for subtitles and lines from the DSS) they were really interested in the story mechanics, notably that feeling that we could be double-crossed at any moment, and found that the different play-styles were really different from one another. They had some worries about the viability of some of them and found the action element to be rather lackluster, so they reserve their judgment on that one... with some luck, the full review will be there in the next issue, one week before the release of the game here...

Yep, here : http://www.obsidian.net/images/APBlog/blog6/image002.jpg

I think that Conrad too is more intimidating, you can feel the seasonned soldier in him, and his organization seems well informed and everything. Brayko is probably... scarier, because of the knife thing, that is linked to pain, and the fact that he is uncontrollable, you can't really read him. His reactions can't be guessed, and that makes him dangerous. Just like, in a bank robbery, the employees are more afraid of the little punk who just needs some money than of the organized group who knows what they need and how to get it. The later are more intimidating, you know better than to resist, but you also know that everything will be alright if you let them do their thing. The former? Not so much!

Same as Pop : I have actually no problem to believe in Brayko's character, despite how over-the-top, hammy and out-there he seems to be. The whole "crime boss so deep in drugs he barely feels pain" might help, since it has already been done before. It's also the fact that the weirdest part about him is his obsession about the 80s, that's believable, even if the scale to which he takes it is not. I've also already read a story with a character very similar, young, axe-crazy mob boss in Russia with an obsession of his own. I've more problems for Sie though, she reminds me of the female adversary in Goldeneye, and I wasn't a big fan of that character. She has a professionalism behind the craziness, and the mix makes her less appealing and believable than Brayko. The later is crazy and uncontrollable, but he seems to act on impulse and be deep in drugs, while Sie is a mercenary, who should be less prone to the kind of crazy that Brayko does. It's funny how the developers have talked about how the characters are over-the-top, but there were only two characters on the seven presented that really stroke me as "out there". But we weren't introduced to the character voiced by Nolan North yet, this one should be weird too. Sis too could be a contender for weirdness...

Conrad is definitely a spoiler! I didn't even know that guy existed! I assumed he was Alan Parker when we saw him in the videos!

I think Amazon ships everywhere from any of their shops... I never went through it completely, but I was able to choose France as the delivery country for articles bought on the US shop, so... Well, just try it. You won't have to pay if it is not possible, after all.

But if it takes that much time to crack all of those DRM, Ubisoft won't do anything. It lasted for one month, so it served its purpose and proved its efficiency. Unless all Ubisoft games are cracked one day from release from now on, they will do something. But right now, they don't have any reason to do it.

I wonder if the young, crazy and obsessed russian mob boss is a trope I'm not aware of There is an antagonist in a french comic book that reminds me a lot of Brayko : young russian mob boss, ax crazy and completely sadistic, completely obsessed not by 80s culture but by Chopin...

The one for Brayko is up : http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/dtv.phtml#145199 That guy is one crazy loon I still love Michael's VO. The one for Brayko is good too, he's got good deliveries on the insane lines!

The voice acting company is definitely the same as the one who took charge of the Bloodlines voice acting. I believe it is Brian Mitsoda who introduced Obsidian to them...

According to Alpha Protocol's and Fred Tatasciore's fiche on IMDB, you may have recognized him from Alpha Protocol itself (he also voices Shaheed) or from Kung Fu Panda or some early cinematics of Starcraft 2 (Zeratul).

I decidedly liked Mike in it, at the very least. Leland is less demonstrative than Sie, but he was good too. I wonder who will be the next character... Braykio perhaps? Steven Heck? Sis or Albatross?

But neither do Gamespot, right?

Didn't he say it was his first job since leaving college that wasn't tied to the game industry? How does working for Giant Bomb fits that statement???

I wanted to see Chris get out crying damn it But still, great show, good informations and I really liked the bits about Sie. Especially Mike's reaction : "Great..."

Since I'm French, I always had trouble to take those "grues" seriously I mean, how is this supposed to eat a full grown adventurer???

I re-watched that interview, is it me or is the interface for the weapons different than what we've seen before? I remember lower numbers for the different stats, and a bar that filled up, as if there was a maximum to attain.

No "New Game+" mode, but if you finish the game in the Recruit mode, you unlock the Veteran mode, which makes your character good at everything from the beginning, something that the other characters acknowledge. But there is no "replay your game with all your equipment and experience" mode.

Yeah, Molten Face didn't see anything coming on that one Wonder if we can talk to him or reach Shaheed without blowing up his Stryker. His profile on the website says that he appreciates people who makes research before meeting him, so I suppose that we will have an opportunity for a prepared, not violent, encounter with him. Still, good preview and good interview. Nothing new in that last one, but it sums up nicely what the game is about! It also shows that those people who complained about the lack of head-shots were either morons or eyes deficient.