kreese12

I knew it Ya watched the video. It is a different run-through of the level. Wasn't certain until the player killed the turret gunner dude via explosion instead of by shooting him. Damn I'm stoked for this game. I think it's looking good. I'm also glad to see that it is receiving a good user rating on GameTrailers. Some of the other A.P videos received a low '7' rating with people writing dumb comments thinking that the game is merely an action game... it is good to see more people are 'getting it.' Regrettably it doesn't appear that I can re-edit the title of this thread to replace 'old' with 'new'. Maybe a mod could help me out? It's all Oner's fault btw 8P

Doh ! Sorry for cryin' wolf. Editing title...

Ya, I assume it would. Obiviously if you had 8 guys it would be more effective than 1. If you had 8 you could get one guy just to work on path finding, one guy to work on grenade throwing and setting traps, one guy working on AI team strategy, one guy working on stealth player detection AI, one guy working on etc etc etc, instead of, uh, one guy working on AI.

Edit : Sorry video not new. Haven't had a chance to check out just right now but wanted to give you guys a head's up: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/global-c...-protocol/51868 Pretty certain it is new. Just went up today anyways. Not sure how much 'new' stuff is in it though.

Well I guess it's just a big laser sight then. I'm not a gun expert, but I think they have like the dinky small laser pointers for hand guns, but they also have much larger and more powerful xenon laser scopes as well. Just saying, it might be modeled after a real-life laser scope and so therefore it may look silly but is actually somewhat realistic. 2 seconds of googling later: http://www.szwholesale.com/tactical-20mw-g...0mw-p-1723.html Something like that could conceivably be put on a hand gun, I believe.

If the mod was called 'pistol laser sight', uh, wouldn't it more likely be a laser sight, instead of a scope?

Totally. Ya FEAR was one of the rare games that actually had pretty good AI. It is surprisingly rare. It is sort of interesting to imagine what games would be like in an alternate Earth dimension where they hired as many people to work on a game's AI as they do graphic artists. Can you image how crazy that would be? Enemies making battle plans against and you behaving intelligently...that would be so cool. But ya back to the difficulty thing, if a dude jumps out at me from behind a box and unloads a shotgun on me from three feet away, I do NOT want to survive it.

Haven't seen those jeuxvideos before! They look great! I'm even more stoked for this game now. About the whole 'German blonde' stereotype thing, that's a really dumb concept. First off, Germans being blonde isn't much of a stereotype. It is for Swedes (and there is a lot of truth to it to btw). For Germans being blonde -- not so much. And I won't even touch on how dumb it is to start mentioning WW2 and uber-men etc. And even blonde Germans was a stereotype, does it then mean that no Germans have blonde hair, or that no Germans should be depicted with blonde hair? So, what, it is a stereotype that rappers are black, so does that mean that every rapper a game or film depicts should never be black? This is an entirely dumb idea. Back to the game... awesome screen shots dug up. All the mod slots for the weapons and armor and the hacking mingames look really cool. Damn this game is going to rock.

Okay so maybe I was wrong ! It just seemed to me a couple of key elements, such as how you always carry each of your four weapons classes around with you (shotgun, rifles, pistol, sniper) and the look and design of the skill system , seem really Mass Effect to me. Guess the proof will be in the pudding... there was a lot of good points made so for now I guess I rest my case and you guys win .

I realize the the checkpoint save system is probably only in the PC version because that's the way the consoles do it, so it just it saves the extra programming, but that's alright with me. I'd prefer the PC way 'save anywhere' system but it's not a huge deal. I like the save anywhere system though because it probably would make me more adventurous in playing -- like for example, instead of going into a room to shoot 5 guys, I might try to set up some elaborate bomb traps instead, to see if that works. But ya, its not a huge deal.

I don't think MP would work out at all for this game. The only thing that sounds a remotely good idea in this avenue, is perhaps a 1vs1 MP DLC thing.

So? You could do that in Fallout 1 and 2, as well. And Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (super items). But the game was still hard. Having those weapons didn't make you godlike. So it sounds like a balance issue in FO3 (I haven't played it yet). You could get a heavy weapon in Fallout 1 in under an hour but that wasn't exactly straight-forward. First off you'd have to have a specialty in heavy weapons, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use it effectively (in Fallout 3 weapon skills hardly have much affect.. you'll be able to hit something even with a really low heavy weapons skill.) Second, you had to know where to go. Third, defeating someone with heavy weapons within the first few levels of your character was pretty tricky -- you really had to know what you were doing. Fallout 3, for almost any monster, you just run up to it, hit space, blow it's head off. I can't be the only guy who found it lame. I could go on on; if you haven't played FO3 please just trust me when I say it isn't as well thought out and the game's difficulty isn't that high. I really wasn't that big into Fallout 3 , I might as well say now. I'd say the game had really fairly weak RPG elements, and the FPS elements were so-so. I rather play a better RPG, or a straight FPS, than Fallout 3. I played the game about 10-12 hours and never felt compelled to finish it.

Fallout 3? Oh man. That was another game that had serious difficulty issues. That game was so way too incredibly easy. It was retarded. Even if you made a gimp character, you could beat the entire security force of the Vault at the start of the game with your bare fists. It was pretty ridiculous. You could get a rocket launcher or another heavy weapon in under an hour of playing... battles were way too easy. Honestly I don't even think they did the formulas correctly for the hit/accuracy shots in VATS. Pretty much any battle you went to all you have to do is hit space bar and shoot the guy in the head and then he explodes. Whew. What a fun game. (/real heavy sarcasm.) There was hardly any challenge to be found in that game anywhere. At least they did go with the cope-out level scaling though, like Bethesda used in Oblivion.

Krezack -=> I'd like to reply to all your points in full, but I can't right now, I don't have the time. I will tomorrow however. But for now let me just address on issue you made : My quote: "The best games, the games that are remembered, the classics, they pretty much all came up with new, interesting designs that were groundbreaking for their time." Your reply: "No they didn't. Take off your rose-coloured lenses for a second. Many of the best games were actually the best because they did one thing really well and/or integrated all their parts together better than any game before." Fallout, Deus Ex and Mass Effect, the games I was talking about in that bit you quoted, certainly were new, interesting and original designs. It is stretch to say Fallout for example, integrated pre-existing parts better than anything else, so that is why it was so good. There was no other game that was very similar in design to Fallout before Fallout. I'm not talking general things, as in , like there was no RPG before Fallout , or no game had levels, or no game was in a post nuclear-war or whatever. But the entire look ,interface, character design, UI, etc etc was all very original to the Fallout. Let's look at Deus Ex. I really would not say that it was such a classic because it integrated the pre-existing ideas of the FPS with the pre-existing ideas of the RPG. I would argue that the game was entirely new design of a RPG-FPS hybrid. The there is a subtle, yet important, difference. Hmm for example you can't combine Gears of War with GTA and somehow turn up with a classic sand-box crime game. It's much more than that. You have to create an entire new vision and design for a game that takes some elements from one, and some elements from another and create an entirely new formula previously unknown. Fallout, Mass Effect and Deus Ex weren't just mash ups -- they were beautifully executed complete visions for unique gaming experiences. And what was the "one thing they did really well" about Deus Ex , Fallout and Mass Effect? I think anyone who played any of these three games would say there is whole frickin' bunch of stuff they did well. Nor were they classics because they merely "integrated all their parts better than any game before." Tons of average games integrate all their parts well, but aren't exceptional games. Recent examples including Elven Legacy, Zeno Clash, Demigod etc. etc.

Mass Effect was an awesome, A+ game but ya, I did think it was too easy. Fortunately there were cheat codes that allowed you to unlock the achievement necessary to unlock the harder difficulty levels. Unfortunately for me however I didn't learn that until after my first play through, and by then I wasn't really up for playing the game again. Fallout , of course --being the one of the best all-time PC RPGS games -- had a really good difficulty level, I'd say. The battles were all fair ('cept for maybe the final end battle), where the enemies had skills and equipment relative to yours. Sure the game was easy once you picked up the later weapons or made a combat specific character, but the the player had just as equal chance to make the game very difficult by say, playing as a diplomat character, or playing as a solely melee character, or the any other number of character permutations available in that fantastic and extraordinary RPG.

Personally I'm not too huge into Splinter Cell at all, but I'm really looking forward to Alpha Protocol. Unfortunately however in the short term I could see the sales battle being won by S.C.C, just because of the whizz-bang graphics. (Personally I don't care how a game looks much at all...I much more care about how it plays.) Who knows though. I honestly hope that Alpha Protocol gets some massive scores from the game review sites on the strengths of its gameplay and the game is the surprise hit of the year.

Mass Effect, Deus Ex and Fallout were all really unique designs. Of course they took inspirations from previous games, but they had mostly very unique, creative visions for their games. (Sorry what's NOLF? Probably know it but can't decipher that acroynm.) The other games were sequels so I'm not going to count them. There was hardly anything like Deus Ex, Mass Effect, and Fallout when they came out. I'm talking in respect to their fundamental designs. Whereas when I see Alpha Protocol, it looks a lot like how Mass Effect was designed. I.E the skills system, the cover system, the combat system, the dialogue system, and the U.I. It bothers me because the design staff of Obsidian designed some really great games, and I just have fears that they took too much influence from Mass Effect because it was such a good selling RPG, that's why -- out of fear of not having commercial success, instead of taking more risks and trying some really fundamentally things. The best games, the games that are remembered, the classics, they pretty much all came up with new, interesting designs that were groundbreaking for their time. For PC games at least, it is uncommon for a derivative design to reach the upper pinnacles of the best games of the year. In short: I just hope the Obsidian team didn't get afraid of aiming too high, and missing the mark -- instead of lowering the mark and hitting a safer target.

Hehe I beg to differ. Hot chicks have been a big deal for the last many thousands of years and will continue to be a big selling point for anything for a long, long time to come IMHO.

Actually just to counter my own point a bit , there are the mission handlers too. That is a cool and non-Mass Effect concept.

That'd be cool

Stealth -=> Ya, that's true. I guess stealth never appealed to me much so I didn't think of it. Proper melee combat -=> I 'll have to read up on this. It seemed to me from the videos it is pretty much 'go up to the guy and hit the melee attack button' like Mass Effect, but with better and more varied animations. Actual choices and consequences not limited to a couple of events -=> I hope so. I think Obsidian can do it. No bad vehicle sections inserted as filler -=> I don't know about this. The vehicle section of M.E is just in addition to all the other parts of the game, which I'm saying A.P looks a lot like. Better ranged combat, hopefully -=> I hope so too. It looks pretty straight forward to me though; pretty much just the Mass Effect model, but without having to worry about the bionics, a greater emphasis was put on making the firefights more streamlined. Thanks for your points.

wat? I must have been asleep that day. Sorry I meant "game making." Like, even 10 years ago I would argue that a higher proportion of games tried new things, and were more inventive and different then one other. In the last 2-3 years especially, it seems like many big games are just sticking to genre conventions, and many games just copy the principle core design of the most commercially successful games of the prior year. Maybe the most evident example of this Gears of War. There are tons of games that just copied the game exactly, with new art assets. This leads to many games that are just second-rate versions of last year's hit. Which sucks.

I've played, and play, a lot of games. Many of them now a days seem far too easy. I really hope that combat in this game is tough. Primarily, I hope the enemy AI is decent. If it is just a bunch of dudes with guns shooting at you in open spaces, this game is going to be wrecked. I want the enemies to take cover; throwing grenades and stuff would be great. If you can just turbo through the game with an assault rifle, and kill like 100 guys by going through the 'guns-blazing' direct route, this game will not be fun. Please, please, please Obsidian make the hard mode really hard -- and please don't require that mode to be unlocked with a play through of the game on normal difficulty. I don't have a lot of time these days so I never want to play a game twice -- I should just be able to play it on the hardest setting off the bat if I want. I would be thrilled if the enemy actually kicked my ass in the game. That way I'd have to get crafty to figure out to get the job done...and that's where the fun comes in. If there is no chance of me dying then the game immediately becomes just a waste of time for me. I guess this was more like a blog post than a forum-type question...so I'll just end this by saying: What do you guys think? From the videos it looks like you are totally capable of just cappin' your way through legions of bad guys with a pistol without much worry. Which is really bad.

Does anyone else think Alpha Protocol took way too many design ques from Mass Effect? I'm really looking forward to this game irregardless, and I like Obsidian Entertainment as a whole a lot, but it is really distressing to see the increasing lack of creativity in the gaming industry. Gaming used to be like one of the most artistic and creative fields you could get into. Now it seems like most companies just copy the design of the most popular game of that genre of the day. Really when I see Alpha Protocol in action , it looks like it could feasibly just be a re-skinned Mass Effect. The dialog 'new' thing is neat, but all it really is a simple timer on responding to questions. Not exactly the re-invention of the wheel -- or really even that much of a idea. Not saying it's a bad idea -- but besides that, the mechanics of this game look just like Mass Effects, except for maybe minus the team / squad mates. I loved Mass Effect but I'd just like to see game companies be brave enough to be a bit more inventive -- judging from Obsidian's past games, it certainly seems they have the ample creative talent to do just that. So why not use it?