Nigel

Deus Ex had 'free roam' so apparently it will not be like Deus Ex. I'm actually surprised that it is missing this feature, or did CVG not describe it properly? I have never played an action RPG that didn't have at least some amount of exploration, that's a defining characteristic of the genre! Gameplay previews seem to describe an action game with light RPG elements like NOLF or BioShock while Obsidian videos seem to describe an RPG with action elements like Mass Effect. I'm confused as to just what to expect from Alpha Protocol.

Yep, so far Rome looks the best. There's one in Taipei too I believe but it's the most generic 'techno' looking (so far).

I see here that the word "identify" is causing a problem. The part that I bolded in your reply is an almost textbook definition of what it means to identify with someone. To enjoy a game this ability to identify with the character is absolutely essential. Players therefore must identify with Pac Man and the frog in Frogger. If they didn't there would be no game. Imagine that Pac Man and the ghosts looked exactly like the white dots that Pac Man eats. Not only would it be difficult to tell what is what (identity at its most basic), players really wouldn't care what happens to the white dot. That would eliminate all the tension and challenge from the game as players wouldn't even try to eat the dots or avoid the ghosts. One thing that separates Pac Man from being perceived as a simple maze game is the ingenuity of its character design. Pac Man is pretty one dimensional though so it is not difficult for most people to identify with him. When you make an RPG with more complex characters and interactions than in Pac Man it becomes harder to craft a "one size fits all" character that everyone will respond to in the same way. However that need for the player to identify with the character remains.

The character doesn't need to be an exact copy of the player as if they were digitized into the game by the MCP, but on some level the PC is designed to be relatable to the player. The player needs to identify with that character even if the character is not the player. Playing a character who is your same race, gender, age etc helps create that bond between player and character. These are not the only or even most important characteristics for bonding a player to a character but they are not irrelevant. I didn't play characters in Oblivion or Fallout 3 that looked or behaved anything like me, but you can be sure they didn't look like Michael Thorton either. About games being bad for storytelling though, as humans we make stories out of everything; it's how our minds work. If you mean that games are bad mediums for movie-like storytelling then I agree. Storytelling in general is too broad to say that games can't do it effectively.

Except...you're not a CIA agent. This went right over my head, everywhere I read M.T. is a rookie CIA agent? No, you are not a CIA agent, whereas the OP is a woman. Capice? Also I don't understand why people are ragging on the OP for liking Deus Ex. She made it pretty clear that her beef was with Obsidian whose previous games allowed players to choose female characters. Deus Ex is not an Obsidian game. Her expectation is that AP will be like DX but this time she's sitting it out. That sounds reasonable enough to me. I can also relate to her frustration. It gets tiring playing the same looking character after a while, especially when the character in no way represents you. In an RPG this is even more disappointing because RPGs usually provide an escape from the typical focus group designed everyman. For instance the heroes of Alpha Protocol, Drake's Fortune, Wolfenstein and Shadow Complex all basically look the same. Sometimes I get confused when I see screenshots from these games as to which is which because of this similarity. Sure, in NOLF and BG&E you have to play a female character but guess what? Those games didn't sell particularly well despite raving critical acclaim and being all out awesome. I think A LOT of gamers feel like the OP, but they tend to be white males so this isn't usually an issue for them.

Interesting, based on that preview I'd say Bond is the only thing they got right.

Not if they choose natural colors. Hair style also helps a lot.

They didn't always use hubs? I haven't played any Bioware or Obsidian (when they were Black Isle or whatever) games prior to Kotor so I don't know of any other way one of their games could be. The earliest hub game I remember playing is Secret of Monkey Island 2 so maybe they picked it up from LucasArts through Kotor. I can't imagine that they hadn't used it before though.

HALLELUJAH!!! That's good enough for me. In addition to clothing and hair the eyes and skin tone closed the deal.

I agree, but it looks like the face is fixed. I was hoping they were going to pull a Bioware on us and reveal a deep character customization system after showing a default character for so long but no dice. This is a surprising choice on Obsidian's part. Some things look very promising while others are really disappointing. I was initially excited for this game but now I'm firmly in the wait and see camp.

Not sure how you get that. Because they had stores? That hardly makes them "hubs". And because they had multiple missions. Anywhere you could dock your ship was a hub in Mass Effect, if we're using Kotor as a reference. Alpha Protocol doesn't look as if it diverges from this model.

Feros and Noveria are hubs too. Not necessarily. I'm not sure we have a full sense of how the game will be structured. Also judging from Kotor2, Obsidian can craft some really long conversations, which I'm actually looking forward to. *fingers crossed*

That looks like placeholder animation from Kotor2. I hope. Otherwise the game is shaping up nicely.

They *could* have changed their minds, but as recently as the latest developer diary they haven't, making the date of the second quote irrelevant because it is consistent with the latest comments on the game. Therefore it doesn't matter when it was said, get it?

Read alanschu's post again. Check out the most recent developer diary. Then read my posts thoroughly.

Does it matter how old the quote is? I don't know, it's in one of the developer videos. Is it so hard to simply accept Obsidian has said they're shooting for realism with this game? Like I said before, I'm not looking for full on recreations, in fact such exacting recreations more often than not fail to convey an authentic feel of a place. I'm simply looking for something that 'feels' like Taipei, Rome etc. Neither GTAIV nor Max Payne has full on recreations of New York City, but they both have representations that feel like New York despite having very different design goals. The Liberty City of GTAIV is a sarcastic open world environment while Max Payne's New York is broken into moody levels that only exist at night. If you've never been to New York or seen it on TV the fidelity of these environments will escape you, but the attention to detail will not. There's a level of degree to consider as well. I think I had the same reaction to the Taipei shots that RevolverXT did, which was, "That is sooo NOT Taipei!!!" We're talking not even close. They just feel wrong. All they really needed to do is achieve a level of detail where someone like me would think, "Yeah, I can see that being Taipei," and this thread wouldn't have even existed. Instead, what they've shown is so far off the mark that I think RevolverXT has brought up a valid point.

But were any of those games really an accurate representation of the cities that were depicted. The Japan level in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory seemed like a standard Japanese level to me. I listed those games to point out that tourism is an important aspect of the spy genre, not that they are realistic representations of their respective locations. "When I was told we were making a realistic RPG set in a real world setting, I wanted to try to nail reality as hard as possible."- Aaron Meyers, Lead Artist Obsidian Entertainment "Our use of exploration of real world spaces is intriguing for the player because they're actually exploring spaces they've actually gone through in the real world..." - Chris Avellone, Creative Director Obsidian Entertainment Those are pretty bold claims. Just what am I overstating here? When a developer says things like that, they create a certain expectation of their game. What I have seen so far does not live up to that expectation. Does it look fun? Sure. Interesting? Definitely. Real? No.

That's a bit like saying Gran Turismo is a racing game not a car catalog, though I agree that chauvinism isn't necessary. A spy RPG on one level *is* a tourism slide show. I can't think of a recent spy game in which being in exotic locations was not part of the game. Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, No One Lives Forever, Syphon Filter etc were all about exotic locales. As far as DX is concerned, you probably didn't see complaints about its locales because it was never presented as being a modern day real world game. Obisidian has made that claim, and thus must perform to a higher standard. I took a look at the hd developer's diary on Game Trailers and what was shown there looks pretty disappointing. I'm afraid to see what they did to Rome! They're definitely going for more of a cartoonish Tomb Raider feel than something moody and more authentic feeling like Max Payne. That's fine, I just wish they would stop touting it as a "realistic" RPG.

As I understand it, Alpha Protocol is supposed to be an espionage RPG set in real locations of the modern world. In the developer diary they mention taking players to places like Taipei. I don't think it's unreasonable to infer that accuracy is important to Obsidian for this title. The bar for representing real world locations has been set for me by the efforts of developers like Bethesda (Fallout 3), Bizarre Creations (PGR2, 3, 4), Rockstar North (GTA series) and Remedy (Max Paynes). Bizarre in particular faithfully recreated three Asian cities in PGR4 (Shanghai, Macau and Tokyo) and managed to make each one feel very distinct. For Alpha Protocol, since they mentioned Taipei, and I've spent some time there, I really would like the game to feel specifically like Taipei as opposed to other Asian cities. That would require them to actually visit Taipei and take reference photos etc etc to capture the feel of that city. That doesn't mean that they should copy actual streets, buildings and satellite photos to make the levels. They should be using this reference material however to create a space that will remind people who have been to Taipei of the city and simply feel "foreign" to people who haven't been there. I'm arguing that if they don't go the extra mile to get that level of detail on this generation of hardware, the city won't even feel "Asian" to people who haven't been to Taipei. Sure for some people this won't matter much, but for the people it does matter to this will diminish the experience. Consider the guns in the game. I don't really care about guns, but if Obsidian takes the effort to make the guns as accurate as possible, people who are into guns will appreciate that detail and people who don't will just appreciate the heightened realism brought to the game. For an espionage game locations are one of the things that just have to be right.

That's a big 'if', and precisely what I'm talking about. If they don't get the details right, it won't even feel like an "Asian" city, let alone Taipei. It'll just look like a level with Chinese signs (i.e. Deus Ex). Perhaps that's enough for some people, but I don't think that is what Obsidian is going for. I'm not expecting or necessarily interested in a 100% faithful representation of any of the locations, just something good enough to feel like the intended locations within the scope of the game. Easier said than done, but it has been done, and done exceptionally well, by many developers. Will Obsidian be counted among them?

Hey, they're the developers, they chose the problem set. If that's what it takes to fully convey the experience of being in those cities, they had better damn well do it or the game will fail to deliver the goods. Remember, by making an action espionage RPG they're not just competing against other RPGs or even other action games, but against all media that has a spy theme. That means players will be coming to Alpha Protocol with knowledge of the Bourne, Bond and whatever other spy themed movies and games they've experienced. One thing that is crucial to the spy genre is the travelogue aspect, players will be looking to experience exotic locales. Obsidian shouldn't call a location Taipei if they can't make it feel like Taipei. If they can't convey the experience of being in so many different locations effectively, then they shouldn't be making the game.

@'Calax Impossible? Hardly. It's been done so well in games like Max Payne (New York), JSRF (Tokyo) and Half-Life 2 (old European towns). Getting the feel of a city right in a game has nothing to do with the style of the game and everything to do with the talent creating it. Having played Kotor 2 and seeing that Obsidian had difficulty capturing the feel of the Star Wars universe the way Bioware had, I wonder whether they are up to the task of capturing the real world in Alpha Protocol. Also, there is a lot in common between New York and Tokyo but their layouts are quite different and they definitely do not feel the same.

Has there been any new information on this? In an RPG, character customization is extremely important to me, especially since I never play as the default white male character. It looks like the character will only be male which I can live with if I can at least change his race and facial features.

Agreed. I lived in Taipei for a few years and I must say it looks nothing like what I saw in the developer diary. That was just generic Asian city. It's not important that they model real world locations in Taipei, but the area must at least feel like Taipei. This doesn't bode well for the other locations in the game. They should really study what Rockstar has done with the GTA series. The days of just making a city with pagodas and calling it Tokyo, Shanghai, Taipei etc are over. I hope Obsidian understands that.