poetic obsidian

No need to be embarassed, for I'm glad you brought up VTM:Bloodlines (RIP Troika ) That's another game that really drew you in with the unique atmosphere and the quality of the writing. I don't know man, people with my tastes seem to be considered fossils and old hats (although I'm only 24 !). We do take games seriously and if the quality is deserving of it, I will let myself be moved by a game. That's why I'm banking on Obsidian and AP to see if I should keep up hope or whether I should just go back to replaying my old favorites/look to European / indie developers.

I feel for the devs most of all. DRM is often a lose-lose situation for you guys. Too strict is bad, but too lax is also bad. To improve your analogy: Developers are the renters while the publishers are the landlords. Suppose someone legally buys the TV from you, and you give them the key and tell them to go pick it up at your house.The landlord could create fancier and fancier locking mechanisms on your door, and you'll have no say in it. This would give the person who bought the TV from you a lot of trouble opening the door. But you'll get the blame for the annoying locking mechanism, not the landlord.

I hope the overall genuine funny/ dark/ sad tones they seem to be able to pull off in their games will come through. There's a gravity in the writing that Obsidian's writers hit that endlessly draws me to their titles. Some of my favorite writing in general is using seemingly mundane tropes and genres, feeding you more of the same, and then cork screwing it on it's head. Of course I don't know any more about AP than any one else waiting to play (probably I know less actually) but seeing how Obsidian's done things in the past I'd put my $$$ on there's going to be some big Oh **it! cards being played through the game. Well, those are the main things I'm interested in. Writing, and atmosphere/tone. Based on that infamous "choices" video, I think that the choices you make in AP will have genuine consequences on the story, so I'm not so worried about that. But Obsidian has a track record of excellent writing. Quite frankly, it's inexplicable to me that David Gaider got a novel published before Chris Avellone (where's the novel, Chris ? You know you want to do it... ) I certainly agree that there is a "gravity" to Obsidian's writing that draws you in. The precarious balance required to tastefully mix humor among the bleak settings found in Torment and Fallout also hit the right spots for me as a reader. Atmosphere is also something that was very well done in those old games, and MoTB also had great ambience and mood. Even Icewind Dale, especially places like the haunted Severed Hand, painted a very rich, palpable sense of atmosphere in the player's mind. So if writing, and atmosphere are well served in Alpha Protocol, then that will suffice for my nostalgia.

I'm really excited for Obsidian since this is their own IP, which means that they had a lot more freedom, and I can't wait to see what they did with that freedom. However, the one thing that's driving my excitement is my fond memories of Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment and Fallout. I saw a glimpse of "the old days" in the excellent writing of Mask of the Betrayer, and that warmed my heart. Will there be any references (even cleverly veiled ones) to those classic games in Alpha Protocol ? Will I be setting myself up for disappointment by thinking about the past when it comes to Alpha Protocol?