DataDay

OP, It can be frustrating for not just gun owners. I know a few physical anthropologist who do a face palm whenever people call primates such ass the Bonobo Chimp, a monkey. It is almost impossible to educate the masses on such topics because culturally they become conditioned to say something else, especially if it is seen as "easier" or more fun. Clips and Monkeys are just that, even when used wrong.

To be honest, I find this offensive. I keep getting this impression that there is a heavy bias from some, who try to categorize on nationality along with the implication that some how American is there fore inferior. I think this is wrong on many levels. One of the ironies of this post is that the reviewers, the journalists I know who work for these major publications are often times non-americans. Many of the major publications are multi-national. Game Spot for example operates in both the US and UK. Eurogamer gave the game a 7 out of ten, the German version an 8 out of 10. Reading the user reviews from the regions shows just as many varied responses as their North American counterparts. The point is that there is no great divide between the two continents, and it isnt so "black and white" what one can identify "american" reviews against those in europe, especially when the review sites you call American might have been written and reviewed by a European staff. Some like the game, some do not, but I believe most recognize that the title needs polish and some tweaking. This is not uncommon. this is opinion, just like how the american reviewers have there's and you have yours, i could in turn feel offended that you couldnt accept my opinion of review sites ...so please step the **** back from me with your bull**** Your tone of response is noted, though a bit childish and immature. Can you at least admit that Eurogamer's own scathing review of AP was done by Christian Donlan, who just so happens to be from your own country? European user comment's are also not all singing the praises of AP. Might you also admit that Destructoids own Jim Sterling who gave the game a 2/10 is from the UK? That Greg Howson of the BBNEWs (if you are in the UK you know what that is) network rated the game a 2/5. My point stands, not entirely of opinion, but of actual fact. The fact being that many professional reviewers come from all over the world, especially Europe and Canada, even though they may write for IGN, Gamespot or any other website/magazine you wish to take aim at. =)

One thing I always found interesting about this is that the original lead left for Bioware and his project.. came out pretty buggy and almost unfinished (in that the ending was anticlimatic for a lot of people) even at Bioware. I don't want to blame Ferret Badouin, but from my point of view, it's looking more and more like who's the lead and directs the project influences a LOT the games being made. By the way, I liked Neverwinter Nights 2, but I don't think that was the point. That is fairly right on. The creative director or lead design, depending on the company, really carries the project. Their decisions can either make or break a game. The hard part is managing how much trust and control you can give to the rest of the developers, being too heavy handed would make for a bad work place yet, too loose can cause problems if the developers are not the best or have ego problems (must have synergy). One art lead I know told me how he would often get the designers to give criticisms to the artists, and vice versa, because it is easier to accept them than from one artist to another or one designer to another. Then you have to take into account the influence the publisher has on any given project. Often times they can be pretty unrealistic in time frames or their milestones might only serve to make things worse rather than better. The industry really needs to go through some growing pains to find the best and most efficient system. Personally I think Valve nailed it on the head. They do not have to deal with any publisher so to speak, since they can be self funded and distribute their own product. They also do not have a "hierarchy" set up per say. The lowly designer has just as much say as a lead design, they put everyone on equal footing and let the creativity fly. Of course final decisions will have to be made by the creative lead but still it is much more open and free than other studios. You just have to respect that.

To be honest, I find this offensive. I keep getting this impression that there is a heavy bias from some, who try to categorize on nationality along with the implication that some how American is there fore inferior. I think this is wrong on many levels. One of the ironies of this post is that the reviewers, the journalists I know who work for these major publications are often times non-americans. Many of the major publications are multi-national. Game Spot for example operates in both the US and UK. Eurogamer gave the game a 7 out of ten, the German version an 8 out of 10. Reading the user reviews from the regions shows just as many varied responses as their North American counterparts. The point is that there is no great divide between the two continents, and it isnt so "black and white" what one can identify "american" reviews against those in europe, especially when the review sites you call American might have been written and reviewed by a European staff. Some like the game, some do not, but I believe most recognize that the title needs polish and some tweaking. This is not uncommon.

Believe it or not, developers are people too. When you spend a few years slaving over a project only to have it release with negative reviews and user comments, even a developer does a face palm (often resulting in a post or two just to explain what went wrong). Sadly it is a huge problem when development teams are not allowed to function because of one or two feature creeps, which sadly, can even be found with high producer positions. I can believe that Sega wasnt the best publisher in this case either. I don't know if any of you read the entire comment, but the person does know the eating habits of the working dev. I suppose the best way to read the comment, which I am inclined to believe is coming from someone in house, is that this game was a disappointment for the team as well. That it was the victim of upper management and a bumbling publisher. Most importantly, that their other projects are going better than they would have hoped. At this point, you just have to hope the same mistakes don't happen again.

Let's be fair here. It is not logical to suggest you know whether or not the game was played the right or wrong way. In fact, it is the job of the game designer to dictate how a game should be played, if the player does not play as the GDD intended, then part of the blame lay at the feet of the designer. This why playtesting is so important. A game is a series of rule sets that create limitations which result in challenges. There technically is no wrong way to play a game if the rule set allows for it. That said, keep in mind this game uses the unreal 3 engine. That should tell a bit about the graphical capability and expected results. Again, to be fair, the developers were probably learning the tools for this engine as they went along. You cannot expect the best results when that happens. There are also general rules of thumb which have been ignored, such as the "shadow mistake" in which shadows must take on the color opposite of the light on the color wheel, desaturated and darkened. Important visual rules were ignored from I can see in AP. Each player is different though, some might notice these mistakes, other might not. Sometimes knowing more can be a curse as well, as it would increase the effect of alienation. This is kind of where the term "ignorance is bliss" comes into play. =)

Indeed. The graphics are on par with (if not better than) DA:O, and that game didn't get panned for looking like a PS2 game. I'm not sure what all the American reviewers were thinking. To be fair, according to gamerankings.com and European review sites, the reviews both on North American soil and abroad are fairly consistent. One important factor to take in is whats know as the "confirmation bias". We see with the fans and the critics. It's hard to see the bad if your bias is built around telling yourself you are a fan. Critics often have the bias of looking for elements in which to criticize, and if that is your job... the habit is only reinforced. So the question is who is right, critics (both professional and user based) or fans? The answer at the end of the day is neither, since the enjoyment factor is different for everyone.

I'm really not sure which problems the PC version is "riddled with." I've played through the game once so far, and only seen one or two (minor) bugs. The AI isn't as terrible as most people make it out to be - certainly no worse than the AI in ME1. The graphics aren't stellar, but they're on par with, say, DA:O. The minigames were all fun and (with the exception of lockpicking) sufficiently challenging to make choosing to turn off the cameras a nontrivial decision. They were by no means impossible. If you haven't played the game, what position are you in to comment on its state of bugginess? Are you playing with a mouse and keyboard, or a controller on the PC? Most of the problems I have seen are related to controls and how the game reacts to the controls, including the mouse input. We do have to realize that anything regarding likes and dislikes outside of the general consensus of quality is subjective, meaning differences of opinion. From what I have seen the AI has some funky conditionals and pathing, which is essentially the driving force behind AI in programming terms. This can move from the realm of subjective to fact through play testing and reviewing the code. The design opinion regarding the mini-games is something I stand by. If you were to watch a film, and it cuts to a commercial, it breaks the flow. The same can be said with video games and the element of immersion. Mini-games by nature are often shallow and fall under the tedious category, not sure how they can be seen as "fun". If any of these minigames were say, stand alone iphone games...would you play them? As for challenge, if the challenge created by the rule sets and limitations are to easy, it falls into the level of boredom, too hard and it falls under frustration or anxiety. Flow is a balance of the two. The hard part about finding a balanced flow is managing to identify the general user's skill level, which is why we have choices for easy, normal and hard. That said, you ask what position I am in to talk about the bugs I have seen. Simple, identifying clearly unintentional results is a form of observation which only requires one to see. This is why I have not commented on game play specific areas yet. There are websites out there that let you watch people play games live, and I make a habit of watching these live feeds. It gives insight into how others play games as well as identify elements with a game from their perspective. I believe this is important when it comes to appreciating and understanding whats known as player-centric design. Please note I am by no means trying to "trash" game or company, however if I were the publisher in this case, I would have never allowed the game to be released without the extra polish and tweaking. I think it is good however to reward developers who are willing to take the risk and make deep and ambitious titles. =)

It appears the consensus is that the console version has less problems than the PC version, which is riddled with them. In regards to the visuals, they are pretty bad. Lighting and shadows are inconsistent, not the best use of static meshes, and generally bland color pallet. It's just my opinion, but any rpg that has these kinds of mini-games, is losing a few points. Mini-games tend to hurt the over all design and immersion factor. They pull the player from world, it breaks the flow or mode of play, in order to accomplish a usually frustrating or "not very fun" minigame that only gets worse the more you have to play it throughout the game. That was one of Mass Effect's biggest flaws for example. They at least gave the player the option to pay off the minigame. It appears like the animation and controls with mouse and keyboard need a lot of work. I think we can all agree the game needs a lot more polish. One reviewer made the joke about Alpha Protocol by saying its build is still in "Alpha". That might not be that far from the truth. I cannot comment on the game play since I havent played the game, but I can add some feed back based on reviewing its apparent design (mechanics, systems and modes of play). Glad you are able to enjoy the game though. That's the whole point of the interactive medium, to bring enjoyment. I do think the criticisms of the product as it stands now though are fairly accurate, sadly.

That's what I assumed. It was a surprise to find out that the U3 engine would be used, and that requires time to learn the engine...usually through trial and error unfortunately. I don't think the U3 engine looks dated at all, in fact some major improvements have been made to the lighting system with UDK. Also not sure if Obsidian uses Maya as the primary tool for 3D assets but Maya 2011 from what I read has UDK build into it, which should help with the pipeline. If I were at Obsidian I would strongly encourage a visual renewal of the IP, much like what Borderlands went through. Also it would be wise to push for a multiplayer aspect and have the design work with that.

Here's the fundamental problem. The "real life" style you talk about has a catch. It dramatically increases the alienation effect. In other words, immersion is easily destroyed. The more "surreal" the art style is, the more the player can cope with the visuals. The game play needs to reflect the "real" of which you speak. Therefore, the fact that you have a RPG with its clearly unnatural mechanics/mode of play and an art style that is "real" as opposed to "surreal", the flow is easily ruined. It is much harder to make an immersive game when the mechanics and art style require much more polish and attention to detail. AP might end up being a risk that didn't pan out as some would have otherwise hoped. It's not unusual in this industry. In trying to attain some kind of "real life", "uncanny valley" look, Heavy Rain is perhaps the best example that springs to mind, AP doesn't even come close to nailing "real life", its leaning more towards cartoon real life if anything. That's exactly the point, if the style is supposed to be somewhat surreal, the visuals need to maintain the consistency with that. If it is going for a "real" look, then certain rules need to be followed. Actually it is generally a rule of thumb, regardless of real or surreal, to follow basic rules when dealing with lighting over all visual flow. Not to bash Obsidian, but they really missed on that aspect of Alpha Protocol. I haven't played the game, this is just going off the video footage and screen shots seen. For the Unreal 3 engine, there is no logical reason why AP looks the way it does. The engine can handle much more than what is seen and much of the work can be done for the developer, yet for some reason many of these built in features are missing completely. It feels as though the art assets used in the game were due to outsourcing, most likely from some Asian country (could be wrong, but that's the impression I get from the art assets). Not sure where the lighting expert was, but proper lighting is all but missing from what I see. One of the most common, and unfortunate mistakes, seen in the industry is the "shadow mistake". What this means is that art lead often forgets or does not know about the rule regarding shadows. All shadows must take on the color opposite of which they come from on the color wheel, darkened and desaturated. For example, if you have a red light, the shadow must be green. Now in order to make it realistic, you would desaturate the green so its not as prominent as the light source itself and therefore barely visible in color. Some of the textures I see in the game are way to big for what they are on and often the color tones as well as variety do not match the environment. I have a feeling this type of game is new for Obsidian, the design from what I hear is actually very good and ambitious, however the resources might not have been there to make the design a solid reality. They may not have been familiar with the Unreal Engine as well, which can set development studio's back in quality if they have to learn as they go.

Here's the fundamental problem. The "real life" style you talk about has a catch. It dramatically increases the alienation effect. In other words, immersion is easily destroyed. The more "surreal" the art style is, the more the player can cope with the visuals. The game play needs to reflect the "real" of which you speak. Therefore, the fact that you have a RPG with its clearly unnatural mechanics/mode of play and an art style that is "real" as opposed to "surreal", the flow is easily ruined. It is much harder to make an immersive game when the mechanics and art style require much more polish and attention to detail. AP might end up being a risk that didn't pan out as some would have otherwise hoped. It's not unusual in this industry.

Can anyone tell me what happened with Borderlands and why they made certain changes to the game? Does anyone know the reasoning behind the changes and how it contributed to the success of the game? I believe this answer pertains to the subject. If Borderlands didn't make certain changes, it would be where AP is at current in regards to the visual experience and marketing value. Just my 2 cents.