The sexiest preview ever.

[Patrick K Mills]

Glad to hear at least one of the devs would have liked a Gay romance. Though I don't think it would have fit the scope of the project. I can always hope... someday...

 

I like my sexual pandering and fan service to be equal opportunity.

[Jaesun]

I didn't buy The Witcher for months for that very reason, until I spoke to gamers I trusted who assured me that despite the infantile Geralt-the-sl*t options, they could be avoided and the game was otherwise very good. True, the game was otherwise very good... although I still ended up with trading cards because there were scripted scenes where these "ladies" jumped his bones without asking permission. And of course, nearly every female Geralt talked to was willing to do it for a mere bauble. Not a particularly respectful way to show an entire gender. It added a really adolescent feel to an otherwise excellent game, and only the fact that the most important female characters in the game were portrayed as strong, competent and important individuals otherwise saved it from being a total misogynistic pig-fest. :

 

I still have never played The Witcher for the very reason in that I wanted to avoid the whole b00bie cards and romance in the game. I'm sure there is a good game in there somewhere though. Though, from personal experience I have had the ""ladies" jumped his bones without asking permission." though in my case it ended with "Honey, that is NEVER going to happen" in real life.

 

Anyways, not to derail/gay up this thread... I am still interested in AP. Maybe... I can get the courage and play a straight guy in a replay.

[Zoma]

Just get the PC at most in the state of teary eyed. Jason Bourne did so when he confessed the killing of the girl's parents in one of his first missions in front of her. Otherwise a camera trick showing the PC sitting down wearily on a chair with his back hunched with the camera zooming out while the PC makes suggestive gestures of wiping his eyes/forehead.

 

I'm sure no players would enjoy watching their character wailing like a ten year old kid who dropped his ice cream, but at the same time also like to relate that a super spy Thorton may be, he is still a person with emotions. You gotta to humanise Thorton Obsidian in the area of expressing Thornton's depression and despair.

Edited July 25, 2008 by Zoma

[themadhatter114]

But so long as his reactions are realistic, we don't need to give him emotional issues just to make him seem human. Simply showing anger every now and then would be fine with me. Or passionately disagreeable. For instance, when one of these crazy girls wants us to assassinate somebody, it would be nice if we can decline that request rather aggressively. Any sort of realistic sounding responses whenever he's asked to kill someone. Arguing with people a little bit.

 

I don't really need a lot of deep emotional stuff when I'm playing a game. Make it intriguing and give us hard decisions, but don't try to force us into emotional scenes.

 

But, I don't know, there could be stuff where we're asked to assassinate characters that we've been interacting with. You could find out that you need to kill one of your girlfriends. Just give us reason to think about certain decisions, at least for a moment. With the timed response system I assume we're going to have to keep our allegiances in mind at all time because we could be asked to kill someone we trust all of a sudden and have to give a yes or no within 5 seconds. I think Splinter Cell: Double Agent did a decent job of making a few of the decisions pretty hard to make, even if the 360 version did ruin the gameplay of the previous games. There were really only 3 decisions that ultimately mattered (as well as your trust meter), but the decision of whether or not to blow up some innocent people, and whether or not to frame the one person that you're getting close to, and then the decision whether or not to kill

Lambert

to keep from blowing your cover was certainly not an easy one. And the game had 3 different endings based on those 3 decisions and your trust meter.

[H]

I still have never played The Witcher for the very reason in that I wanted to avoid the whole b00bie cards and romance in the game.

Play it. Your character isn't forced to have sex.

Edited July 25, 2008 by H

[Gorth]

I don't really need a lot of deep emotional stuff when I'm playing a game. Make it intriguing and give us hard decisions, but don't try to force us into emotional scenes.

Exactly. I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who loved Bruce Willis' character in The Fifth Element?

[~Di]

[quote name='H

[Xard]

I think Di is way overreacting here

 

It's not like this game forces fascist worldview on you or something, it just emulates (OPTIONAL) element that is so very common in whole spy genre

 

Besides, it shouldn't surprise either. It was one of the first things we learned about the game

[Hell Kitty]

[quote name='H

Edited July 25, 2008 by Hell Kitty

[funcroc]

Producer:

[Moatilliatta]

[quote name='H

[Wrath of Dagon]

No, since most of the games I've enjoyed the most have romance options. But it is hardly romance when developers are stressing that basically every female in the game can be nailed if she's manipulated correctly... and some will go "bats*t insane" if they aren't manipulated correctly.

I doubt this game will be as infantile as the Witcher in this regard. This is a Western game and thus is more likely to be politically correct. Anyway, they said you have a choice how to play your character, he can be a womanizer or an ascetic from what I understand. I'm personally planning to try to avoid involvement, unless the characters/dialog is really interesting and I wouldn't want to miss out. I'm not too thrilled about sexualization of games either, but if it helps them to make the game financially successful, and it probably will, I grudgingly accept it.

[Xard]

This is a Western game and thus is more likely to be politically correct.

 

LONG LIVE THE SUPERIOR AND MATURE ANGLOSAXON CULTURE! HOORAY! HOORAY!

 

 

...yeah, right

[Cycloneman]

Producer:

[GhostofAnakin]

I think Di is way overreacting here

 

It's not like this game forces fascist worldview on you or something, it just emulates (OPTIONAL) element that is so very common in whole spy genre

 

Besides, it shouldn't surprise either. It was one of the first things we learned about the game

 

I couldn't agree more. IMO, it's so silly to get bent out of shape and disregard an entire game based on one aspect of it, especially when that aspect is optional anyway.

 

Unless I'm vastly underestimating the article, no one is forcing anyone to play as a womanizer. Not to mention, isn't that what real life spies do? Illicit information through sex? For someone who, in another thread, was going on about realism, it seems kind of silly to be upset about something that's "realistic" in terms of how the real life spy world works.

Edited July 25, 2008 by GhostofAnakin

[Wrath of Dagon]

Apparently you won't get the exact same conversation every time you choose the same options. Is this for real?

I think that means the NPC responses depend on the reputation you have with that NPC.

[Jason Bourne]

Didn't Jason Bourne cry in one of those movies? BTW, read Patrick's earlier as to why the crying is gone.

 

 

He cried underwater in Supremacy when Marie died and at the end of the movie where he told that Russian girl he killed her parents. He wasn't ballin in tears. Just the sniffles and a few tears.

Edited July 25, 2008 by Jason Bourne

[Morgoth]

I don't need a crying baby in Alpha Protocol, thankyouverymuch. That shouldn't mean however that I want to play with a robot, either. Just make him "believable".

[Pop]

Apparently you won't get the exact same conversation every time you choose the same options. Is this for real?

They're probably referring to the fact that (certain?) conversations happen only once. So there's no "choose the same options", really. Only if you reloaded the game from an earlier point.

[themadhatter114]

even if the 360 version did ruin the gameplay of the previous games.

 

?

 

How did the PC/360/PS3 version "ruin" the gameplay?

 

Eh, I suppose I'm exaggerating. I'm not saying that I didn't like the 360 version. I certainly played through it. But the stealth in it sucks compared to the previous games. You have a little light on your back that tells you if you are safe or not, and you are apparently safe in just about any shadow even if it's clearly not very dark. The sliding light meter was a lot more informative than the stupid red light/green light system. I just didn't like it nearly as much primarily for those reasons. I LOVED the idea of the trust meter, the key choices, and the multiple endings, though. However, I am probably still a little bitter about the choice you have to make regarding Lambert...also from what I've read they expand upon the plot in the X-Box version way more, especially the relationship between Sam and Enrica. I honestly still need to pick up the X-Box version, but I just think that Chaos Theory had much better gameplay mechanics than Next-Gen DA. And I think the Montreal team's work is consistently better than the Shanghai team's.

 

Also, the mission where you have to bug a meeting, and then go kill/save Hisham, just didn't feel right. It felt more like an action game. Sam Fisher feels a lot less believable when he's running through battlefields in the day-time.

[J.E. Sawyer]

The sliding light meter was a lot more informative than the stupid red light/green light system.

Yeah, they basically made the game unplayable for me. I'm not even exaggerating; I can't tell the colors apart. SC is one of my favorite franchises, but I honestly couldn't get more than an hour into SC:DA.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Well. Shades of The Witcher. I wonder if it will have trading cards. So much for my hope that it would be the "spiritual successor to Deus Ex". Sounds more like every adolescent's fantasy game. My interest has waned substantially.

 

Because the PC has the ability to sex it up with some female character?

 

No, since most of the games I've enjoyed the most have romance options. But it is hardly romance when developers are stressing that basically every female in the game can be nailed if she's manipulated correctly... and some will go "bats*t insane" if they aren't manipulated correctly. And even if you dislike the idea of assassinating some poor bastard, you might just want to do it anyway if the female who requests it is "really hot!" If the tone of the article correctly describes the tone of the game, it sounds as if females are treated more like mission tools and sexual targets than capable individuals with real personality. That's not what I consider a "mature" theme. Just the opposite. Again, I'll have to wait until the game hits the shelves and the reviews are out before I decide, but this article is far from a selling point for me.

 

I didn't buy The Witcher for months for that very reason, until I spoke to gamers I trusted who assured me that despite the infantile Geralt-the-sl*t options, they could be avoided and the game was otherwise very good. True, the game was otherwise very good... although I still ended up with trading cards because there were scripted scenes where these "ladies" jumped his bones without asking permission. And of course, nearly every female Geralt talked to was willing to do it for a mere bauble. Not a particularly respectful way to show an entire gender. It added a really adolescent feel to an otherwise excellent game, and only the fact that the most important female characters in the game were portrayed as strong, competent and important individuals otherwise saved it from being a total misogynistic pig-fest.

 

Let's just say I'll be waiting to talk to my trusted gamer friends before I spend money for a game that ends up making me want to dump the DVD in the toilet and scrub my hands until they bleed.

 

Hey come on ~Di lighten up, some of us "guy" "geek" gamers ain't never gunna get any closer to a woman . LOL Just kidding.

 

I get your point but its matter of fact that some women are, ya know... Easy? And some even like objectification, now that's not to say it's a good or bad thing, and the witcher does take it too far, but there is a line and boundary and I think it's worth playing with. This is Obsidian afterall, it'll be in good taste I reckon.

[Aram]

Can I still imagine one of them is JE?

[~Di]

Hey come on ~Di lighten up, some of us "guy" "geek" gamers ain't never gunna get any closer to a woman . LOL Just kidding.

 

I get your point but its matter of fact that some women are, ya know... Easy? And some even like objectification, now that's not to say it's a good or bad thing, and the witcher does take it too far, but there is a line and boundary and I think it's worth playing with. This is Obsidian afterall, it'll be in good taste I reckon.

 

At least you had the courtesy of responding to my post as a whole instead of yanking a couple of out-of-context sentences from it in order to scold or mock me.

 

I thank you for appearing to take into consideration tthe most important line of my post, which I had bolded: If the tone of the article correctly describes the tone of the game... Of course that's a big "if" at the moment. However, this is an AP developer speaking, stressing the sexual content and describing in-game females in a less than flattering manner. I'm sure guys find it all exciting, but trust me, most females would be insulted by games in which an entire gender is portreyed as nothing more than stereotyped sex objects. The Witcher was really over the line in that regard, with the exception of the 3 main female characters. I'd hate to see an Obsidian game follow suit. It makes me nervous when developers give interviews that stress the sexuality of the game, not in a romantic sense but in a "woot! you can nail all the women!" sense.

 

At least one comment issued under that interview agreed with my take on it... and that comment was from a male. Edit: I just checked the interview comments section again... the majority of comments are put off, and more than one has pointed out the juvenile aspect of how the game is being marketed here in the interview.

 

Like I've said, I'll have to wait until the game is released to see if this interview was just an isolated incident that didn't really reflect the majority content of the game, or if it's something else.

Edited July 26, 2008 by ~Di

[themadhatter114]

I don't see how the inclusion of a few crazy females among the group is a big problem. I'm sure they're not all going to be crazy. And the Ladies Man achievement is probably just for people who obsess over achievements, and there's probably some meta-gamey tactic for bagging all the chicks, which forces you to betray each of them in turn or something. I doubt it's going to be something that you can do on a single playthrough without genuinely aiming for that achievement. Like in Fallout 2 where you can get made by all 4 Mafia families if you play everything just right, but it's not something that you'd just do without a concerted effort.

 

And just because some of the girls are crazy doesn't mean that all of them are going to be shallow. GTA4, for instance, had some crazy, shallow, self-absorbed optional girlfriends, but had one normal one who turns out to be watching you, and another one that's extremely well done and is very rewarding to go out on several dates with. Of course, a lot of people complained about her because she was "ugly" (she wasn't) and didn't "put out." While GTA4 retains a lot of the juvenile humor (mostly in the form of radio ads and graffiti) of the previous games in the series, it's not really present at all in the storyline. The game has some excellent characters and writing in general. Any article which would have focused on all the girls you can bang on GTA4 would have missed everything that's truly great about the game.

 

I'm more amused by this preview than anything, as it certainly doesn't sway me one way or the other in wanting to buy this game. I certainly don't think Obsidian is trying to use the sexuality as a major selling point, except to perhaps provoke people to make a lot of false claims on Fox news so that they can get free publicity.