http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/alphaprotocol1.php

Ryan: One of the factions the players could ally with would be the VCI. The Veteran Combat Initiative is a group of very well armed, trained, and financed mercenaries. These folks are all ex-soldiers from around the globe and, as mercs, they have no compunction about doing dirty jobs.

 

One of the advantages with being their ally is their ability to mobilize very quickly and even help the player on missions. However, the VCI have many government agencies angry with them (maybe because of those pesky assassinations) so if you are allied with them you can pretty much expect a lot of governmental agencies to try and kill you on sight.

Governmental agents: now coming equipped with Detect Faction spell! I hope that this disadvantage doesn't apply to situations where said agents have no way of knowing Sandler's affiliations.

Damn, funcroc, can you run my life? You're like a frigging data mining machine. You've got RSS feeds to places that don't even support RSS!

Ah, this is more like it: an interview with some substance. I was kind of hoping there'd be a comment about the release date, but le sigh.

 

The VCI sounds pretty interesting, and seems to be a way of substantially changing the way the game plays.

 

It's good that the A.I. is improving, although the term "crack shots" has a bit of a bad connotation in video games. Hopefully it's actiony enough to allow for dynamic movement, and there's a progression in skills from rent-a-cop to elite PMC.

 

Anyway, sounds good, looking forward to more pre-release info

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Well, given that it's a world of international espionage, I believe the implicit assumption is that the government is well-informed (hah!). But seriously, it makes sense that the US gov would keep tabs on the VCI and keep tabs on their own agents. They find out you had a meet & greet, suddenly Thornton is a wanted criminal.

 

I'm not saying it's the most sophisticated or fun system possible, but it isn't as far-fetched as it might sound.

I figure it'd be just like Deus Ex with regard to factions, even though there was no choice in that game - You were working for the NSF at one point while still ostensibly being an agent of UNATCO. But eventually you were forced to make a decision that made your loyalties clear, and you couldn't really pretend to be a UNATCO agent anymore.