Alpha Protocol on GTTV next Friday

[Oblarg]

Unfortunitly in this day and age you need good graphics and animations to sell a game... Right now this game is looking very sup-par in these areas.

 

For me, I'm not bothered about that very much, but if you think the majority wont be... I dunno.

 

During some of the footage (namely the middle-east combat scenes) the graphics are not in any way sub-par. There are other times, however, during which the graphics look awful. I'm under the impression that the bad-looking shots are from earlier builds.

 

The only animation that really bugs me is the pistol firing animation, and that one shot of Thorton shooting an assault rifle with his head bobbing awkwardly.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Oh yeah, so it almost goes without saying that I loved the footage and AP looks to be delivering on its initial premise (which, if it does, I think the game is guaranteed some measure of success; even if it's cult status). Obviously there were some framerate issues, but I assume that's just a w.i.p. thing.

 

That said, I wouldn't be doing my nonexistent job if I didn't unleash the hatred valve a little.

 

-Thornton's VA, IMO, has a laughably wooden delivery. It sounds like a guy reading words off a page, even if he's trying to say something clever or ironic.

 

-I'm still lukewarm on the basic pummeling animations. They look a bit choppy when strung together, and standing in one place throwing strikes seems kind of static. I'm not attempting to play the realism card here or even the JB card, it just does not look as exciting as the takedown animations.

 

Also, what are the odds of us getting a complete skill rundown at some point prior to release? I noticed some new ones in there

[J.E. Sawyer]

The physics of the enemy getting blown away by a shotgun is too extreme and rather by relying on ragdoll animation, if possible they ought to use Euphoria animation to blend in a death animation.

Euphoria is an entire animation system; to the best of my knowledge, it can't just be implemented for ragdoll deaths.

 

For the graphics department, J.E mentioned that it is the issue of being recorded with compressed video that turns out ugly, and even possibly a low frame rate problem(Need a dev for confirmation and explain for the latter's situation however).

Framerate issues are probably legitimate framerate issues.

 

-I'm still lukewarm on the basic pummeling animations. They look a bit choppy when strung together, and standing in one place throwing strikes seems kind of static.

Mike does move with the strikes, but some of the footage had Mike knocking the guy up against a wall or other barrier. In cases like that, Mike gets pushed back away from the target to prevent interpenetration. It gives the impression that Mike is sliding in place -- which he is, but only because the system is preventing a more obvious/bad bug from happening.

[J.E. Sawyer]

BTW, Parker and Feargus are sort of paraphrasing this Snow Crash quote from Neal Stephenson:

 

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest mother****er in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

[SirPetrakus]

I think the animations were OK. There seemed to be some frame skipping issues and some slowdowns at times but it didn't look like the game was running on a reliable machine or it was running slow because of some other program running, perhaps something along the line with Fraps? It can cause considerable slowdown when trying to capture in game footage.

 

Sometimes, it looked a bit unpolished, lower rez, stiff, I'm guessing it was on really low graphical settings in order to capture some footage at faster frame rate? Maybe. Would be nice to have a dev explain some things to us about what we saw.

 

CQC got me. Really really really got me. Stealth and Melee are gonna be my two main skills :D I really liked what I saw in terms of combat mechanics. I loved the much talked about, and often bragged, dialogue stance, really liked the defiant and sarcastic answers, very intelligently written, though, some might argue a little, cliche.

 

Am I being maybe too optimistic? I dunno. I'm guessing graphic whores would complain about graphics. Sorry if it isn't like Halo 3 or Crysis or Uncharted, but it looks in no way like a PS2 or XBOX game and in fact, I'd say it looks as good or even better than Oblivion did.

[Sharen the Exile]

Sometimes, it looked a bit unpolished, lower rez, stiff, I'm guessing it was on really low graphical settings in order to capture some footage at faster frame rate? Maybe. Would be nice to have a dev explain some things to us about what we saw.

I think those are simply footages from different stages of the developement put together into a one video. Some locations/objects/characters look splendid, with high res textures, while others don't. Same with facial animations. The purpule-hair girl has alot better facial animations during the convo with her than other characters. It shows progress and I'm glad to see it. I'm positive Obsidian will be able to polish most of the important stuff in time.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I care a lot more how good the RPG elements are going to be in this game, hopefully everything they're promising is true.

[Oblarg]

Well, I'm planning to go pistols/stealth/CQC or pistols/stealth/tech, which is why I care so much about the jerky pistol animation.

 

The dialog system looks very well polished, as does the interface. I'm pretty sure the areas which look low-res and crappy are earlier development stages, as there are plenty of stages which look great.

 

Facial expression could use some work.

[SirPetrakus]

Sometimes, it looked a bit unpolished, lower rez, stiff, I'm guessing it was on really low graphical settings in order to capture some footage at faster frame rate? Maybe. Would be nice to have a dev explain some things to us about what we saw.

I think those are simply footages from different stages of the developement put together into a one video. Some locations/objects/characters look splendid, with high res textures, while others don't. Same with facial animations. The purpule-hair girl has alot better facial animations during the convo with her than other characters. It shows progress and I'm glad to see it. I'm positive Obsidian will be able to polish most of the important stuff in time.

Yeah, quite possible, early builds put together. Maybe it was done to show how the game has progressed from earlier builds to later builds? Would like to have something notifying which build is which. The desert part looked smashing and I understand it has been used for demo purposes lots of times in the past. It is logical for it to look better than the footage from the rest of the game because it was completed in advance. I believe we can expect the same kind of polish for the rest of the game, in due time.

[Oblarg]

Sometimes, it looked a bit unpolished, lower rez, stiff, I'm guessing it was on really low graphical settings in order to capture some footage at faster frame rate? Maybe. Would be nice to have a dev explain some things to us about what we saw.

I think those are simply footages from different stages of the developement put together into a one video. Some locations/objects/characters look splendid, with high res textures, while others don't. Same with facial animations. The purpule-hair girl has alot better facial animations during the convo with her than other characters. It shows progress and I'm glad to see it. I'm positive Obsidian will be able to polish most of the important stuff in time.

Yeah, quite possible, early builds put together. Maybe it was done to show how the game has progressed from earlier builds to later builds? Would like to have something notifying which build is which. The desert part looked smashing and I understand it has been used for demo purposes lots of times in the past. It is logical for it to look better than the footage from the rest of the game because it was completed in advance. I believe we can expect the same kind of polish for the rest of the game, in due time.

 

My thoughts exactly.

[Sharen the Exile]

I care a lot more how good the RPG elements are going to be in this game, hopefully everything they're promising is true.

Same here. I understand that most of the videos from the game released will focus on action mainly as that what sells, but I hope we will get some pure RPG footage from AP too. Personally, I would love to see more of the convo system. I love the bits I've seen, I think the limited decision time concept is a really good idea that fits into the game's theme perfectly but I wish they showed us more

[Tigranes]

Saw the whole thing finally, looks great fun. The faces *are* wooden but the voices and the dialogue was good, the CQC looks really fun and generally I think it'll be a good fun game.

[Pop]

As further evidence of how AP is marketed, the copy-paste blog post du jour that's making the rounds according to Google Alerts is "Alpha Protocol to feature achievement for pimpin' dem hos". The title was probably written by a kotaku blogger or something and the focus on the romances was (I assume) the prerogative of GTTV. Not exactly the sort of promotion I'd think would be effective, but then I'm classier than 99% of people who read gaming blogs.

[Syraxis]

Framerate issues are probably legitimate framerate issues.

 

As in a flaw with the engine itself?

 

BTW, Parker and Feargus are sort of paraphrasing this Snow Crash quote from Neal Stephenson:

 

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest mother****er in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

 

I wish I could be that cool...

Edited March 16, 2009 by Syraxis

[J.E. Sawyer]

As in a flaw with the engine itself?

Nope, just stuff we have to optimize on our end.

[HanSh0t1st]

I didn't think the graphics looked that bad - they looked pretty damn good, IMO, during some bits of dialogue - but looked a bit unpolished during some of the combat. Given that there's still a while before release, though, I'm sure that this will be sorted out.

 

I'm really stoked about the dialogue system, btw... I think AP looks great from what we've seen

Edited March 16, 2009 by HanSh0t1st

[Wombat]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/45019.html

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/46730.html

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/46717.html

 

These are the clips I picked at the same site. One of the problems is that demand for graphics is almost unconscious. Once people become accustomed to the newer graphics, it is hard for them to ignore the flaws in the older ones. If only Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines could have been released before Half Life 2.

[funcroc]

If only Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines could have been released before Half Life 2.

VtM: Bloodlines and HL2 was released on the same day.

[Wombat]

If only Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines could have been released before Half Life 2.

VtM: Bloodlines and HL2 was released on the same day.

Probably you are right since you are funcroc. And yet, I was not wrong at that VtM:B hadn't been released before HL2.

In any case, you see my point...although I myself hate to admit the tendency.

[Zoma]

I don't think its the issue of graphics, but rather the visual art design direction based on the setting in my personal opinion.

 

A modern day espionage setting makes it very difficult to portray a fantastic visual world in games without seeming dull and bland(With exception of modern warfare setting it seems). Hence we see most games prefering to use Sci-fi, fantasy, Noir and Utopia setting as those worlds are beyond our reality's grasps capable of capturing our imaginations.

 

But its not to say its not possible to make a great modern setting. I thought Splinter Cell succeeded in capturing the mood of the modern world really well, which Obsidian could had taken some pointers from in presenting AP's world.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Zoma

[H]

I would kill for a noir RPG. Obsidian, make it happen.

[mkreku]

Alpha Protocol is now known to the Eurogamer readers:

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/alpha-protocol-trailer

 

Let's hope they like it.

[Meshugger]

Alpha Protocol is now known to the Eurogamer readers:

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/alpha-protocol-trailer

 

Let's hope they like it.

 

it looks horrible (unless that's a wii game), but i find the idea intriguing. might be good

 

^^The only comment so far

[funcroc]

PR

FIRST GAMEPLAY TRAILER FOR ALPHA PROTOCOL GOES LIVE

The World

Edited March 16, 2009 by funcroc

[Zoma]

"You are operating under Alpha Protocol."

 

Seriously, the punch line needs to be delivered in a punchy manner. This one's lacking.