Interview Chris Avellone reveals that Alpha Protocol 2 would have been wackier, included multiplayer elements

[Infinitron]

Tags: Alpha Protocol; Chris Avellone; Obsidian Entertainment; Project Eternity

Following his presentation at the Montreal International Game Summit, Chris Avellone gave a short interview to Quebecois gaming site GamerQC.com.

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Most of the interview treads familiar ground, but when asked (at 5:49) about Obsidian's plans for Alpha Protocol 2, MCA reveals some new information. Apparently, they were considering adding a Dark Souls-esque asynchronous multiplayer element to the game, that would have allowed "intelligence sharing" between players, including the possibility for deception. Alpha Protocol 2 would also have been wackier than the original game, going for a more Kill Bill vibe with "crazy characters". Chris likens it to the narrative direction taken by the popular Saints Row series.

 

[Morality Games]

Tags: Alpha Protocol; Chris Avellone; Obsidian Entertainment; Project Eternity

Following his presentation at the Montreal International Game Summit, Chris Avellone gave a short interview to Quebecois gaming site GamerQC.com.

​

Most of the interview treads familiar ground, but when asked (at 5:49) about Obsidian's plans for Alpha Protocol 2, MCA reveals some new information. Apparently, they were considering adding a Dark Souls-esque asynchronous multiplayer element to the game, that would have allowed "intelligence sharing" between players, including the possibility for deception. Alpha Protocol 2 would also have been wackier than the original game, going for a more Kill Bill vibe with "crazy characters". Chris likens it to the narrative direction taken by the popular Saints Row series.

So less grounded spy work and more "Video killed the radio star."

 

[procrastinator]

Dark Souls-esque asynchronous multiplayer

Wat? Is this some new buzzword?

 

[ColCol]

Wait, most of the characters in the last game weren't "crazy"? In that case it may be good the sequel never came to fruition........

 

[Cosmo]

Wait, most of the characters in the last game weren't "crazy"? In that case it may be good the sequel never came to fruition........

Well, the crazy characters are what survived the first draft of the game actually. Sega wanted something more realistic and forced them to tone down their stuff.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Damn these are some embarrassing typos. Most questions were better than I thought, though.

Downtown Montreal, looking trashy as ever.

Also, yeah, Alpha Protocol was already wildly unbalanced as it was, the gameplay would have been hilariously bad, even more than the original.

The only interesting aspect was the writing of the character. Chris should make a novella/comic out of it and put this franchise to rest.

 

[Azrael the cat]

To be honest, I wouldn't have said this at the time - but the dominance of 'realistic' military cover-shooters is such that I wouldn't mind a Kill Bill vibe instead. 'Big Crazy Characters' doesn't have to mean psychologically implausible writing. Often it means the opposite - by drawing the characters into stylised archetypes....then FUCKING with those archetypes....you can often end up with something more interesting (and easier to tie with the thematic content) and less cliche-driven than if you hadn't built it from the crazy cliched archetypes at all.

When you get down to it, that's every Tarantino film in a box.

It's also every good piece of writing that MCA and Obsidian have produced. PS:T was the KK--RRR--AAAA-ZZZ--YYYY-est of the IE games, and heavily archetypal (again, while being aware of those archetypes and fucking with them; compare Bioware's attempts at realism and resulting uber-cliches made all the more irritating by the sense that the writers don't KNOW that they're cliches). MotB was largely the same. KoTOR2 is when you take an entire setting built on archetypes and deliberately break it.

It's also Deus Ex and System Shock. Great characters that remain internally psychologically plausible, but are a lot more Kill Bill than the Hurt Locker.

I'd also say it's the characters that worked from AP1. Sure, if he means 'every character is Steve Heck', then obviously that's going to be shit. But I can tolerate one Steve Heck....who am I kidding he was close to my favourite character in the game and I lolled hard when he screwed up my stealth run with his 'distraction'. But you've got to keep that shit to one character max, and it only avoided being a Crazy-Sue because of the high likelihood of him actuallly fucking things up for you. If he means 'stylised characters from crazy archetypes...but knowingly and playing with those archetypes' - i.e. Kill Bill - than I can see that working.

Saints Row might now be a bad analogue for modern gamers either - as a distinction from GTA.

 

[Sensuki]

By Multiplayer you mean Social Features, lmao.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Sounds like improvements, but tbh there was nothing special about the Alpha Protocol universe. They should just start fresh and avert licensing issues.

 

[MicoSelva]

Kill Bill is one of my favourite movies and I love wacky stuff, but I don't really think that spy thriller is the right genre for such things, or we're heading straight into parody territory.

It would be great if they made a game in that style someday. Just not an Alpha Protocol game.

 

[Infinitron]

Kill Bill is one of my favourite movies and I love wacky stuff, but I don't really think that spy thriller is the right genre for such things, or we're heading straight into parody territory.

Sure didn't hurt Austin Powers and Johnny English!

 

[Brother None]

Yeah, honestly, I think it could've worked well. Match the gameplay to the tone (like S'aint's R'ow does) and write a good parody and you could make a great game that way. Alpha Protocol felt a bit uneven in tone at times so it would've benefited from the sequel either going ham on SRS SPY THRILLER or ham on OMG SO ZANY. Over-the-top villains and crazy situations of spy films are easy to turn into parody, and the lighter tone releases you to do even crazier things with the skills system.

I can definitely see citing Sai'nt's Ro'w here, as an example of a game series that makes it work. It won't work for everyone but it works enough.

So yeah. I'd play it!

 

[MicoSelva]

Kill Bill is one of my favourite movies and I love wacky stuff, but I don't really think that spy thriller is the right genre for such things, or we're heading straight into parody territory.

Sure didn't hurt Austin Powers and Johnny English!

There is little similarity between them and Kill Bill, though.

 

[Roguey]

Well, the crazy characters are what survived the first draft of the game actually. Sega wanted something more realistic and forced them to tone down their stuff.

Sega had nothing to do with the writing. It started off serious, Obsidian wanted Brian to make it wackier so he gave a go at it but it wasn't good enough, so they kicked him to the curb and Avellone wrote it himself.

 

[hiver]

Avellone is a pretentious mass market fag. Sure he has talent and can write something that seems good, especially when compared to the rest of shit out there.

But thats all.

Look at how he plays Arcanum. Just like some clueless mass market casual.

Well, the crazy characters are what survived the first draft of the game actually. Sega wanted something more realistic and forced them to tone down their stuff.

Sega had nothing to do with the writing. It started off serious, Obsidian wanted Brian to make it wackier so he gave a go at it but it wasn't good enough, so they kicked him to the curb and Avellone wrote it himself.

Yeah. And it was great!!!

No wonder Brian left that company.

 

[Cosmo]

Sega had nothing to do with the writing.

My bad, it was the art for those characters that had to be revised, not the writing.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

If only someone made a super-spy parody FPP like No One Lives Forever. It was funny, having many references to Bond movies. The environment, memorable characters, fluid gameplay and fantastic music... Second part already had increasing stats, so the doors are already opened. With Obsidian writing it would be really interesting.

 

[cherry blossom]

Kill Bill is one of my favourite movies and I love wacky stuff, but I don't really think that spy thriller is the right genre for such things, or we're heading straight into parody territory.

Sure didn't hurt Austin Powers and Johnny English!

Despite all the wackiness and parodies, Austin Powers series are still spy flicks at heart. They feature every cornerstone of espionage genre: undercover missions, collecting and piecing together information, disguises, stalking and the MEAT of all things espionage: a LOT of socializing where characters develop and the aforementioned are put to subtle practice. Austin Powers is a raging success in espionage genre while still managing to be funny and parodic.

Now let's look at Alpha Protocol: the MEAT of the game is Console Corridor Shootan. Everything else is underutilised as they are cheap excuses to pack even more Console Corridor Shootan and feel like an afterthought and the only parts of the game without Console Corridor Shootan are the sometimes-interactive cutscenes. It is a game pretending to be about espionage. If you care nothing about the occasionally good writing, the interesting characters (and the brilliany facial animations during the sometimes-interactive cutscenes), it is mediocre and forgettable as simply a game and a massive failure as an espionage game.

So a "wackier AP2"? I'm sorry Chris; unless you get your shit together and add actual gameplay -not Console Corridor Shootan but the sort of the things like exploring civil environments and social circles, adventuring, collecting items without the need for Console Corridor Shootan parts as the meat of the game- to it, no amount of wackiness will save your shitty third-grade shovelware pretending to be "espionage". It will be a day one floater.

Only if Obsidian dropped all pretense of gameplay, I'm certain they would deliver far better linear games with better writing and characterisation than the boring sigh-fests that TellTale Games produce.

Imagine a tightly made TellTale style espionage adventure game (maybe with slight RPG elements) by Obsidian; now that is something I would pay full price. Even a comic book. Or an adventure game slash comic book interactive fiction.

 

[2house2fly]

It sounds like it could have been interesting, but also like it might actually be a good thing it won't get a sequel tbh. The intelligence sharing could be pretty neat, but the wackier tone is something I wouldn't really be into. There's plenty of wacky games out there already; I'm ready for something more serious. Not necessarily something totally po-faced, but a game where during development someone said "let's assume as we make this game that a grown up might play it"

 

[cherry blossom]

Wackiness and "games for grown ups" are not mutually exclusive.

 

[tuluse]

cherry blossom

Have you ever played the N64 Mission Impossible game? It had some really cool stuff like wearing a disguise while attending a party. Trying to sneak around and get to the back rooms without anyone noticing. I haven't played the game in over 10 years, so my memory is fuzzy, but it was cool from what I do remember.

 

[cherry blossom]

First time hearing. It sounds cool. Checking YouTube videos.

 

[Darth Roxor]

CURSE YOU FOR TOYING WITH ME LIKE THIS, MCA ;_;7

 

[Athelas]

As annoying as Alpha Protocol's failure was, it hopefully has steered Obsidian permanently away from popamole. Although if anyone's following the thread on Obsidian forums, it does seem their secret next-gen project is an action-RPG of some sort.

 

[himmy]

Well, since they're doing a South Park RPG, why not try their hands at an Archer RPG?