themadhatter114 said:
I was more refering to the fact that it seems to be driven forward by the same dialogue design principle as Mass Effect, making conversations a "cinematic" and fast affair, as opposed to something like Torment, or even Arcanum, Fallout, or BG in some circumstances. The timer and the ida stances should be "reactionary" support this, just like Mass Effect's dialogue wheel was designed so people who wanted a renegade stance would just press a certain direction or such. Seems like the same core idea, but a slightly different direction taken.
You have a badass spy character. He has to bag chicks
Eh....still seems like a "Me too" type of deal. Plus, you can use that excuse on pretty much any video game hero archetype, so I'm still thinking it's less of a setting/atmosphere consideration and more of a general pandering to the masses type of deal, especially if they're doing scenes. Funny dialogue satirizing the womanizing nature of typical super spys, or goofy quests might be okay, but the idea of scenes are almost facepalm worthy. Pretty lame to me.
And I don't think the combat/general gameplay is going to be anything like Mass Effect.
By combat style, I meant the general flow of shooting. It looks to be a third person shooter with a rather large cover element, little resource management due to unlimited ammo, and powers that change the flow of battle that are limited by cooldown timers. Basically, this description of the fundamentals of Alpha Protocol also describe the fundamentals of Mass Effect combat. Sure, they do seem to differ in how they build on those fundamentals, but at the core, they are very similar.
Perhaps I originally used a bit too much hyperbole?
And given that they seem to be aiming to allow for actual different paths through missions, it sounds like you won't be getting XP for kills.
Sega is the publisher....they're on the Herve level. Expect the worst, nothing more.
Eh, I don't see anything wrong with the same so far. Design-wise it looks to me like it could allow different mission approaches similar to Deus Ex. If it has good shooter mechanics, and allows you to sneak through most of the game, so long as the writing is good I don't see what could be bad about it.
Call me a pessimist, but I tend to see a lack of focus here. First off, Obsidian's never done an action game before, so I'm more than a little worried on that end. Multiple paths, that's a big maybe. Can Obsidian do them? Sure. Will they? That's unsure. Sega is an awfulpublisher though, so I expect a rush job and things *will* be cut. Generally I'm not sure how they'll take the tone of the writing anywhere either. It seems like they're going for the campy, based on character descriptions, and the snippets of art, but also trying to take a serious tone. Sometimes a piece can keep both going together well, take Six String Samurai for instance...but other times, you get a schizophrenic mess, kinda like the first Baldur's Gate, with a fart joke coming immediately after you narrowly escape dopplegangers who have taken the form of childhood friends trying to kill you.
And overall, it seems like they're trying to satisfy a bunch of demographics in one game. Generally, games that try this tend to just bring mediocrity on all fronts. Basically....Oblivion. Obsidian almost seems to be calling the plays on this game's design from Todd and Emil's playbook. And it doesn't help that their PR sounds like something Pete would say with the "Don't worry guys...it's an RPG" every other sentence.
What the fuck. Are you guys seriously fucking complaining that the spy character bangs chicks?
I am many now?
