Support NeoGAF

[Lashley]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-09-06-the-making-of-alpha-protocol-obsidians-secret-best-rpg

Imagine a glitzy cinematic sequence where you, as a secret agent, fight your way through an aeroplane soaring through the sky. You're pressing button prompts appearing on the screen while your hero whacks, chops, spins and kicks at the baddie in your way. "You fight all the way down until eventually you beat the guy and rip off his parachute and, I don't know, break his neck, and he floats off and you use his parachute to land." Sounds great, like a James Bond or Jack Bauer or Jason Bourne scene, or something from Uncharted 3, which hadn't been made yet.

But this is Obsidian Entertainment talking, and the scene in question was from 10 years ago, before Pillars of Eternity, before South Park: The Stick of Truth, before Fallout: New Vegas. The scene was from Alpha Protocol, a spy game, Obsidian's own idea, and secretly one of its best. I'm in a room now, at Obsidian, with pictures of characters from Alpha Protocol framed on the walls around me, talking to Chris Parker, one of Obsidian's owners (and game director of Alpha Protocol) as well as a handful of other people from the Alpha Protocol team.

I need to replay this.

 

[Rellik]

We need a sequel.

 

[breezer79]

We need a sequel.

This.

 

[DemWalls]

A mess of a game, but the dialogue and Choice & Consequence parts were - and still are - impressive.

Had fun with it. It's the last title I played before having to take a break from gaming, last April.

 

[UnluckyKate]

Need a sequel with wonky crazy op builds. Just revamp the animations. Everything else was perfect

 

[Josemsar]

I've never played it. Does it work well under Windows 10?

 

[Audioboxer]

Alpha Protocol is a brilliant game. Some of the jank you'd expect from a Euro Jank low budget RPG, but all of the charm/technical writing and something riskier than the over polished safe RPG-factory fresh content modern day Bethesda and Bioware pump out.

It deserves middling reviews due to the gameplay/jank, but if you enjoy story, narrative and some heartfelt writing it's a flawed gem.

 

[DemWalls]

I've never played it. Does it work well under Windows 10?

I had no problems whatsoever.

 

[Moobabe]

Nothing secret about it. It's their best game.

 

[Shanaynay]

Despite all its flaws i really loved playing the game. The stealth skill tree was extremely broken though, haha.

 

[Discotheque]

Gonna have to fire this up again one day. Obsidians writing has always been so good and to apply this to a rpg about spies was hella novel. It's so underrepresented in this genre. You get dozens of fantasy and sci fi rpgs but nobody saw fit to apply it to this

I want more indeed

 

[diaspora]

The actual playing part of the game is a dog's breakfast thrown up, eaten, and thrown up again though.

Well written at least.

 

[neoemonk]

I think this game goes on sale for $2.50 every Steam sale. I've owned it for years. Still never played it - like most of my Steam library.

 

[NeoCross]

One of my favortie games and Obsidians best. I replay it every year.

Need a sequel now.

 

[Shotpun]

Could do without the checkpoint save system too for the sequel, but yeah, would love to get a sequel for this.

Also: Autograph - Turn Up the Radio

 

[FHIZ]

Not enough paragraphs praising Matt Rorie.

How's the PC port of this hold up? I never gave it a real shot last gen and it was always on my "get to it someday" list.

 

[fwpx]

Rorie's own. Game had some cool ideas.

 

[GavinUK86]

"Obsidian's secret best RPG"

I detect no lies.

Not enough paragraphs praising Matt Rorie.

How's the PC port of this hold up? I never gave it a real shot last gen and it was always on my "get to it someday" list.

Perfect. I'm replaying it at the moment. On an Nvidia card you can tweak a bunch via Nvidia inspector like additional AA and downsampling. It's a decent port. If I remember correctly, it wasn't great at launch but with new hardware it's pretty flawless.

There is an issue with the checkpoint system where some of the enemies disappear from the map if you load up previous checkpoint, no idea is that also in the console versions. Also mouse sensitivity had some weird issues IIRC. Otherwise it's fine.

Edit: Wasn't mouse sensitivity, the camera movement can have some hitching issues that can be fixed by either using a controller or disabling background streaming in the APEngine.ini file.

Oh yeah, good point. Go to AP's PC Gaming Wiki page and it lists a bunch of tweaks you should add to various .ini files.

 

[Harlequin]

Still haven't finished it. I started playing it years ago but sort of ended up levelling/upgrading myself into a corner so I couldn't defeat a boss halfway through the game and would've had to replay a considerable portion of the game to choose different skills and just couldn't be bothered. Loved what I'd played up until then, though.

 

[Shotpun]

Not enough paragraphs praising Matt Rorie.

How's the PC port of this hold up? I never gave it a real shot last gen and it was always on my "get to it someday" list.

There is an issue with the checkpoint system where some of the enemies disappear from the map if you load up previous checkpoint, no idea is that also in the console versions. Also mouse sensitivity had some weird issues IIRC. Otherwise it's fine.

Edit: Wasn't mouse sensitivity, the camera movement can have some hitching issues that can be fixed by either using a controller or disabling background streaming in the APEngine.ini file.

 

[TheShampion]

The game was the king of great dialog choices that actually had ramifications. The way they would effect both the story and your stats was brilliant. Will read!

I haven't played it in a while, so I wonder if I could just pick up from my PS3 save or would I have to start over. The last thing I remember was talking to a character who was VA'ed by the same guy who did Winnie the Pooh.

 

[v0yce]

This game is great.

The sneak animation is awful.

 

[The Last Wizard]

It feels like it may be close to getting a sequel, there’s too much smoke.

 

[Lashley]

It feels like it may be close to getting a sequel, there’s too much smoke.

I really hope so

 

[His Majesty]

One of my favourite RPGs. Yeah the combat isn't all that exciting but the characters, writing and choice & consequence in this game are top notch.

Bearded Thorton best Thorton.

 

[kurahador]

They need to make an enhanced port of this game that fixed the combat.

 

[Vinterbird]

It feels like it may be close to getting a sequel, there’s too much smoke.

Who would fund it.

 

[BAW]

And I was just about to start this! What's the funnest build to play as? I don't care if it breaks the game.

 

[His Majesty]

what's up with all the Obsidian articles coming out recently by the way? some press event?

 

[Bishop89]

TURN UP, THE RADIO!

 

[Patterbits]

Loved the game, never got to finish the final mission though. Still have nightmares of Omen Deng.

Spoiler

"You're in...over your head."

 

[NandoGip]

Game was good but too janky for me to finish. One of those games where a sequel wouldve turned it into a top tier classic, but sadly we never got one.

 

[Ushojax]

There are some cool RPG elements but the actual game is a mess. I'd like to see them have another go but either make it a serious spy story or a parody, not the weird halfway-house of the original.

 

[Tapejara]

It sucks that Obsidian didn't end up owning the IP like they had originally planned; would have been great if they could have shopped it around instead of relying on Sega.

 

[Patryn]

It feels like it may be close to getting a sequel, there’s too much smoke.

The article directly says that Sega indicates that a sequel won't be happening any time soon, and since Sega owns the IP they make the call.

Now, a spiritual sequel....

 

[Shake Appeal]

It feels like it may be close to getting a sequel, there’s too much smoke.

The piece talks about the problems inherent in Sega owning the IP.

 

[Yopis]

Always had a soft spot for this game. Really enjoyed the short time you had to make some choices. Some of the bosses were cool.

 

[Kill3r7]

A mess of a game, but the dialogue and Choice & Consequence parts were - and still are - impressive.

Had fun with it. It's the last title I played before having to take a break from gaming, last April.

Alpha Protocol is a brilliant game. Some of the jank you'd expect from a Euro Jank low budget RPG, but all of the charm/technical writing and something riskier than the over polished safe RPG-factory fresh content modern day Bethesda and Bioware pump out.

It deserves middling reviews due to the gameplay/jank, but if you enjoy story, narrative and some heartfelt writing it's a flawed gem.

Agreed. Great potential but they need to polish the game more and improve gameplay if there is to be a sequel.

 

[KodaRuss]

I never played the game but I would definitely give a remaster or a sequel a try. Dont really have my PS3 hooked up anymore.

 

[GavinUK86]

One of my favourite RPGs. Yeah the combat isn't all that exciting but the characters, writing and choice & consequence in this game are top notch.

Bearded Thorton best Thorton.

100% true. My current Thornton:

 

[Pooya]

What scuppered it was Disney cancelling the Seven Dwarves Snow White spin-off Obsidian was making after Neverwinter Nights 2.

they were making.... what? lol. didn't know that.

 

[The Last Wizard]

Who would fund it.

I would.

The article directly says that Sega indicates that a sequel won't be happening any time soon, and since Sega owns the IP they make the call.

Now, a spiritual sequel....

This is what I was thinking.

The piece talks about the problems inherent in Sega owning the IP.

Beta Operandi.

 

[Ralemont]

It would be Obsidian's secret best game if they deleted everything except the cutscene/dialogue gameplay. Game would have been much better as a straight Telltale/Choose Your Own Adventure type game instead of failing at a TPS.

 

[GavinUK86]

It would be Obsidian's secret best game if they deleted everything except the cutscene/dialogue gameplay. Game would have been much better as a straight Telltale/Choose Your Own Adventure type game instead of failing at a TPS.

 

[CecilRousso]

The article directly says that Sega indicates that a sequel won't be happening any time soon, and since Sega owns the IP they make the call.

Now, a spiritual sequel....

Yeah, for us customers they can call it Beta Instructions, with Mr.X instead of Michael Thornton as a main character, and very little would be lost, if they make the same kind of gameplay.

 

[Earthpainting]

I played it for the first time this year. It had some cute ideas, but there were many instances where I wanted to drop the game. Basically imagine Metal Gear Solid, but made in the west. The game's biggest problem is that all the boss fights were pretty much universally bad, and that the stealth paths often felt like a ruse. No matter how well you did, sometimes cutscenes just forced you to be exposed, and if you spec into stealth, you probably aren't equipped to deal with a TPS skirmish.

 

[KainXVIII]

It would be Obsidian's secret best game if they deleted everything except the cutscene/dialogue gameplay. Game would have been much better as a straight Telltale/Choose Your Own Adventure type game instead of failing at a TPS.

Yeah, actual gameplay was complete trash.

 

[mindatlarge]

This game seems to have quite the cult following. It's in my backlog, I'll have to bust out my 360 and see what all the fuss is about.

 

[Morat]

Really need to get around to playing this, as I've heard many good things. However, I also hear certain character builds are really shity/can break the game. Any tips?

 

[Sanctuary]

It's basically the V:TMB of Obsidian games. Utter shit combat, and great everything else.