Alpha Protocol - Preview, Trailer @ GTTV

Gametrailers TV has around seven minutes of footage and interviews on Alpha Protocol, including the first official gameplay trailer. Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone provide the answers, along with the in-game footage.
Thanks to danutz_plusplus on our forums.
More information.

That looked very promising. Drugs, guns, brown men with beards, an achievement for sexing all the ladies, what's not to like?

Seriously, it did look pretty promising. Interest level up a notch. Makes a change from dwarves and elves and wizards and blue-faced alien babes, at least.

Now, where have I seen that lockpicking mini-game before?

TES4.And i dont like the mini game.

Went lockpiking in Kotor not like that? I can't pinpoint wich game it was, but I know I liked it.

It does all seems nice.
Can't wait to try it, and then play a sneaky stuff user, martial arts master with little or no guns (or just shotguns for the kick of it. )

Nah, it looks a lot like Oblivion's lockpicking, which wasn't bad as minigames go except that it was so easy it made the actual lockpicking skill near irrelevant. (IMO Fallout 3's lockpicking minigame is much better, just like its hacking minigame; I can't think of a better one off-hand. Thief's wasn't half bad, but it wasn't as good IMO -- it got tedious fast.)

Character skill screen looked like a cut/paste from Mass Effect, as did the dialogue tree you see very momentarily.

agreed, and also it is just action action action in every trailer. The action looks like standard action game stuffs. I found it amusing how they wrote ( you will need more than guns ) etc etc, but all the trailer shows is fighting fighting fighting, and a few seconds of conversation and lockpicking ( which BTW looks like oblivion lock picking game )

you do see a bit of martial arts combat. That seems cool in combination with sneaking

"We´re operating under Alpha Protocol." "Interesting."
WTH was that?! Did they use some voice simulator instead of real actors?

Judging by the dialogue implementation, skillset, minigames inclusion, etc., this seems to be extremely light on rpg features. And there´s not that much difference between the 3 B´s anyway.
I wonder how much creative control Avellone had, so far writing seems mediocre at best.
Also, the game really doesn´t ooze originality and seems like a rather generic shooter with the spy thingie being not much more than a gimmick.

Action itself seems rather nice though and, from what I´ve seen, level design too.

These previews might be misleading but so far, instead of making me excited about Alpha Protocol, they¨re just giving me the urge to replay Deus Ex.

I think we have to remember which segment of the market these trailers are usually geared towards; ie the young twitchers who want to see all this action. I rarely view trailers since I've found most are quite misleading. I much prefer to play a demo.

Huh, I find myself rather more intrigued by this than I thought I would. I'm definetely not a fan of action-RPGs in general, but this looks like... well, it actually looks like fun. So I'm pretty surprised by the bad reactions to it.
Obviously it still remains to be seen if they can pull the gameplay off. There have only been very few action-RPGs which I've considered to be strong throughout the game, without getting boring and repetetive. I'm still worried that AP will fall into that trap also, but from what we can see in the gameplay footage, I think it looks quite dynamic and fun.

I was sort of only looking forward to the game because I wanted to see what story they've cooked up and the setting. But after seeing this and the other preview I'm actually intrigued by the gameplay as well which I *really* didn't expect.

I think the bit about "You're operating under Alpha Protocol. Interesting" bit is mainly an unfortunate cut from the dialogue. It really feels like there should be a context around it that there probably will be in the game, but it's a bad choice for a "trailer punchline" so to speak. Voiceacting would probably be the least of my concerns since, if I remember correctly, it's being handled by the same studio who did it for Bloodlines and Mask of the Betrayer (think Annie Carlson stated this somewhere on a forum though I can't remember where.)

Quite pleasantly surprised here really.

I believe it was clearly mentioned to whom is the game adressed.

"Thorton is an agent who every 15-year old could be after 10-years of difficult training" or something like that. After watching the trailers my interest in the game vanished.

It's amazing to me how many people here are prematurely bashing this game.

And whats there exactly to be happy with?

Graphics are too plastic for my taste( UT3 engine), lip-sync needs much more work(ok, thats a minor flaw, cause they'll surely fix it before the launch), voice actors from what I've heard were ranging from passable to horrible, script wasnt exactly Avellone level - "We´re operating under Alpha Protocol." "Interesting.". Come on, something like that could have come from Bethesda, not from makers of KOTOR2, NWN2 and MotB.
I may not be the targeted audience and its fine with me, but I still have right to say what I dont like about AP, dont I?

What is there not to be happy with? Seriously, when you're talking about a game that you haven't even played yet, and have nothing more than a few minutes of video footage to go by, it's funny to see people getting so pissy about it.

I wasn't talking to you specifically, but since you felt the need to get offended....

I believe Ive explained you what I dont like, as of now, about the game. I dont state it will be a poor game, because it may as well be a spiritual successor Deus Ex. But clearly from what Avellone and Urqhard said and from things Ive seen I have no reason to be overly positive or optimistic.

It was always an action/RPG/shooter, right? Why would anyone be surprised that they highlight action in the trailer? It's fine if shooter hybrids aren't your thing but I can't see where it doesn't deliver as promised - so far.

JDR13 said:

It's amazing to me how many people here are prematurely bashing this game.

Click to expand...

Haha, what´s so strange about it?

I don´t think anyone here is jumping to definitive conclusions about game´s quality on the basis of these previews.
Trailers and interviews are there to give an impression of the game and this comment section is here for people to post what that impression was, no?

Someone´s intrigued, someone´s not, that´s only natural.

Otherwise, why having a comment section for these things at all?
To discuss interviewer´s haircut?

DeepO said:

Otherwise, why having a comment section for these things at all?
To discuss interviewer´s haircut?

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Did you see the video? I think it's obvious that his haircut is going to be terrible!