Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Obsidian have released a new very detailed video guiding you through various aspects of Alpha Protocol’s Safe Houses. Showing off how the Safe Houses work, with all their various character, weapon, etc modifications, it explains how important these locations are. There’s your email, which lets you catch up on relationships, find extra work, and keep up with colleagues. There’s access to the black market Clearing House, where you can pick up new equipment. You can also customise and upgrade weapons and armour, and all sorts. It’s all below.

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This is worth watching. Alpha Protocol, Obisidian’s modern-day spy RPG, has a bunch of different options and approaches open to you, but it seems that the way you approach a mission will depend on the “handler” you decide to have run your operation. In the following video we see a mission played through under two different handlers, each one with a rather different approach. We also get to see some of that espionage stuff in action – illuminating stuff. This is one game for 2009 that I can’t wait to get some hands-on time with.

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News just in from Gamasutra. Bethesda’s Pete Hines, speaking in London, revealed that KOTOR2/NWN2 veterans Obsidian are working on a new Fallout game going under the name “Fallout: New Vegas”. The only facts we have are that it’s not Fallout Tactics, Brotherhood of Steel and doesn’t impact what the actual main Bethesda Fallout team are doing. Which does make the puzzle be exactly what it could be. My gut response guess would be something using the Fallout 3 engine, in a locale well away from where Bethesda are operating – perhaps, I dare say, in Vegas – and probably set in a different period. But that’s just nonsense I’ve just made up, obv. It could be a Fallout Slot Machine Game for all I know. The comments thread is your place for speculation.

I just want to echo John’s sentiments regarding Alpha Protocol: the forthcoming modern-day spy RPG really could end up being one of the most accomplished games this year. Real-time combat mechanics, branching dialogue trees, hub-structure environments and missions, statistics-led character progression: all set in the real world. SEGA seem to have given Obsidian plenty of time and freedom to develop this, and we’ll definitely be looking at it more closely as it approaches the October release date. Anyway, two videos from Obsidian sit below the cut, and they’re crammed with game footage. Go take a look.

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We’re not in Aurora any more. Obsidian’s next game, Alpha Protocol, is the least RPG-looking RPG I think I’ve seen. In the new video released today (below), showing lots of new in-game footage, it looks like third-person action. But do not let loose your cries of foul just yet – this is Obsidian, and while it would be nice if they’d remember to finish their games, they’ve yet to make a mistake. And this is Chris Avellone and Feargus Urquhart, who brought us KotOR II and Planescape: Torment. The men know how to tell a story. There is pedigree, and with pedigree comes optimism. Doubly so, since there’s not a potion or magical goblet in sight: this is a spy-based RPG, set in the modern day.

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When I made my appointment to go and see Atari the only PC game they’d announced they were going to show was Deer Hunter Tournament. I thought I’d go along anyway as it might be kind of interesting – I’ve never played a Deer Hunter game, but I’ve heard they kind of have a naturiffic ambience, if you forget all that huntin’ and killin’ – but I didn’t actually end up looking at the title.

That’s because of Tomasz Gop. Tomasz works for CD Project Red and was Assistant Producer of The Witcher, and was on hand to show The Witcher: Enhanced Edition.
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There’s a new NWN2 expansion on the way, though you’d have to polish up your cross-language dictionary as well as your broadsword +4 against scarabs to be sure. NWN vault noticed that the splendid-named Spanish site Neverwinteros brings news of a new Expansion entitled “Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir”. The Vault actually translates the news, revealing that the game seems to be the Icewind Dale approach to the genre – in that it gives you the ability to design a whole party from scratch, then go forth and persecute kobolds for their gold. “Trading and economic manipulation” are promised, which sounds exciting, even through the translation. It also features a conflict with “the evil, shapeshifting, serpentine Yuan-Ti”, which we welcome, as we are completely racist about the bloody Yuan-Ti. They’re complete shits.

Via the exclusive-happy Game Informer, the previously unnamed next game to come from Bioware Babies, Obsidian, has been discovered. Alpha Protocol is a spy-themed single player RPG, developed for PC, 360 and PS3, due next Spring. Via EG, and in turn the Neogaf forums, a few details from the April Game Informer have leaked.

Most importantly, it’s described as,

“A modern day espionage focused action/RPG that takes you on a suspenseful ride in the vein of James Bond, Jack Bauer, and Jason Bourne. Take a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn agent up through the ranks to become a bona-fide super spy.”

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Glorious corporate paymasters Eurogamer have published my review of the first add on pack for the second Neverwinter Nights game.

I have to give Mask of the Betrayer this: its qualities were enough to make me decide to restart the original Neverwinter Nights 2, so I could go all the way through the game and into the expansion pack in an enormous fantasy quest. This says something. It’s a big fantasy PC videogame quest like Grandma used to make.

Assuming your Grandma worked at Black Isle, obviously.

The rest is here.

Not joking about that either, meaning that I’d expect some NWN2 blogging here sooner or later. It’s an interesting experience to go back to the start of NWN2 after being in the expansion pack because it’s so vanilla. I mean, I like it, because I’m a big dirty geek, but it’s merely well-executed utterly derivative fantasy. More another time, I suspect.