Alpha Protocol Preview

The recent PAX East convention is responsible for another hands-on preview of Obsidian Entertainment’s Alpha Protocol, and this time it comes to us via GamePro. The first couple of paragraphs to follow:

Alpha Protocol will no doubt draw constant comparisons to Mass Effect 2 when it releases this summer, and for good reason; the conversation system is virtually identical, and the leveling system even appears to be very similar. While developers Obsidian Entertainment would have players believe that AP is a mixture of Bourne, Bauer, and Bond, in video game terms it’s probably more accurate to call it a m’šlange of Mass Effect 2’s RPG and conversation elements with a touch of Metal Gear Solid. The “three B’s” analogy is still apt though; one of the neatest things I saw in the conversation system was that each possible response tends to correspond with one of those characters. Essentially this isn’t a Bourne/Bond/Bauer mash up like many other spy games–it’s a Bourne, Bond, Bauer lifestyle choice made by the player.

To illustrate this we were walked through a particular scene involving the main character and a female character two separate times. In the first scene, we were welcomed with open arms, and a few “tender” responses eventually led to some sexy love-times. When the scene was rebooted the female character greeted us at the door with a rain of blows from a blunt object.