T w e n t y S i d e d

In this week’s column I bring some words of caution to a few of the hyped games at E3, although I’m not sure they’re needed. I think a lot of people were already skeptical of these games, not to mention the new motion controls.

There are some games I’m looking forward to, but almost all of them are aiming for 2011. (And I’m sure some of those will slip to 2012.) Portal, DC Universe Online, Star Wars The Old Republic, Mass Effect 3. Usually E3 feels like a preview for the holiday season, but this year it feels like a preview for next year. Although, I haven’t run the numbers. It’s entirely possible the distribution of release dates is the same, but my interest level isn’t.

About the only thing I care about right now – and I’m aware of how strange this sounds coming from me – is Fallout Vegas. It goes something like this:

New Vegas will be a disaster, just like Fallout 3.

But this game is by Obsidian.

But Obsidian has a reputation for shoddy work and bad endings.

But they seem to be saying all the right things in interviews.

But the trailer was an insult to the series.

But the trailer is just for FPS fans and not for RPG fans.

But Alpha Protocol seems to suffer from a lot of classic Obsidian problems.

But since both games were under development at the same time, this game must be coming from a different group of people.

This can’t save it from the prevailing console-itis.

But it will be using the established PC-focused Bethesda tools.

Which always seem to produce buggy games.

But this is a refinement of existing tech, not an overhaul, so they’re building on established tech, which you are always saying is the key to success!

…and so on. This could go either way. It’s simply too close to know how it will turn out. It’s like the pod race in Phantom Menace, except I care.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Here is a bit about the Alpha Protocol dialog system.

I need to keep playing this game before I can review it. One minute I’ll be thinking, “This game is okay. I don’t know what people are complaining about.” Ten minutes later, “This game sucks. I don’t know what people see in it.”

The most distressing problem is the save system. It’s checkpoint based, even when you’re at your hideout. I get back to the safe house and it checkpoint saves. Then I do some leveling up, buy some equipment, and arrange my gear. Then I want to quit. The only save option is “save last checkpoint”, which – if I’m understanding it – means I’d be saving the game state of when I arrived at my base. If I want to save all that fussing about, I have to start a new mission.

The other problem is that I can’t make any sense of how the save slots work. I finished the first act of the game, and then I needed to start a new game to make the previous comic. Just to make sure, I saved my game in two different slots. Later I wanted to return to that save, but both slots were overwritten with autosaves or something. They were gone, and I ended up losing about an hour and a half of progress. You don’t name your character or anything, so if you’ve got two different play-throughs going you can’t tell their saves apart, even if you can keep them from somehow overwriting each other. This is a significant flaw in a game designed around the idea of multiple replays.

Pretty classic Obsidian craftsmanship so far.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.