Alpha Protocol has been released in Europe already and is being launched today in North America. The game has since received a lukewarm reception from players and pundits alike. The RPG espionage title has been delayed several times frustrating eager fans and now an alleged developer of the game has delivered some harsh words saying it should have been canceled. Ouch.
An anonymous Obsidian developer has posted in the comments section on Joystiq that Alpha Protocol is a technical nightmare and the RPG should have been canceled.
I worked on this game (a fact of which I am not proud). I’m not here to defend it; I agree with all these reviews. The Executive Producer for the game, Chris Parker (also an owner of the company), seemed to think he was the world’s greatest designer ever, and created all these absolutely shitty systems and wouldn’t listen to any of the real designers or devs about things that just didn’t work.
And you can’t exactly argue with one of the owners of the company when he doesn’t want to listen. He basically took over the game and dictated exactly how everything would work (or not work, as the case may be).
The comment goes onto talk about publishers Sega:
Sega also was a factor, because they kept changing the design requirements (yes they had heavy influence there), which never gave the producers and designers time to actually decide on one set of features to make and polish.
The execution was absolutely terrible, and it was obvious 2 years ago that this game should have been scrapped.
This game was just an absolute failure of production, and it’s no wonder that so many of the developers left the company, even after the 40% staff layoffs. Sega should have cancelled AP instead of Aliens.
What are your thoughts on Alpha Protocol? Do you believe it should have been canned or are you enjoying the stealth RPG game?
Be sure to read PlayStation LifeStyle’s Alpha Protocol review, if you haven’t already.
