First, nice of you to reply I always look forward to your input on this kind of thing.

Second, lets talk about the genre Alpha Protocol is supposed to be. I assume you mean the spy-action thriller genre like James Bond. I agree with you that the achievement ‘Ladies man’ makes sense in that genre because that is what James Bond did, it is part of his movies’ formula – he starts it sleeping with some random woman, he sleeps with the bad girl mid-way through the film and he sleeps with the good girl at the very end as a reward for saving the day. However, as audiences mature even James Bond films have ‘grown up’. While it would be fine with audiences in the early 60ies for Sean Connery’s James Bond to slap a woman in the face and she would still fall in love with him, it is not so nowadays. We get movies like Cassino Royale and Borne Identity, where the love interest is a bit more than just ‘a love interest’. I think even in action films, hell, even in Van Damme’s action flicks, relationships are treated with a little bit more respect than just the, and to quote the article, “Keep talking to me and eventually we’ll have sex.” situation of most games. If Alpha Protocol goes for quantity vs quality, which it seems like it will, it doesn’t seem like it will be that challenging to convince all female npcs of importance to jump in bed with you.

Thirdly, Dragon Age. Is ‘being nice to someone, give them gifts, and they will sleep with you.’ really reality? Oh, I don’t expect Dragon Age’s Morrigan to be all chaste and coy about it, the woman barely wears any clothes for god’s sake and I am sure there is a lot leading up to the whole scene with the book. I am sure the main character chose all the flirting options, placed her in the party several times and said the lines Morrigan would most likely approve of, (I’d guess something along the lines of “I like power and semi-naked ladies who rhyme with the word -orrigan”) before that happened.

Think about all the Bioware’s games with romance options to date though, every romance culminated with that scene at the very end where, before the last battle with the big boss, character x shows up in your tent and says “we are all going to die, so I want to sleep with you before that happens.” and that is the end of it, if u talk to the character after that, and some of the games you are not even allowed to, it is like nothing ever happened. You might get a note at the end saying how you and character x had a lovely time after that (like Jade Empire) but I am pretty sure, in reality, the word romance means more than flirting and eventually sleeping with some uncanny-valley inducing npc.

With that being said, I am fully prepared to have Dragon Age and Alpha Protocol make me eat my words with chips and ketchup once they are out. I am just basing my assumptions on everything I have seen so far.

Lastly, I will probably write more on the subject. You might even be glad to know, I will be looking over my notes on Chris Avellone’s talk at that Screenwriting workshop we attended during this year’s GDC for it. So you can let me know if I misquote him at some point.

I read the required reading, too, but my comments are on Alex Raymond’s article.

It was decently written, but it took a poorly written MTV article stressing certain things MTV thinks its target audience would like, and overreacted. It is obvious that Alex Raymond feels strongly about the issues presented, but the ranting about the “ladies’ man” acheivement goes a bit far.

It may indeed be “seriously problematic to have a game where the male player/avatar can have sex with any and every woman in the game,” but the MTV article referenced doesn’t actually say this is possible in Alpha Protocol (it could easily be read as “have sex with every love interest, which may not seem better to some, but is a vastly different.) The ranting on twisted information aside, the last paragraph of the article strongly suggests things that would make relationships in games better, and they are good suggestions. I also think it is enough that any games explore any of the suggestions, and that demanding that all games examine all the forms relationships can take seems a bit much.

Alpha Protocol is firmly ingrained in a certain genre–a genre that historically displays a certain type of relationship two-dimensionally. Most movies of the same genre do the same. Is it better to be offended by all of these depictions of relationships, or to accept it as stylized fiction? The article’s author certainly has a clear stance.

Moving on to Dragon Age in relationship with this topic, might not writing mature relationships partly mean examining how current culture views relationships, rather than shying away from reality and writing only idealized relationships that show how people “ought” to treat each other? In any case, I’ll point you to a response David Gaider wrote concerning the exact article you linked–see what you think. http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=33499

Also, yay for Mega64!

While I’m on this topic, quick, Grant, sign up for the keynote next year! Maybe they’ll give you a third type of badge.

And yeah, Rhythm Heaven was the game. It is a rhythm game obviously.