Tag Archives: Interview

Launched two weeks ago, City of Heroes’ Issue 20 update introduced ‘Incarnates’, adding new missions, powers and group options for up to 48 players.

Developer Paragon Studios spoke out on large scale raids and the response of the players.

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Between trying to take on Call of Duty and plugging an unfortunate leak, Crytek’s got a lot on its plate. Fortunately, senior producer Hasit Zala took some time out of his busy schedule to talk with little old us at GDC today.

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The funnest part of building a sandcastle? Knocking it down.

With World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion, Blizzard appears to be taking that philosophy to a whole new level. After letting players frolic about in its multi-million dollar sandcastle for nearly six years, the developer’s decided to shatter Azeroth into tiny little pieces and then put it back together again. The result? Suddenly, old is new, up is down, and Stranglethorn Vale doesn’t royally suck anymore. Needless to say, it’s an exciting time to be a WoW player.

Perhaps even more exciting, however, is being a WoW developer. To see years-upon-years’ worth of blood, sweat, and tears finally manifest into a complete experience has to be immensely satisfying, and speaking with lead world designer Alex Afrasiabi during BlizzCon, that was more than evident. It was kind of amazing, if we’re being honest, to see a developer so fired up over his own game – a game that’s been around for more than half a decade, no less.

Click past the break to hear Afrasiabi’s thoughts on the future of WoW expansions, why Cataclysm doesn’t have its own Hero Class, why MMOs and consoles don’t mix, why Cryptic’s wrong to call MMO content “mediocre,” moving the MMO genre forward, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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StarCraft II finally dropped into the hands of more than three million eager fans this summer, and Heart of the Swarm probably won’t see the light of day until long after we’ve locked horns with an actual race of hiveminded aliens. So, in the meantime, why even bring the game to BlizzCon? What’s left to talk about?

Tons, as it turns out. This year, Blizzard took the wraps off four brand new games it’s developing within StarCraft II – each of which look equal parts excellent and bizarre. Oh, and let’s not forget the “waves and waves” of free content that will continue to zerg rush the game until Heart of the Swarm finally comes out. Also, cheating! That’s always fun to deal with. And what about the fallout from the forum tweak that was heard around the world, Real ID?

We sat down with game director Kaeo Milker to discuss all of the above topics and more. Also puns, briefly. Read the full thing after the break!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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BlizzCon has come to a close. We came, we saw, we conquered.

OK, no we didn’t. We actually spent the whole time playing Diablo III. But then, the game’s mix of hack ‘n’ slash demon-dicing and subtle strategy is already – near as we can tell – polished to perfection – even though Blizzard’s still keeping any sort of release schedule so tightly under wraps that we wouldn’t be surprised if there were exploding collars involved. And of course, let’s not forget the Demon Hunter and PVP arenas. Both made incredibly strong debuts at this year’s show, putting new and disturbingly addictive twists on the classic Diablo formula.

Put simply, Blizzard’s Diablo team’s still got it, so we took a couple of its members hostage and demanded a pre-release copy of the gam- er, we mean, we sat down for a nice, polite chat with senior designer Jason Bender and art director Christian Lichtner, and there was no duct tape involved. Read on for their thoughts on why Diablo III still has no release date, the origins of the Demon Hunter, what it’s like to balance a game where each class has 97 billion potential builds, female characters in games, why Diablo III isn’t on consoles, and more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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Part two? Part two?! But what happened in part one?! Were there car chases? Explosions? Was an average Joe like you or me thrust into extraordinary circumstances and forced to shoot/box/interpretive dance his way out?

The suspense is probably killing you. You are probably walking toward the light as we speak, your pulse becoming ever fainter because you need your videogame interview fix right this very moment. But lo and behold! There it is, perched upon yon Internet!

And once you’re all caught up, part two’s waiting for you after the break. Early reviews have declared it even better than part one, and when have early reviews ever been wrong? Click onward to read THQ Core boss Danny Bilson’s thoughts on Guillermo del Toro, the future of game demos, selling cut-scenes, how we should treat talent in the gaming industry, licensed games, and tons more!

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OnLive’s been going through some growing pains, but awkward teenager or not, it’s still available for all to try. Its main competitor Gaikai, however, has definitely subscribed to the mantra of “slow and steady wins the race.” When, though, will it finally cross the finish line?

Speaking with VG247 during an interview at GDC Online in Austin, David Perry said that the cloud gaming service is on track to go live in mid-December.

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When you hear “THQ,” what springs to mind? Wrestling games? Ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-Nickelodeon? Well then, you might want to crawl out from under that rock you’ve spent the last few years living underneath.

Where’s Tim Schafer these days? THQ. How about Ninja Gaiden/Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki? Same. And what’s this about Guillermo del Toro? The bottom line: THQ’s come a long, long way – but it’s far from done.

Leading the way has been THQ Core boss Danny Bilson, who was kind enough to take some time out from his busy schedule of  interacting with some of the most interesting people in the industry to chat with little ol’ us. So we basically projectile vomited questions in his face, which he was surprisingly ok with.

Click past the break to hear Bilson’s thoughts on core Move/Kinect games, the need for creativity in the gaming industry, how we should handle touchy subjects like the recent Medal of Honor controversy, 3D, Tim Schafer, and plenty more!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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Chatting with Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood is always a treat – even if it comes shortly after the disappointing news that Brink won’t see the light of day in 2010.

We sat down with the lord of all things multiplayer and shooty during last week’s QuakeCon, where we talked shop about why Brink held down its S.M.A.R.T. button and sprinted out of 2010, what form the game’s DLC might take, the difficulties of multiplatform development, putting the color back in shooters, how a truly cross-platform multiplayer game might work, and tons more. Seriously, if you crawled out of bed this morning and thought to yourself, “Gee, I sure want to hear Paul Wedgwood talk about everything ever today,” then you came to the right place.

Read the full interview after the break!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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RAGE is id’s first – and apparently only – new IP in quite some time, and the developer’s doing it up in style. Yeah, the post-apocalyptic shooter/driver/toy car driver’s got it all – even its own release date. No more teasing, no more “when it’s done,” no more fooling us into staring into Todd Hollenshead’s dreamy blue eyes until we forget what we were talking about. With RAGE, we’re witnessing the emergence of a new id Software, one that’s not afraid to hunker down and commit.

And we can see why. When you’re able to demo your game on three night-and-day different platforms side-by-side, you’re clearly doing something right. With more than a year to go before launch, though, there’s still plenty more to discuss. Is the release date really set in stone? How about multiplayer? Are dedicated servers in or out? What happens if John Carmack goes into space and explodes? We asked RAGE creative director Tim Willits all those questions and more, and he tolerated our shenanigans to the point that we’re pretty sure he wasn’t lying to us!

Check out the interview after the break!

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Some videogames pontificate on the deeper themes of love, loss, and control – ultimately causing players to see the world in a new light once they’ve dabbed the tears from their eyes. Other videogames grab a giant hammer – that, in some cases, is an ostrich that somehow migrated to Mars – and gleefully lay waste to everything in sight.

Red Faction: Guerrilla was most certainly the latter.

A surprise hit, Guerrilla sneaked under gamers’ radars and smacked them with all the subtlety of the animal it’s not named after. Thanks to Volition’s Geo-Mod destruction engine, sending buildings tumbling down had never been more satisfying. Sure, the game didn’t reinvent any wheels, but it definitely made them explode real nice.

This, however, raises a question: if your game isn’t broken (well, minus the billions of space dollars in property damages), how do you fix it? Our magic videogame eight ball tells us “Make it bigger! Duh.” But that’s not quite the approach Volition’s taking. Instead, Armageddon’s ditching its colossal open-world for a more constrained underground setting. So long, freedom. Hello, linearity. How are the kids?

Frightened? Curious? We sure were. So we quizzed lead designer David Abzug on everything from the whys and hows of Armageddon’s switch to a more linear format, to new additions to the Geo-Mod engine, to potential Kinect/Move support in a Red Faction game.

Read all about it after the break.

Interview by Nathan Grayson.

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For years, Deus Ex fans clamored for a sequel. And then they got one, and they didn’t like it all that much. So, what do you put in your pamphlet to re-hook those who renounced their faith and left the Church of Denton? Simple: a whole heaping helping of what they want to hear.

Based on what we’ve seen of Human Revolution so far, that’s definitely not a bad thing. The game’s shaping up to be the sequel fans have pined for ever since they were introduced to the first game’s mix of equal parts technology, intrigue, and trenchcoats.

But there’s still plenty more digging to be done, so we sat down with producer David Anfossi and quizzed him about how much pressure the team’s under to live up to Deus Ex’s legacy, the relationship between the game’s shooter and RPG sides, faithful series reboots versus those that stray off the beaten path, and plenty more. See it all after the break.

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Just as a game of Civilization constantly shifts through the ages, evolves, and occasionally pits horse-riding cavalrymen against 1,500-horsepower tanks, so too does the videogame industry grow and change. A mere five years have passed since the launch of Civilization IV, but already, the industry’s a different beast entirely.

How, for instance, does one of gaming’s most legendary franchises deal with pirates’ overrunning of the PC, the issue of restrictive DRM, the waning influence of the strategy genre, and new input devices like Kinect and Move?

We got a chance to sit down and quiz producer Dennis Shirk over those questions and more. See it all after the break.

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In Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, you battered Darth Vader and The Emperor, yanked a Star Destroyer clean out of the sky, and pretty much made every other Jedi ever look like a baby swinging a glowstick. So, of course, the question arises: how the hell do you top that?

We got a chance to quiz senior product manager Gavin Leung about what the TFU team’s doing to ensure that its force-fueled sequel is the next Empire Strikes Back and not the next Star Wars Christmas Special. Click past the break to hear Leung’s thoughts on why bringing back Starkiller’s the right thing to do, how to design a compelling story when we already know how it ends, stormtrooper-disintegrating force fury powers, and more.

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We were honestly a bit surprised when Ubisoft offered us an interview involving its newly announced Michael Jackson game. After all, our experience with the game – like everyone else’s – was limited to a surprise dance-off at the end of Ubisoft’s E3 conference. Flashy? Sure. But about as revealing as women’s fashion in the 1800′s.

And so, having literally seen neither hide nor iconic white suit of the game, we decided to start from the top. What is the Michael Jackson game? What do you do in it? Is it Moonwalker 2, and if so, why would you do that to the world, you monster? We asked all those questions and more, and international brand manager Felicia Williams was kind enough to answer.

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With the exception of a certain single most popular subscription-based fantasy MMO in the entire world, radical genre reinventions and videogames have something of a checkered past. In the eyes of many, it’s like tracking mud all over holy ground, lighting a national flag on fire, or saying Firefly was overrated. In other words, a criminal offense of the highest order.

That, however, did nothing to dissuade 2K from taking the reigns to XCOM and steering it in an entirely new direction. Bye bye, turn-based strategy game. Hello, first-person shooter. 2K just painted a big red target on its back, angered a bull, then allowed itself to be chased into a minefield full of hornets’ nests. But was it worth it?

Creative director Jonathan Pelling sure seems to think so. We had a chance to sit down with him during E3, and – while we’re not entirely convinced just yet – he spoke with the kind of conviction that only plenty of thought and a determined, consistent direction can produce. From the sound of things, XCOM is in good hands. But enough from us. Pelling’s words speak for themselves. Click past the break to hear his thoughts on why XCOM may be truer to the franchise than the original X-Com, what the deal is with those blob aliens, what 2K’s doing to create a strategic first-person shooter, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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Platinum Games doesn’t make normal things. It just doesn’t. Hair-clad butterfly witches, a game show about wanton murder, and all kinds of other kooky ideas are just another day at the office for Platinum’s intrepid crew of oddballs.

And in a world full of gray, stoic, gray shooters, the kind of zaniness that Platinum peddles is a welcome injection of color. Tired of trudging from cover-to-cover, taking a couple potshots, and then repeating the process until the act of blasting a person in the face automatically triggers your yawn reflex? Then Vanquish is for you. We’re talking about a game where your primary means of transportation is a rocket-powered knee-slide here. Also, you’re fighting space Russians. Platinum Games doesn’t make normal things. And thank God for that.

After resisting the urge to tackle producer Atsushi Inaba and wrestle the controller from his hands, we got the chance to ask him a few post-demo session questions at E3. Click past the break for Inaba’s thoughts on a pre-release Vanquish demo, the Japanese shooter market, how developing Vanquish on the PS3 has affected the Xbox 360 version, and more.

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We weren’t sure what to think when Ubisoft announced yet another entry in its Ghost Recon shooter franchise, but after seeing the game in action at E3, we reckon Ghost Recon’s well worth getting excited about.

After all, in what other game can you turn invisible, knife a guard until he can legally be classified as a pin cushion, and then prop his lifeless form up while another guard walks right on by, completely unaware that his buddy’s nothing but a body?

Certainly, the game’s brimming with potential, but one demo’s hardly enough to sell everyone on a game not called “Crackdown.” We wanted to know more. So we engaged our active camo, took associate producer Justin Drust captive, and did a little interrogating. Which is our sleep-deprived way of saying we asked him a few questions during E3. Click past the break for Drust’s thoughts on Future Soldier’s PC version, the recent delay into 2011, the upcoming multiplayer beta, and tons more.

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Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2 felt ages apart in more ways than one. Most obviously, they took place in wildly different time periods – AC 1 during the Third Crusade and AC2 in Renaissance Italy. The gap between the two games’ releases, however – especially for an industry that has reduced the yearly sequel down to a science – was also quite wide.

Not so for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The latest sequel, which crept up and pressed a blade against our throats long before we expected it, is slated for release in November 2010. It once again stars gaming’s suavest acrobat, Ezio. But this time around, top billing doesn’t go to Ezio alone. In Brotherhood, he’ll be fighting alongside a highly coordinated team of assassins like himself, which – after the largely solo outings of previous Assassin’s Creed titles – raises all kinds of questions.

So we decided to ask them. Click past the break for technical director Mathieu Gagnon’s thoughts on why Brotherhood isn’t just a spin-off, Assassin’s Creed III, multiplayer, Assassin’s Creed II’s slow start, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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The Star Wars films have always had a nasty habit of making you wait years between sequels. What’s up with that? Us though, we’re not like mean old George Lucas. Waiting’s not our style. Yesterday: part one. Today: part two.

Jump past the break to hear Star Wars: The Old Republic writing director Daniel Erickson’s thoughts on MMORPG endgames, why you shouldn’t just play as a Jedi, how TOR’s MMO nature will mesh with its single-player heritage, the game’s art style, commitment (or lack thereof) to a release date, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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