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Radioactive IT Interview: Chris Ansell at Radical answers some PROTOTYPE questions
Radioactive IT Interview: Chris Ansell at Radical answers some PROTOTYPE questions | Interview: Chris Ansell at Radical answers some PROTOTYPE questions |
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| by Mike Bantick | |
| Friday, 29 May 2009 | |
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iTWire: How does this background story fit with the initial game design vision for PROTOTYPE? Ansell: The original design vision for the game was to produce a character that could “weaponize” themselves, rather than pick up weapons in the environment. We also have a large range of ‘pick up and fire’ toys in the game, but the key focus was to have Alex become a human ‘Swiss-Army knife,’ letting the player decide their favorite play-style. The ability to shape-shift into the physical appearance of anyone then allows the designers the flexibility to build different tempos into the missions. The Hulk is always the Hulk, and the military really can’t miss him when he’s bounding around the city wrecking the place. PROTOTYPE provides us the ability to have different volumes of action by letting the player slip away from the pursuing enemies via the disguise mechanic. To truly master the later missions, players will be required to really mix up their usage of the disguise mechanic. With the fundamentals of the design in place, we could then put full effort into layering the back-story around these mechanics - and that’s something we’re real proud of due to the new way we introduce background info via the Web of Intrigue system. iTWire: What seems to have come out the other side of the vision, design, and story is a framework that gives a great deal of game-play freedom. Talk us through the game mechanics, perhaps touching on their inspiration; including shape-shifting. Ansell: Thanks, we truly appreciate the positive feedback. Alex Mercer operates under a system we call ‘Deceive or Destroy’. At any point, in any mission, we want the player to feel completely free when engaging enemies and situations. Through one of Alex’s shape-shifting abilities, which is ‘consume and become’ anyone in New York City, he gains their knowledge, appearance, memories, and abilities almost instantly. You now get to mix-n-match how you play a mission and decide whether you want to unleash hell via explosive action, or use deception and shape-shifting to sneak your way into a scenario. The attack and defensive shape-shifting abilities then add another layer of choice to the gamer. And we’ve really beefed up the concept of traditional power progression. The goal is to make players feel extremely powerful from the start of the game, whilst correctly balancing the enemy threat so that you’re always on edge. The devastation that any one of these powers can cause is pretty spectacular, this is not some one-on-one fight, this is one man taking out 20 elite soldiers with a single killer move. iTWire: ...weapons...: Ansell: Our designers truly wanted to make a game that took off the handcuffs and gave a huge amount of play options to the gamer. Sure Alex has incredible shape-shifting powers, though we knew players would love to get their hands on the cool weapons possessed by the military and Blackwatch, so we introduced the ability to pick up their ‘toys’ and use them against the military. RPGs, Grenade Launchers, Rifles, Heavy Machine Guns are all up for grabs, and if you run out of ammo, simply consume or kill the nearest Blackwatch, take their weapon and start ripping it up again. iTWire: ...parkour moves and other powers...: Ansell: When we started making PROTOTYPE, the term ‘parkour’ was very new to the world and we were really in love with the freedom it offered. We wanted to combine some of the cooler moves from real parkour, and then add it to the fantastic element of shape-shifting powers. We’re really happy with the locomotion system and camera for PROTOTYPE, and I think it’s the first thing players will notice and enjoy when they get the game. iTWire: Is there much in the way of technical difference between the PC and the Console versions of the game? Ansell: We’ve developed the Titanium engine in-house at Radical, and that’s allowed us to focus equally on all formats and play to their unique strengths. The PC version allows for the plug-in of a joypad, and our game testers have told us that it’s just as much fun as the console versions, so that’s definitely something we’re proud of for the PC SKU. ------------------------------------------------------------------  In Australia PROTOTYPE is currently rated MA15+ (Strong Violence, Coarse Language) by the Classification Board and will be available for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Games for Windows and PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system. Europe will see PROTOTYPE on June 5th, North America on June 9th and Australia/New Zealand on the 10th |
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