interview conducted via an online chat session on sony's official forums..
amongst other things they say that they're using all of the SPE's (first game ? ) of the PS3 and they're glad the PS3 is using blu ray instead of standard DVD's.
http://ps3.gamezone.com/news/02_09_07_06_08PM.htm
amongst other things they say that they're using all of the SPE's (first game ? ) of the PS3 and they're glad the PS3 is using blu ray instead of standard DVD's.
http://ps3.gamezone.com/news/02_09_07_06_08PM.htm
Evolution design team talks about MotorStorm in
“Evolution have got a pedigree in racing games, and we like to think we know what’s good and what’s bad about them”With the launch of MotorStorm, the off-road PS3 sensation developed by Evolution and published by Sony, getting closer, it was time to open up the forums for a live chat with several key members of the development team about the title.On hand to answer questions were Simon Benson, producer, Nigel Kershaw, who was Senior Designer on MotorStorm and the Manager of all the other designers; Paul Rustchynsky, an integral member of the design team; and John McLaughlin, the SCEE associate producer. While the forum was very free flowing and the questions covered a wide range of topics, here is what was gleaned during the conversation.Online races will feature 12 total players and at launch, the only offline mode will be single player. MotorStorm will have its share of downloadable content, but as the moderators stated, “you guys have got the whole game to look forward to first.”
Question: Will MotorStorm ever feature any type of remote-play functionality with the PSP such as live orbit camera or rearview mirror.Answer: “MotorStorm does not feature any PSP connectivity.”The subject of the E3 2005 trailer was brought up.
“Did it give you guys a benchmark to reach, add pressure to make the game great, or was it just unnecessary pressure on you to live up to it?”A: “The MotorStorm trailer was a great thing for us, really. At Evolution, we always aim to model the real world, not just make our game look better than other games. This shows with the World Rally games we made for PS2 also. Targeting a high benchmark is part of our culture – think big or go home.”
Q: Is Evolution considering a sequel to MotorStorm; perhaps using the latest version of the Havok physics engine?A: We’re definitely considering development of a sequel, and we’ll certainly be working closely with Havok in the future.”
Q: I noted a great Nirvana track on the demo. Are there any other big names lined up for the soundtrack.A: Loads of ace tunes in the soundtrack; we’ve got Slipknot, Queens of the Stone Age, Wolfmother, Primal Scream and my personal favorite, the Reverand Horton Heat. Superfast psychobilly at its finest.
Q: One Sony exec says 1080, another Sony exec says 720p – what’s the official resolution?A: I can confirm MotorStorm runs at 720p.
Q: How much of the PS3’s capacity are you using with this game?A: We are using all of the SPU processors and all of the memory. We also use most of the Blu-Ray disk (thank God it’s not a DVD)! We are confident, however, that we can still squeeze a great deal more out of the PS3 and as we found by making World Rally Championship for the PS2, every year for five years, doubling the visual through put is not unusual on EVERY ITERATION – yes, it even amazes us!
Q: Say I’m on a muddy track; my wheels are all muddy right? If I decide to jump off a clean ramp, will the mud from my tires stay on the ramp?A: Not exactly, but we do have some amazing mud technology. The track gets ripped up as you have already seen and the wheels of the vehicles actually bounce around in the tracks (try riding a bike slowly on the mud and switch the camera around to a side view to check out the detail). Also, our mud spray actually paints only vehicle bodies in real time and when you see how much mud there is flying around, you’ll realize just how much power is required to process that much data in real time.
Q: What SIXAXIS features will the game have?A: You can steer your vehicle with the SIXAXIS … ever had that moment when you’re playing a racing game and find yourself leaning into the corners, even though you’ve just got a controller in your hand? Well, if you’re one of those people, driving MotorStorm with a SIXAXIS will make lots of sense.
Q: How long was this game in development?A: It took us just over two long, hard years to write MotorStorm, and we hope you
like it.
Q: Will the online have voice chat?A: Yes, we do support online voice chat in-game, with both USB and Bluetooth headsets.
Q: As a racing game, in what ways did you make this game different than many other racing games?A: Evolution have got a pedigree in racing games, and we like to think we know what’s good and what’s bad about them. We really felt that ‘sim’ racers were cool, but they were all lacking that certain buzz. We tried, with MotorStorm, to make something that was fun, the analogy we used in development was not to make a sim, but make a Hollywood script of a sim …
Q: How hard or easy is it to work with the cell processors in the PS3, and could you make this game using other technologies like the Xbox 360 and Wii, or was it always PS3 and PS3 only right from the beginning?A: Evolution Studios makes games exclusively for PS3. We can’t really comment on the other platforms, but we can say please judge us by our results. We made MotorStorm from scratch in two years with a modest (but exceptionally talented) dev team. Making great games is always hard, but it’s not usually the platform that causes this, it’s the drive to make it just that bit better that challenges the team – but we bring that on ourselves.
Q: Can the European players play against the U.S. players?A: At launch U.S. players will only be able to play against other U.S. players. We made a very careful decision on this based on the latency the user may experience when playing over such distances. We had to ensure this was at a minimum to ensure the chaotic nature of MotorStorm was retained during online play.
Q: I know we will see night races. Will the cars feature working headlamps?A: Night races was a design choice. We don’t have headlights, but you can see the action under the moonlight … it just makes it all the more tricky.
Q: What new innovations in this game set it apart?A: First of all, no other game has ever thrown seven very different classes of vehicles into one race before. The very chaotic nature of MotorStorm sets it apart from other racers with the added factor of the very clever AI which always makes the player feel they are racing with other human competitors and not AI! We think MotorStorm is actually a genre within the racing genre. Brutal, off-road survival racing … experience it and you won’t want to go back to any other kind of racing.Q: Does MotorStorm support full HD uncompressed audio like Resistance?A: We have 7.1 audio via HDMI as well as Dolby Digital support. We also have a technology we refer to as “Live-Fi” that presents all of the music tracks in the front end of the game as live versions. These have been cleared with the original artist and you can’t get them in this format from anywhere else.
Q: So how does the online feature work? Is it just a matchmaking kind of feature, or do you just find a room and simply play? And also, is there a ranking system?A: MotorStorm online uses a lobby-based system where the players look through all the games currently online and choose the one that best suits them. We do have a ranking system, but unlike previous ranking systems you may have seen we base ours on the player’s current form rather than their total experience. This means that it isn’t just a case of putting in the hours to top the rankings, you’ll need to race well consistently.
Q: Why make the crashes so spectacular as to almost eclipse the quality of the racing itself?A: We wanted to celebrate crashes in all their glory and make them as satisfying as we possibly could do so. At times you’ll wince, other times you’ll laugh but most importantly we just wanted to get an emotional reaction out of the player to the brutal onscreen antics.
Q: How did you go about programming the physics aspect of MotorStorm? Did you do any hands-on research actually racing or as a spectator to a dirt-track race?A: We had a dedicated physics programmer whose sole job was to develop a versatile yet complex handling model, which would allow us to create wide range of vehicles. Myself and the programmer spent months so that they handled as we wanted, and more importantly, that they were balanced against each other. In terms of real-life experience, we might not have been able to drive all of the real-life counterparts, but we do enjoy racing our Mitsubishi Evo around the track when we get a chance.
