Halo: Reach Draws Gamers Out for Midnight Events

In the still of the night, more than 100 dug into the trenches in preparation for a Sept. 14 standoff. Fueled by beverages and snack food rations, these future soldiers refused to give up their position.

Many waited hours for the opposing side to act first and at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, the gate finally opened for them to make a move of their own. As the GameStop location in Napoleon, Ohio, finally opened up for midnight business, this army of eager gamers flooded into the storefront to be among the first to get their hands on the thumb-blistering digital warfare of Halo: Reach.

Billed with one of the most recognizable brand names among gamers, this entertainment juggernaut drew in roughly 130 to the Napoleon retailer as a part of the gaming spectacle of midnight launches, of which many were held worldwide for the Halo release. Reserved for only the most anticipated of titles, the midnight launch of gaming product is pretty self explanatory – stores operate special late-night hours to get these hot titles into the hands of gamers the second the calendar flips over to the game’s allocated release date.

These launches are more notorious when one of the three console manufacturers, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, release their newest gaming platforms, which typically take gaming hardware into the “next generation.” For such releases, it wasn’t uncommon for people to wait outside of a store for days, claiming their rightful spot in line for the product while camping out with coolers and lawn chairs. Such campers became so adamant and showing up earlier and earlier for releases that many locations now prohibit the act and set up special dates where people can come and be placed on a list to avoid such acts of "loitering."

While most software releases aren’t so competitive as discs are printed in a far larger number than initial game consoles are manufactured, it doesn’t stop some gamers from showing up well in advance. In the case of the Napoleon GameStop, Johnny Puckett of Napoleon was the first person in the lineup for the game, arriving at 1:30 p.m., essentially half of a day prior to the game’s launch. Having had the game reserved for him since the beginning of summer, Puckett attributed the early arrival to dedication.

“It was dedication as I am a big Halo fan,” he explained. “I wanted to be the first person in line today.”

Puckett looked forward to the release and its online play, which allows those with Xbox LIVE Gold subscriptions to play against or cooperate with other Halo owners around the world. He noted Halo 3, developed by Bungie and released by Microsoft in 2007, was his favorite so far, but Puckett wants to continue the experience and be exposed to the franchise’s full story since Reach serves as a prequel to the original game in the series.

“I’m really looking forward to the campaign,” he eagerly stated. “I’m ready for the challenge of beating the game on the legend difficulty.”

Of course, Puckett wasn’t the only spectator at the event. Lined up behind him were more than 100 other fans of the series, grinding the waiting time down while socializing with other gamers that shared the same interests. A group arriving at 8 p.m. lugged a card table out on the sidewalk of the city’s last remaining active shopping plaza and invited others to participate in Magic: The Gathering collectable card game matches. Others tossed a football back and forth, used stereos to play music for others or even pulled out portable gaming devices such as mobile phones, Sony PSPs or Nintendo DS systems to pass the time. Napoleon, a small city of roughly 10,000 people, normally sees its businesses close no later than 9 p.m. through the week, so the situation creates a one-of-a-kind event that the Napoleon GameStop manager Kolt Handy labels as a “social event.”

“People get to enjoy each other’s company,” he said. “It’s really more than just picking up the game. It becomes a social event and not just a release.”

Adding to the social aspects of the event was the station set beside the store’s doors by the local branch of the United States Marines. With a red, metal bar hoisted from a frame, those in attendance were given a chance to show off their physical mettle by attempting as many pull-ups as possible. Each attempt garnered many cheers from the crowd and those closing in on the current record had everyone counting off each repetition and shouting encouragement. Those in the top 15 of the pull-up challenge were awarded with promotional material such as posters for games including Halo: Reach and Lionhead Studio’s upcoming Fable III, another critical series to Microsoft’s portfolio that only sees a release on its formats.

With so many people gathering for the release, Handy tied this aspect into why Halo is so popular.

“The multiplayer is a huge aspect to the game,” he noted. “It’s just a fun game and people get behind the story. It’s the first first-person shooter a lot of people got into with their friends and they just want to stick with it.”

While no specific sales measures have been made available after the title’s first full day on sale, many are counting on the title to be 2010’s biggest sales success. The popularity of the title has exploded since Bungie developed the original title Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox in 2001, making it the first certifiable success for Microsoft’s fledgling debut system. The series depicts futuristic warfare where players control human soldiers that wear enhanced armor through an elite squad known as Spartans as they fight off an alien race known as the Covenant. The series' gameplay uses a format known as first-person shooting where the player views the action through the eyes of their character and while single-player modes are available in each installment, the success of the franchise has stemmed from its competitive modes that essentially made console online gaming successful thanks to the release of Halo 2. Before this release, even though a number of gaming systems had online capabilities, online gaming was a feature nearly exclusive to the PC format.

Bungie estimates the series as a whole will push the franchise’s sales figures beyond $2 billion some time this year. Given the company made a Twitter statement announcing Halo: Reach has already surpassed the record for concurrent unique users on Xbox LIVE (a record previously held by Halo 3, which sold $600 million in copies in 2007), it is very likely the title will hold up to these lofty expectations.

Backed by a gargantuan marketing campaign on the part of Microsoft and padded by a critical reception averaging at 92 percent on the review aggregator Metacritic.com, it already seems like Halo: Reach has a hefty portion of gamers already sold on the title. Amazon has listed the title’s four packages on the company’s top 10 sellers, placing the standard edition of the game at number one and the limited edition package, retailing at $80 and packaged in a special case with extra items, at number 2. The Legendary Edition of the title, packaged in crate-style container with an exclusive statue crafted by McFarlane Toys, still ranked at number six even though it was produced in very limited numbers and carried a $150 price tag. Players also had the option to purchase Halo: Reach in an Xbox 360 system bundle that also included two Halo-themed controllers and a 250 gigabyte hard drive for $400 and this ranked in at number seven for Amazon. In the United Kingdom, storefronts HMV and Play are also already listing the standard and limited editions at one and two on top sales lists respectively.

Bloomburg has predicted the title will move 10 million copies of the game this year and Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan who is known for specializing in gaming industry predictions, predicts it will be 2010’s top-selling title. Even so, Pachter feels Halo: Reach won’t have quite the sales punch 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, developed by Infinity Ward and published by third-party giant Activision, had last year. He noted the title, billed as the single-biggest day-one entertainment release in history by Activision, pushed 15 million copies in 2009 alone.

However, in the end, all that really matters is the smiling faces of those that picked up their copy of Halo: Reach. Handy noted his previous midnight release only drew 10 people, so in his mind, the launch was a hearty success. As many people at the Napoleon launch admitted to calling off of work and school to play Halo: Reach, it seems there are at least 100-plus gamers that will definitely be getting their money’s worth out of the title.

About GemuBaka

Seeing as I will be utlizing this blog location for a class portfolio, I figured I might as well explain a few things so people know what exactly is going on here.

What is GemuBaka?
GemuBaka is a collection of works from the GemuBaka collaboration. The name is derived from the Japanese loan word for game as well as “baka,” which in one of its variants means “crazy.” In a literal sense, the phrase means “game crazy,” which would describe one who is crazy about games. Fortunately, that describes us perfectly. GemuBaka catalogs the works of the GB team and spans a wide range of video game topics to include features, previews, reviews, editorials, FAQs and more. Pretty much the only item we do not feature here is game news – a facet we see as fairly pointless considering about a million other sites would be reporting on the same thing. Our scope does not stop at current systems as we look back upon past systems from the 1980s forward. While it doesn’t always happen, we try to update the site with at least one new feature every weekday, however, at the minimum, there is at least one update every week.

Who is GemuBaka?
GemuBaka is the collaborative efforts of nestlekwik and MixMasterLar. The two authors became accquainted while working on projects through Rithum Interactive, including Rithum News, a video games-based Web site that covered video game news while producing original features and reviews on a daily basis. Although the site was scrapped in early 2008 in favor of a more ambitious project from the company, the two still saw potential in what they had to offer in their writings, forming GemuBaka nearly six months following the close of the site.

Nestlekwik (aka D.J. Tatsujin) has been writing about video games for the past seven years, being published and holding positions at sources such as Blogcritics.org and self-published materials before joining Rithum. Since then, he has spread out to work with sources such as Diehard GameFAN.com, J2Games, Video Game Collector Magazine, Arcade Heroes, Bemanistyle and more. Nestlekwik has been playing games actively since 1985 and has lightly dabbled into nearly every aspect of the video game industry, which includes app development, independent game conceptualization, journalism, public relations, marketing and more.

MixMasterLar joined up with Nestlekwik at Rithum News and has stuck with the cause since that time. A fairly well-known member of the DDR culture and a lover of the fighting game genre, Lar helped shape the J2Games segment The Nestlekwik Happy Hour and launched the Objective Tangent line of editorials for GemuBaka. Also a video game reviewer, Lar has contributed to sources such as J2Games and Video Game Collector Magazine.

Haven’t I seen some of your work on “x site?”
Most likely. As stated earlier, GemuBaka is an active contributor to a handful of other gaming sites past and present and the GB site serves as a sort of HQ or portfolio for our works, along with any original musings we decide to craft exclusively for the site.

Just to clarify, so there are no confusions, we are not a scraper site. We do not just pull someone else's work from another site and report it as news. GemuBaka only reprints work when a member of the site creates an original work for another site and we are given permission to reprint it on our site. Thus, you should know any article posted on this site comes from its original author. The site is more than a collection of works from other sites as we do produce original materials for the site as well. You can view any site-exclusive material on our GemuBaka Exclusive Feature page over at www.gemubaka.com.

Interview with Nana-OnSha's Masaya Matsuura

We really shouldn't have to introduce Masaya Matsuura as his work on 1997's Playstation hit PaRappa the Rapper is the reason why a good chunk of us are here today, writing on a Web site dedicated solely to music video gaming. Over the course of a decade, the team of NanaOn-Sha has brought us two PaRappa games, Um Jammer Lammy, Vib-Ribbon, Mojib-Ribbon, Tuninglue and Rhyme Rider Keroican and outside of music-based video games, the company has released numerous Tamogatchi games for the Nintendo DS, handled the audio features for the robotic AIBO pet, participated in a 2004 educational project and more. Matsuura is essentially the pioneer of music gaming as we know it today and his newest game finally hit in April as he once again teamed up with renowned artist Rodney Greenblat.

Just before the release of Major Minor's Majestic March for the Nintendo Wii, Masaya Matsuura graciously agreed to answer a short list of questions for us. While the translation process and holidays celebrated over in Japan brings us the interview a month after the game's release, we were also able to pick Matsuura's mind a little on the general status of music video gaming as well.

Bemanistyle: First off, what was it that inspired you to create NanaOn-Sha's newest title, Major Minor’s Majestic March?

Masaya Matsuura: A strong request from the publisher was the main drive behind the choice. But in any case, whenever a new technology comes out, I'm curious to give it a try.

BMS: What are your thoughts on the experience you had in developing a music game using the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls? How different was this experience for you as opposed to the button-based music titles you’ve created in the past?

MM: The difficult thing when we plan a game for Wii is any action with a Wii Remote users play has to be the same as action they actually do in their daily life otherwise it wouldn’t be realistic for the users. On the other hand, if you only focus on that issue, your creativity would be limited! I had a hard time planning this title to solving this issue.

BMS: How was your experience in working along with Rodney Greenblat on yet another title? What was it like creating an entire cast of characters from scratch in your newest title? Is there a certain inspiration behind any of the characters or themes from the game?

MM: I've occasionally worked with Rodney for 15 years since PaRappa the Rapper came out.

We had already decided that the band members would be various animals right from the start. From there we bounced various ideas around until we came up with the final cast. In particular, we tried many different animal designs for the main character, Major Minor. Whilst this is a fairly routine process in game development, it would be fair to say that it was filled with elements that were at times hard, mysterious and yet always fun.

BMS: Did you have a certain goal you were working for in the development of the title? Since many of the Wii’s games aim to have players interact with the controls and make them active, was this a main motivation for you in creating a game on the system?

MM: I think that it is very important for a player to communicate with other band members through the marching and to lead the band as a leader.

BMS: Was there ever a consideration in taking the game to another interactive interface such as the Nintendo DS (with its touch screen) or the PS3 (with its SixAxis controls)? Would you have any interest in releasing music games using such formats?

MM: I'm not sure if it could be fixed easily but I think it's possible.

BMS: Many of your titles come with the ease of use in not having to purchase peripherals. What are your thoughts on the recent batch of music games that include such controllers? Have you ever considered trying to produce a music game title which requires a special controller?

MM: Perhaps it's due to my background as a musician, but whilst the game peripheral at first feels like it's very similar to an actual guitar, for example, it's a little different for me. I really want to feel as if I'm playing the actual guitar ... of course, the game controller and the real guitar, there are very big differences between them, but if I can overcome these kinds of differences by making good software ... maybe that is what's interesting to me. I really want to make the appeal of the experience derive from playing the software. It's a very potent thing.

BMS: What does it feel like to be the person who pioneered the music gaming genre as we know it now? What are your thoughts on the fact that other companies, such as Activision and Harmonix, have taken the music game concept and are now quite successful?

MM: A long time ago, I really implored the Harmonix guys that they really should be making games. I'm pretty sure that they got similar advice from elsewhere, but looking back it was definitely the right advice. The success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band therefore fills me with pride as if they were my own creations.

BMS: Can you offer any insight on the design philosophies Eastern developers have for their music game titles versus Western developers, which seem to develop music games on the basis of appeal and social game play? Are there any bands or artists from North America that you really enjoy?

MM: I don't think that there is much system design difference between Western music games and Japanese ones so far. However, I would be happy if M4 could inspire other designers as a brand new example of music game design. On the other hand, there are different views of music to those of Western culture. We all know that rock music is familiar and close to a large group of people, and this resonates with the success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Rock music is popular in Japan too but it's not as widely common as it is in western culture.

As it happens, I got inspired by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band for M4.

BMS: Are you interested in working on new titles for the Parappa or Um Jammer Lammy franchises or do you feel you’ve done all there is to do in those titles?

MM: We currently do not have any specific plans to make a new one, but I cannot rule out any future possibilities.

BMS: We thank you very much for your time. Is there anything you would like to say to the many music game fans of Bemanistyle.com?

MM: Enjoy M4!

Naoki Maeda: Latin America "Is a Hopeful Market" for Konami, DDR

Back when news of this year’s brand new DanceDanceRevolution titles surfaced during July’s E3 event, Konami of America went out of its way to state it was going to feature “major licensed master Latin tracks.” While we were initially ignorant about the impact these Latin tunes would have on the final product, DanceDanceRevolution X2 released in North America on Oct. 27 and it became clear exactly how far Konami was looking to go in featuring Latin-style music in the title. Of the title’s 60 songs, nearly 17 percent of the list features Latin songs and/or artists and it seemed as if the company purposely went out of its way to reproduce Konami originals in this styling in bringing revival songs from previous entries into the mix. It’s hard to deny DanceDanceRevolution is as global as it has ever been, originating from its humble, nine Konami original songs on the original DDR arcade cabinet, evolving to later include European influence with the company’s Toshiba EMI partnership and, finally, breaking out into recognizable tunes made popular in America. While Latin-style songs are hardly nothing new to series, what attributed this focus to load almost one-fifth of DDR X2 with this music genre?

“We believed that the PS2 market in Central America is relatively large, so we decided to implement Latin/Spanish-influenced licensed and Konami original songs that might be better accepted in that region and for the residents in North America who enjoy this type of music,” stated series producer Naoki Maeda in a recent e-mail interview with Bemanistyle.com. Looking at recent events that have unfolded in 2009 between Central America and Sony, perhaps saying the previously untapped video game market in the territory is large could be an understatement.

A February announcement made by Sony Computer Entertainment America officially put the company’s consoles and services available to the territory for the first time(1). Prior to this point, residents of the area had to either swallow heavy-hitting price tags for systems and games thanks to customs taxes and import tariffs or take part in playing pirated copies of games titles. In fact, a 2008 editorial by Pascal Clarysse, who was formerly a marketing manager for Lik Sang, commented on Edge Online that a popular title such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl could cost as much as $110 U.S. at retail in Columbia – a real slap to the wallet when you take into account that Clarysse states the minimum and average wage in the country is $260-280. Because of these limitations, he states the Game Boy Advance and Playstation 2 continue to be the best-selling systems in Central America(5) and when you factor in the huge install base the PS2 has in Brazil – the largest in the territory - it becomes easier to understand SCEA’s decision to officially enter the market(2).

“The significance of the Latin America market is huge. Obviously from a population standpoint I don’t think it’s a big secret that this is a huge opportunity. We will put a number of resources in place to cater to that market,” stated Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Vice President of Sales Ian Jackson one year ago at a BMO Capital Markets Interactive Entertainment Conference. “… We’ve identified the Brazilian market as probably the biggest market opportunity for us, and that will be the third part of our launch which will take place over Spring 2009."(3)

Thanks to the official distribution of Sony product in Central America, the distribution has made the prices of official games a bit easier to swallow for the 13 countries within reach of Sony Latin America, even though the territory has some fierce competition in the form of the regional Zeebo console and pirated discs that provide games at a lower price. Regardless of where players are receiving their games, it can’t be denied that gaming is a huge hobby in Central America and the Playstation 2 is a common system, much as it is worldwide, where it has been cut to a $99.99 U.S. price tag. Konami’s efforts to market DanceDanceRevolution to this territory rolled off of Sony’s momentum in the region as X2 and Hottest Party 3 made appearances the weekend prior to the titles’ release at Latin America’s largest video game event, the eighth-annual Electronic Games Show in Mexico City, which saw more than 30,000 attendees(4). As such, Konami certainly isn’t ready to give up on the system, which still has a full year to follow Sony’s intention to give the Playstation 2 format a 10-year life cycle.

“We still look at the PS2 as a competitive platform in today's global market but the so-called next generation consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360 have great possibility of permeating throughout the world even more,” noted Konami's Naoki Maeda. “Our goal is to foresee the needs of the market and provide titles with the hardware that best suits these needs.”

Before the attempted penetration of DDR into the Central American territory, however, local players had long been accustomed to Andamiro’s Pump It Up series, a cheaper arcade alternative that served as the go-to dancing title for this territory along with Korea. In 2005, Mastiff CEO Bill Swartz, who was at the time preparing Pump It Up Exceed for a home console release in North America, told Edge Online, “It's insanely popular in Latin America and Korea. Every year in Mexico City there are tournaments. This year's drew more than 15,000 people and they had to open the doors an hour early to avoid a riot. " Interestingly enough, the same interview has Swartz stating the release features “lots of Latin music,” showing the dancing game market has in some form catered to the territory for a number of years(6). According to Maeda, the global appeal of DanceDanceRevolution stems from the art of dance being a global language that is enjoyed by everyone across the world, however, cultural differences are what tend to bring such “market targeting” into play.

“The global appeal of DanceDanceRevolution lies in the fact that the main idea of the game is ‘dancing,’ which is a method used to express oneself that can be seen throughout the world,” he explained. “However, there are several different types of dancing which can come from elements such as the characteristics of a country or what they deem beautiful. We believe that holds great importance in that the recorded music fitting the dance type of a specific region is essential.”

Of course, targeting the Latin music market isn’t an unfamiliar endeavor, with Konami of Japan releasing Mambo a Go Go (which, unfortunately, missed the U.S. market with an intended, but cancelled, release under the name Mambo King) and SEGA developing Samba de Amigo during the Latin pop craze that hit at the turn of the century. Even though neither title had a huge impact, if any, on North America, Maeda noted Konami hasn’t given up on the theme as long as its games are openly available to the region.

“Yes, depending on the location of where we release our titles and the characteristics of the people in the country, we would like to provide content that is geared more toward that region,” he stated. “Music in Southern America has its own characteristics with a very unique history and developing games with these themes are in one of our best interests.”

Will the adjusted focus help Konami and its DanceDanceRevolution series in the long run? Only time will tell in the long run, but, currently, the company is keeping a positive focus on the market for now.

“Our view of Central America is that there are several unknown elements in the market, but features such as their national trait where they look at things objectively and with the way ‘dancing’ is positioned in their lifestyle, we believe that it is a very hopeful market,” concluded Maeda.

[1] Official SCEA Press Release, “Sony Computer Entertainment America Expands into Latin America” - GameSpy
[2] Theo Azevedo, “Produção do PlayStation 2 e jogos no Brasil é aprovada” – UOL Jogos
[3] Staff, “SCEA: Latin America is a Huge Opportunity for PS2” – Playstation Universe
[4] Official Michael Meyers Public Relations press release – “Eighth-Annual Electronic Game Show Draws 30,000” – (received internally by Bemanistyle.com)
[5] Pascal Clarysse, “Gaming in Latin America” – Edge Online
[6] Staff, “Pump it Up” – Edge Online

Galloping Ghost Arcade

Jesse Attard of Tactics Studios Discusses Latest Project

Tactic Studios has been hard at work in 2010, publicly releasing Immortal Empire, a multiplayer strategy RPG that can be played on the PC straight out of your Web browser with no downloads. Although the title is multiplayer, Immortal Empire still features a fully fleshed-out story that puts players in the role of an immortal that can eventually summon up to five combatants that have a variety of strengths and skills that can be used strategically to take out the opposition. As players connect with others online, they can tackle the quests in co-op mode or, once the player reaches a certain overall level, they can engage in head-to-head battle in versus or teamplay modes.

Immortal Empire, at its core, features a very standard setup: each character has its own action meter, which depletes every time that character carries out an action. Once a player is finished with their characters, the enemies or other players are then given a turn. However, the title strays from the traditional RPG path a little in the fact the player does not have to place five party members into their lineup, and experience levels up the player’s personal immortal. Each level of progression adds a skill point into a pool of skill points each party member has to share. This allows the game to be as easy or difficult as the player would like, but given the number of options available, this also plays heavily into the strategy of the title. As players run through stages, of course, enemies will drop a good number of items, weapons, and equipment for the player to use and elemental crystals allow players to construct and customize weapons.

Immortal Empire is free to play in its basic format. However, a one-time fee of $9.99 can be paid to unlock the entire feature set of the game. As the game receives regular updates and expansions, more content and other alternatives to the one-time fee are gradually being implemented and fans of the game can be happy knowing more content is on the way, as promised by Tactic Studios’ founder, Jesse Attard.


If the name of Tactic Studios’ head developer and producer Jesse Attard looks familiar to you, it’s because we had him featured in our rather large BioShock 2 preview, just prior to its launch. What many gamers might not know, however, is Attard has been hard at work with his personal studio, and after a marathon of work that has encompassed a few years’ time, he is beginning the promotions of his newest self-released work, Immortal Empire. We were recently lucky enough to get a few moments of Attard’s time as he talked about his education, the former titles he has had a hand in, working on BioShock 2, how Immortal Empire was created and, of course, what it is like to form and run your own independent gaming studio.

Attard’s foray into games development originated after graduating from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, with a degree in computer science. From there, he has had a hand in developing titles such as Open Season on the Playstation 2 and Xbox, Dark Sector, some of Capcom’s mobile titles including Street Fighter II, Resident Evil, Dead Rising, and Lost Planet. With his involvement with the BioShock series, not only was he involved with the multiplayer of BioShock 2 (with Digital Extremes, where he is still on the team), he also worked on the Playstation 3 port of the original BioShock. Attard was coming fresh off the release of BioShock 2 when I was able to speak to him, and he had nothing but positive statements about the development and its performance.

“It was awesome,” he said. “BioShock 2 was a great project for Digital Extremes and me. Having played the first one, it had great critical reception and it was a great franchise so there were big shoes to fill and everyone felt it. It was such a unique and interesting IP and adding in the multiplayer, which was my main responsibility, was a really risky thing to add on to BioShock.”

Even so, Attard said he felt the risk paid off, telling me, “My friends say they like it and the critics seem to be positive, so, on the whole, people seem to like it. We went for a faster-paced game, like a Quake or Unreal-style gameplay. It wasn’t just a one-shot kill thing and I was always a fan of that style. It ended up being cool and fills out a category that isn’t predominant nowadays.”


Wrapping up on our discussion of BioShock 2 and his experience, Attard noted the final release was as complete as his team was able to make it, citing no specific desire to change anything implemented in the final release. While some gamers will no doubt disagree that nothing could be changed or added, from a developer standpoint, he backed his stance with the concept of time. Under the pressures of time, a developer has to realistically cut its line of features and implementation off somewhere, and Attard felt Digital Extremes did the best job possible within the timeframe it was given.

“It would always be nice to have more time, but a game has to come out eventually,” he noted. “We added more community support than what was in the original and we did make a full game. Then, we got an extension [when the game was pushed back from 2009 to 2010] and this allowed us to add more modes and content. So, that was a huge bonus. It allowed us to polish the game and all developers can do more with more time. With the time we had, the result was a finished project.”

While BioShock 2 will no doubt be the work on Attard’s list of works that grabs most gamers’ attentions, he had actually formed his very own studio a few years back called Tactic Studios, at which he developed Immortal Empire. With a full-time development load from some of the projects detailed in Attard’s background, the launch was a spare time endeavor and the current build of Immortal Empire is actually a culmination of years of work.

“I always like making games and I had the experience with developing mobile games,” he recalled. “I was used to 2-D casual games, so it was totally natural and I wanted to do something that was my own. I wanted to see my own ideas come into fruition, so I guess the motivation to open the studio was for selfish reasons. I kept the development up for years and, eventually, it looked like it would materialize into a real game. There were graphics and a game was present, so I let people play it and it just happened, coincidentally, during the BioShock [2] launch.”

Gamers tend to hear a lot of stories about developers moving on from successful titles to their own studios. While, as stated earlier, Attard is still employed at Digital Extremes, these occurrences no doubt lead gamers to believe having their own studio is a pretty sweet deal. While Tactic Studios is a part-time commitment for him, Attard says there are pros and cons to the setup, however, for his personal situation, his pros are outweighing the cons at this point.

“It’s completely different,” he explained. “I’m not collaborating between multiple studios now and there aren’t tons of people at my office. Sure, that can make it a little lonely, but, at times it is very rewarding. At first you are just adding stuff and you’re the only one playing, but once others play it and you find other people that enjoy it, it’s a cool feeling. It’s already been worth the risk for me. It’s been awesome, but it’s been a lot of effort. It’s really easy to say it was worth it when the effort is behind you. Still, I’m constantly working and improving on the game. For me, it’s more of a personally satisfying thing as opposed to a revenue-generating machine, but you never know what will happen. It’s more of a personal accomplishment that I feel happy about.”

It isn’t always easy being your own boss, though, and, of course, a startup studio will need its own equipment and resources. Attard was able to break down the process a little bit and describe some of the hardships of developing a title.


“I’m sure everyone envisions it,” he said. “You envision an idea, flesh it out and develop it into a game. I dreamed of it as a kid playing Atari, but the hardest part is stepping outside of yourself and finding out if the game is logical. Obviously you need a computer and a server, but experience is important. I don’t think I could do it without having made games – it’s hard. I kept looking at Immortal Empire and the game looked the same as it did a year ago and I kept asking myself ‘what did I do with that time and work?’ People get discouraged when they realize things are taking forever to develop. Also, a lot of your early feedback will most likely be from friends and colleagues and sometimes it is hard to get an honest, unbiased opinion from them.”

On top of experience and drive, Attard also noted people are a resource any aspiring developer needs to have available. He stated it was most important to have as many people as possible with diverse talents that can cover areas such as sound effects, music, art, and programming. In the case of Immortal Empire, Attard was able to discover artists for the fantasy-inspired artwork as well as pixel artists for the in-game characters and environments. Without this additional help, he admitted “there would be nothing in the game.” The game’s official Web site was also host to an open music submission contest in order to have background music featured in the game, with the call of music resulting in more than 50 submissions. In regard to working with others, Attard noted aspiring developers need to discover which disciplines they lack in and fill those positions in accordingly, adding, “While startup studios will probably find it hard to pay people to provide content, if you search hard enough, you’ll find someone eventually.”

If someone is aspiring to start up their own studio, Attard provided the following situational advice: “Once you’ve made a full game, consider it bug-free, show it to others, fix all of the additional bugs found by others and handle customer support and complaints … once you have the game under your belt, it may be time to invest in it. There are so many different ways to screw up and once you go through that, you can consider your dreams.”

Looking at Attard’s first project, Immortal Empire combines elements from a group of games that he loved playing growing up and his desire to implement these designs spurred the development of the title. Some of his ideas were inspired by games such as Baldur’s Gate, Warcraft III, Star Control II, Diablo, and X-Com and building on his desire to do an isometric game with elements of retro influences and character strategies, Immortal Empire was born. As described earlier, the leveling in the title is unique, with each passing level providing a universal skill point pool that must be used sparingly amongst the players’ group of immortals.

“It’s kind of wacky,” Attard explained. “I wanted to add a strategic element. Most games don’t let you choose how to develop your characters; they completely remove the element of choice. In Immortal Empire, though, you can have one guy at max level or five guys that are equal. You can even play the game with just one character. It’s entirely doable, but, of course, it is a challenge. I just wanted to make sure choice was available to the player.”

Although it only took Attard a couple of months to get the title into playable form, he recalled the process of adding monsters, characters, storylines, squashing bugs, optimizing the game and adding features stack on to the base of the development. Essentially, he said the title “turned out to be a year of work and another year of small touches to make it playable [in its current state].” The key to making the development easier on Attard was his development of the Immortal Engine on which the title runs.

“I knew when I was building the game, I wanted a robust engine,” he said. “That comes from my mobile game experience. When you are churning out so many games, it is necessary to have a single, dynamic engine, and I knew I needed to do the same here. The engine is a generic layer of code not tied to the game. It is a layer a programmer can use for user interface elements, widgets for panels and layout, playing audio through .WAV and .OGG formats, rendering and utilities for griding and displaying images on the screen. With it, I have a collection of utilities to use in any game, so if I were to make another RPG, huge amounts of the code are already written. There is even a map editor built in and developing the maps is really easy. Adding features on top of this dynamic engine is a heck of a lot easier than building from the ground up.”

While Attard had a huge hand in nearly everything involving the development of Immortal Empire, in the end, around 15 different people had a part in the game, including concept artist Eric Vedder and pixel artist Matt Chambers. With the results in playable form at the game’s official Web page, Attard isn’t resting entirely on the current product, with expansions already in development to double the length of the game, add additional environments such as polar and volcanic areas, a new immortal, and more. The plan is to release new content every couple of months as Attard fixes a few bugs in the current game as well as implementing a microtransaction system for those that would like to pay money in order to pick up extra in-game gold, experience point boosts and more. Since Attard can update the game dynamically, once player-versus-player gaming starts to pick up a lot more on the game, he is hoping to hear more balancing feedback, at which point he can update the game in a quick and efficient manner, so players can expect the game to be updated regularly.

Of course, Attard depends on player feedback in order to make Immortal Empire a better game.
“Player feedback is extremely important,” he said. “The more we get, the better the game gets. I love getting it. A lot of it actually gets implemented and it is incredibly useful. I’m not egomaniac – even if I disagree, I’ll still drop it in and see what happens with a test. We’ve already implemented features such as clicking controls similar to Warcraft, more dialog boxes and more tweaks. All of the feedback comes from our users and it is incredibly useful.”

With dedication going into Immortal Empire, Attard hasn’t committed to the development of future titles just yet, but he does have future plans and may even consider different formats in the future. “I’m not working on any future titles yet,” he confirmed. “I have some ideas in my head I want to do, but I can only do one game at a time. I want to give it the appropriate attention first and maintain it throughout that time. I would always consider other formats and I do know how to do it, but it is a completely different undertaking. You need massive teams and a big budget to release on a console. I might be able to do an Xbox LIVE or Playstation Network title, but that is definitely down the road. You need a bigger team in order to do that right.”

Talking With Galaxy 4 Gamers' Pro Competitors

Galaxy 4 Gamers (G4G) started its push for competitive gaming for online console gamers back in 2008 but, recently, it has added on a new cast of players for gamers to clash with. Adding in a star-studded cast of pros, the site is asking gamers who think they can tackle the top tier of games such as Street Fighter IV and Guitar Hero to partake in “Beat the Pro” challenges. The premise is simple: A pot is established as the pro begins his or her gameplay and each time a pro defeats a gamer, more cash is added to the pot. Obviously, if a gamer finally succeeds in toppling a pro, they win the competitive jackpot. Unfortunately, this won’t be a walk in the park as G4G has enlisted some pretty heavy guns to fend off gamers eager to grab the cash.

Recently, Diehard GameFAN was able to get some insight from four the site’s established pros – Ciji “StarSlay3r” Thornton, Robert “Prod1gy X” Paz, Justin Wong (“JWong”) and Alex Valle.

StarSlay3r is most known for her expertise in Guitar Hero and a competitive drive that saw her participating in the inaugural seasons of World Cyber Games’ Ultimate Gamer and The Tester, but she still has plenty of time to wreck faces in a number of popular fighting games such as Street Fighter IV as well. Prod1gy X actually won runner-up honors in the aforementioned WCG Ultimate Gamer show and while he is also a pro at Guitar Hero and DJ Hero, he also likes to partake in first-person shooting competitions including Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty. Justin Wong can be considered the number one Street Fighter IV player in the U.S., taking top honors at GameStop’s launch tournament of the game and second place in 2009′s EVO 2K tournament, but he also dominates in titles such as Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (finishing first in the 2v2 tournament at EVO this year) and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Alex Valle is also one of the more famous fighting game competitors in major tournaments, receiving very respectable top eight finishes in the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and SFIII:3rd Strike 2v2 tournament at EVO this year and formerly holding honors such as the U.S. champion in Street Fighter Alpha 3.

These four pros took the time out of their schedule to describe how they got into gaming, how they prepared for competitive gaming and more:

DHGF: What initially drew you toward the game which you are now a certified pro at?

StarSlay3r: I initially was drawn toward Guitar Hero due to the fact that I had previously been playing a similar rhythm game called Guitar Freaks since 1999. The first time I played Guitar Hero was at a GameStop and I five-starred one of the hardest songs my first try so I knew this was a game I wanted to invest some time into perfecting.

Prod1gy X: I have been playing Guitar Hero since the day it came out. It’s a great competitive game and really fun to watch. I use to be in a band so when I picked this game up, it was pretty easy to play and I was into expert in no time. At this point, DJ Hero is my number one game of all. Hitting top 10 in all of the DJ Hero setlists made me realize I am a top player and I can take this to a pro level.

JWong: I have been playing fighting games since I was 12. I chose fighting games because I love the idea of playing against a human opponent and the best type of competitive games to do that is a fighting game such as Street Fighter, Tekken or any related games that goes under fighting games.

Alex Valle: The popularity of the Street Fighter series has always driven me to compete. With the release of Street Fighter IV, it was only natural for me to display my years of tournament experience to the competitive scene.

DHGF: What made you decide you wanted to become a professional at the title?

StarSlay3r: I competed in a series of video game tournaments known as the Midnight Gaming Championship in Dallas, Tx., in 2006, and during this time, I was competing against some of the best players in the nation, which was an inspiration to do better. After getting to top 16 for Texas state finals I knew that if I tried harder and dedicated more time into learning the game more in depth, I could step my game up to the next level. After making it to National top 10 finals at CPL in Texas for Guitar Hero II and being beat by a top-three nationally-ranked player was when I really started to kick my training into overdrive and compete for the professional gamer title.

Prod1gy X: I have to have the love for the game. If I play a game for hours just for training and I do not want to play anymore … that tells me I am really not into it. I like to pick each game from different genres so that I can maintain that high expertise and continue on to any other FPS or music games.

JWong: Well, I never chose this road. One day it just happened. I went to tournaments just because it was really fun playing new competition and meeting new people and then eventually I realized I did it every single weekend and said to myself, “Might as well try to become professional.”

Alex Valle: Street Fighter has been my strongest competitive video game ever since the ’90s and it’s about time companies like G4G are taking notice of the talented players. It was only a matter of time before our scene gets noticed and I felt inclined to prove myself on the mainstream as a true professional cyber athlete.

DHGF: What is your training like for your title?

StarSlay3r: Training for Guitar Hero used to be 50-60 hour weeks, which consisted of about three or so hours a week of watching YouTube videos to determine the best star paths and techniques for solos, reading star paths on scorehero.com, practising solos in practice mode, repeatedly playing songs over and over until I full-comboed the song and online versus mode against every opponent that would accept the challenge. Since I had this type of training for two years, I now only have to play about five hours a week or so to maintain my skills.

Prod1gy X: There are different methods of training in games. Some games have training modes that work great for your advantage to get better and so I highly suggest you take that advantage and get better. Practice makes perfect. You cannot give up if it’s too hard because eventually you will get it. For DJ Hero, I would play each song over and over until I get it. It’s as simple as that.

JWong: I use to play everyday for at least six hrs just practising and honing my skills. Now I don’t really practice (even though I should). I am older now and I am usually behind a computer answering e-mails, doing Street Fighter IV lessons, doing the Beat a Pro by G4G or talking to potential business partners.

Alex Valle: Great question. Street Fighter is a game of reaction time, physical execution and strategy. You need to master all of these elements in order to compete with the next player or you won’t stand a chance. In my youth, I used to spend eight to 12 hours daily to develop a unique, aggressive style. Bringing new and exciting elements are needed to win national tournaments. Today, I use my talents to train others worldwide, which is also a good form of training for me.

DHGF: What is your overall opinion on competitive/professional gaming?

StarSlay3r: Competitive and professional gaming is not as easy as it may seem. You must be extremely dedicated and determined to succeed in order to be successful in the field, but I love the challenge. I am happy to see that G4G enables players from all over to come and compete against the top players in this fashion because this is the best way to level up your game and take it to the professional level.

Prod1gy X: Its a very hard industry to get by in and the reason why I say that is because not many people are driven to take on the role of leadership and dedication. You need to understand the value of who you are and what you can make of it in this industry. The best advice on this … “Never give up.”

JWong: I feel that it isn’t there yet, but, eventually, it will be and I hope to be a part of that era.

Alex Valle: I believe competitive gaming is the next sports generation. There are millions of gamers out there that have exceptional skill that not many people in the world can achieve. The main difference from real sports and video games is that you can compete at any age with minimal physical requirements.

DHGF: Is there any advice you would give to anyone looking to play a game competitively?

StarSlay3r: Ensure that you have a lot of spare time on your hands before deciding to tackle a game on the competitive level because being a top player means spending many hours practising and perfecting your skills. Make sure to hunt out players that are better than you and practice with them because playing against the best will help you since you will not only see how your skills compare to a top player’s, but often times, they will give you tips/tricks/advice on your gameplay and can let you know where you went wrong and what you were doing right. Stay dedicated! Pro/competitive gaming is a lot of hard work, but it definitely pays off when you’re taking that top three ranking check to the bank.

Prod1gy X: Practice, practice, practice. Take that risk and travel to these events and get yourself noticed. All you need is the passion for gaming and dedication.

JWong: Practice makes perfect, network to get some sparring partners and travel to events and participate in online events to gain that experience you need.

Alex Valle: If you feel you deserve recognition for being the best athlete in the world, let your game do the talking!

Now that you know a little bit more about some of G4G’s pros, if you think you have what it takes to beat them, you can head over to G4G’s official page for rules and details.

Getting Fit ... The Arcade Way

I don't know how I was able to salvage this, but this is one of the very few things I have remaining from my work on Rithum.com. I guess it is pretty relevant still with the release of the Pokewalker and the huge surge of active gaming the Wii has brought upon us:

For those who like to pretend they are reading intelligently with news articles, MSN Health and Fitness has a story up that details the Top Gamers’ Workouts (http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/ar...0697>1=10412).

While the story hits up on items that us gamers have known for years and years, it goes into newer technologies being used by fitness companies to incorporate video game-like attributes to exercise equipment. It is interesting to know that in the future I will be riding a stationary cycle in front of a 17-inch screen slaying dragons instead of getting off my ass and cycling through the scenic countryside like I do from time to time. I do have to point out three key areas this article fails though:

1) Dance Dance Revolution appeared in the United States prior to the 2001 indicated in the article. DDR was introduced to U.S. arcades in 2000 alongside the Japanese release of 3rd Mix - while the domestic version is labeled Dance Dance Revolution USA and has a limited songlist, they share the same interface. I've even had people tell me the original entry released in the U.S. in extremely limited numbers, but I've yet to come across any concrete evidence for this.

2) The article claims Guitar Hero is an active game. My opinion is flicking your wrist back and forth repeatedly hardly makes a game “active.” To the article’s credit, however, this could be comparable to masterbation and I have seen some medical journals promoting that due to the nature of the blood flow involved.

3) The article does good in mentioning Wii Sports, but completely fails to point out the upcoming Wii Fit, a game on the same system completely tailored to the very reason this article was written.

However, what kind of fairness would it be if I didn’t offer my insight on active games? Check these ones out:

MoCap Boxing (arcade) - I made the mistake one time of playing this all day and then attending a lock-in for Dance Dance Revolution. Never have my legs been more cramped in my entire life. MoCap Boxing by Konami puts gamers into the virtual boxing ring by making them attach makeshift gloves and step into a motion capture area located in front of the game. Not only does the game force you to punch in front of the screen feverishly, but in order to avoid the taste of canvas, you’ll have to duck, sway and weave away from the motion sensor areas where the opponent’s punches would travel if they were real. The punching works the arms and the defense works the legs - a one-two punch to strengthening up.

World Class Track Meet (NES) - In a pretty obvious choice to anyone close to my age, the good old Nintendo Entertainment System Power Pads gave us a pretty good workout even though we knew how to cheat the long jump. Placing a mat on the floor, players competed in sprints, hurdles and jumping events by alternating left and right steps as fast as possible. You’re not human if there isn’t sweat on your brow after a matchup against the CPU character Cheetah or a heated two-player race. The floor mat even further supported activity with games such as Dance Aerobics.

Martial Beat (arcade/Playstation) - In 2002, Konami unleashed this monsterously-sized cabinet into Japanese arcades, and while it shares similar concepts to the company’s Bemani titles, many Bemani fans may very well slap you if you claim that. Once again using sensors to detect movements, the game cycles music tracks and features a full-motion video of an instructor asking you to imitate them performing simple martial arts moves and Tai Chi-type positionings. If you think it sounds a lot like Tai-Bo, well, it does. That in fact makes it a primary candidate for a full-scale workout if you can stick with it (or in today’s date, even find one of these cabinets).

Downhill Racers (arcade) - Speaking of putting game screens in front of bicycles, this arcade cabinet lets two people race each other down dangerous mountain courses by pedaling on a stationary bike. While nothing beats riding a bike for real, I wouldn’t advise sailing down steep paths located in between jagged rocks. Obviously, peddling as fast as one can, Downhill Racers provides for quite a workout. To rub it into the opponent’s face with style, there are a number of jump points where players can execute mid-air tricks, making it as fun to watch as it is to play.

Arm Champs II (arcade) - While recently arm wrestling arcade cabinets have becoming notorious for breaking arms in Japan, Jaleco’s Arm Champs II has been floating around U.S. arcades now for 15 years. The cabinet emits a large, robotic arm, which players grip in traditional arm wrestling fashion and attempt to outmuscle the computer in nine different levels of strength. The first three opponents are laughably easy, so the casual player shouldn’t blow a bicep or anything, but those looking to flex their might will find challenge in the later opponents. Those who get into the game should find the game can be almost as intimidating as the actual sport itself.

Of course there is more to be had, but anyone who is looking to get active should head out to any local arcade as active gaming has become the staple on which arcades still exist in the United States.

Cheapskate: Playing Galaga for Free

I’m a cheapskate. So it should come as no surprise that I enjoy the fact that I can “play” Galaga in the arcades without even spending a single cent.

Here’s a cute little trick you can show off if you come across a 20-Year Reunion: Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Class of 1981 cabinet:

While the Galaga demonstration is playing, watch the game play and wait for the green ship to fly down and shoot out the tractor beam. Once this happens, start hammering on the fire button and you’ll be given control of the demo.

This glitch can allow for a few interesting things to happen that wouldn’t normally happen during game play. While your ship is spinning in the tractor beam, the demo gitch allows players to fire, sending bullets in directions they wouldn’t normally go in standard play. If you can destroy the ship abducting your fighter, you can play as normal until a third green ship flies down (about 15 seconds) and fires off its tractor beam - if either this happens or your fighter is destroyed, a test menu will pop up for moment and cycle straight into the Ms. Pac-Man demo.

If you allow your fighter to become abducted, the game play will continue as normal and you’ll have a chance to snag a double ship. If you clear the screen of ships, you’ll be able to move around and fire into space for about 15 seconds until the demo cycles back to Ms. Pac-Man.

So, there. Technically you can play Galaga in the arcade without paying - make a competition out of it with your friends to see how many ships you can destroy before time runs out without using the double ships.

The Human Game Boy

A recent power outage zapped all of my works in progress for a number of sites, so, bummed out and unmotivated to write everything back from scratch, I did the unthinkable - I went outside into society to see what there is to find outside of my house. Well, that's a real exaggeration - I'm very active at school and that's what has been sucking up some time as of late, but, recently, I was able to take a weekend to myself and head out to a local anime convention. While numerous video game cosplays were present, among the Pyramid Head, Resident Evil cast, Marios and more, one video game cosplay stood out heads and shoulders above the rest:

THE HUMAN GAME BOY!

It might not be evident by the picture, but, this gentleman, who I didn't have a real chance to speak to because I was promoting my own event and he was swamped with photo requests, took his human console one step further with wiring that turned him into a fully functional Game Boy. Yes, if you were brave enough and he didn't mind, you could play a full game of Game Boy Tetris on his person. I'm not too sure how many people are willing to admit they played Tetris on a man, but if the convention is to be believed, wearing a functional Game Boy is a great conversation piece and an excellent way to impress the ladies.

That being said, I'm currently developing a cosplay which will turn me into a human Virtual Boy.

Nick Baynes of Black Rock Studio on Split/Second

Nick Baynes has come a long way from his memories of playing his first video game, Punchy on the Commodore 16. Now actively creating games as a member of Black Rock Studios, Baynes is eagerly awaiting gamers’ responses to his newest project, Disney Interactive’s Split/Second, when it releases on May 18. Serving as the game’s director, he took time out his schedule Friday to give members of the press some development insight and detail rundowns of what he calls a “massive, action-packed, arcade racing game.”

A demo has been made publicly available for gamers to check out this new twist on the racing genre, but for those that haven’t been able to download the trial, Split/Second details a fictional reality show where some of the greatest stunt drivers compete in a season of races to determine the greatest. In video game fashion, the races are much more than jogs around a track, though. Littered throughout the course are “power plays,” with which the player can trigger rigged explosives littered around each course to wreck opponents, create shortcuts or even completely change the current route of the track. As Baynes describes the premise of Split/Second, “Just imagine a Hollywood movie director was given control of NASCAR for a weekend.”

Black Rock Studios is no stranger to the racing genre, formerly being known as Climax Racing and developing titles such as ATV Off Road Fury, Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge and the ’06 and ’07 versions of Moto GP, prior to being picked up by Disney Interactive in 2006. Baynes even indicated some members of the team had worked on racers prior to Climax, so it was noted the studio has a lot of expertise in the genre. Following the acquisition by Disney Interactive, Black Rock Studios began work on more projects, with the first being Pure, an offroad racer that was well-received.

Baynes indicated Split/Second’s development was started around the same time as Pure, with the projects dating back as far back as almost five years ago when the studio began judging what it could do with the current generation of hardware.

“We judged what we couldn’t do on the Playstation 2 and Xbox,” recalled Baynes. “Many of those games had customization and car damge … all of the innovation (in that generation) was based on vehicles. We saw an untouched potential in driving around a dynamically changing track.”

Before settling on the power plays, Black Rock Studios had some brainstorming sessions to decide how it would implement the dynamic element. Baynes threw out a few concepts that came up including severe weather conditions and even futuristic tracks with hydraulic lifts underneath them.

Black Rock Studios is now well known for its dedication to the racing genre and Baynes stated the studio isn’t worried about being “typecast” into future games in the genre.

“The goal is to stay experts and stay within the realm of racing,” he explained. “We don’t want to stand still and do the same thing. We thought Pure pushed what we wanted to do with that concept and we wanted to do street racing with Split/Second. We’re always looking at new, innovative ways to bring fun, new exciting gameplay to racing games. We are proud of the games we make and we have love for the games we make.”

The unpredictable nature of the game’s racing is complimented by the reality television show concept, which gives the premise some legs to stand on.

“With the TV show, we wanted to go larger than life the player is constantly blown away by the scale of the reality a little bit further,” Baynes detailed. “The presentation point-of-view provides a nice look and feel that you may not have seen before.”

Likening the setup to hit shows such as Lost and 24, Baynes also explained why the reality show setup will keep players coming back for more.


“There are tracks and hidden content waiting to be triggered,” he noted. “Players will go through the season mode, unlock a new episode, new tracks and game modes. Like Lost and 24, there is a concept of cliffhangers with teasers at the end of episodes where players get a ‘next-time’ trailer and they will want to carry on and see what happens in the next episode.”

Each episode in the season will have qualifying events. As players progress through the races, points are awarded based on performance and the player will need to have a target number of points across these races to join in on the final elite race in the episode. The top three racers in the elite race are invited back for the next episode and there are unlockable vehicles, tracks, modes and more to earn through the course of the game. Outside of the reality show season, players can come back to the game to enjoy modes such as survival (where players try to survive a storm drain run, inspired by films like Transporter and Terminator 2, where trucks throw explosive barrels at your vehicle), elimination, a detonator time trail mode and even another survival-based mode where a helicopter chases the players and rains down missiles at them.

Breaking down the gameplay and development of Split/Second, the first thing players may notice is the lack of a screen-topping HUD, which is predominant in nearly any racing game on the market. Instead of packing the top of the screen with text, Split/Second places a small HUD directly beneath the player’s vehicle. While this may seem out-of-place, Baynes fully defended the decision, asserting the positioning lends itself to the presentation.

“We’re not doing things for the sake if it,” Baynes began in explaining the HUD. “In racing games, it does seem there are certain aspects implemented because others do it. Many racing games have a lot of uncessary information on the screen like the best lap, current lap, spreads and more. We looked at what was needed for the player to play the game and this game is all about the environment. It seemed crazy to cover this up. We had the idea of putting it behind the car to free the screen up for the player. It was one of those things that once it went in, it was really popular with players.”

Even though Baynes stated the ideas and concepts of Split/Second were amazingly consistant throughout development, he did note some challenges and difficulties. With the unique premise of the title, he noted the development of the tracks became a larger process as opposed to going from conception to layout to scenery. Including power plays meant involvement from other teams in the studio, such as animation, and found the tracks being bounced around in a longer process. Baynes also commented on crafting a title that will please racing enthusiasts while still drawing in other types of gamers.

“We have a deep physics model so the hardcore racer can paly and all of the subtlties are there,” he explained, “but we have layered enough on top for pick-up and playability. We kept the power plays down to a couple of buttons and didn’t add in reticules or aiming. The speed works well with the concpet as well. We tried to keep it open to more people, not just racing fans, but also people that like action. We don’t want to alienate those players.”

The greatest difficulty in piecing together a racing title, according to Baynes, was in develping the AI of opponents.

“The very nature of the race is pitting you versus opponents,” he said. “You want to win, but you still want the AI to give you a challenge. Making the race believable is a real challenge and is the most difficult thing.”


Of course, the real star of the show in Split/Second is in the power plays and Black Rock Studios spent a great amount of time developing these features. In order to trigger these attacks on the other racers, players will build up a meter by drifting, drafting, jumping and performing other extreme feats. The studio has taken time to balance the gameplay to allow players behind first place to catch up without the experience of any “blue shell moments” while not allowing first place racers to trigger and waste power plays.

“Some of the tracks and environments lent themselves better to power plays than others,” Baynes recalled in developing tracks and their associated power plays. “Coming up with the ideas wasn’t hard, but doing it in a way that was fun … that was tricky. Sometimes it’s easy to say, ‘let’s have a wrecking ball fly in and smash all of the cars across the road,’ but timing that and making sure it’s balanced is where the challenge is.”

At the same time, the team also had to have some restraint to keep things from getting too crazy.

“When you come up with these ideas, we want to push it further and further, but you can’t push it too far,” Baynes stated.

A specific example came in a casino, Vegas-style environment that was eventually axed from the game because, as Baynes explained, “from a gameplay point of view, it didn’t offer anything new.” The enviornment spurred an idea of having a giant, one-armed bandit slot machine that released a mass of explosive barrels when triggered.

While these features didn’t make it into the final game, the casino enviornment did influence some of the features players will see in the Downtrack track, which players can experience themselves when Split/Second releases on May 18. The final game will allow for two-player splitscreen local play and up to eight players in various modes online. Through the course of the title, players will be able to control around 25 different vehicles after all are unlocked through progression and milestones. Split/Second may be another racing game on the shelf, but Baynes indicated players won’t find the action of this new racing title in any other game in the genre.

“It’s the intensity of the experience,” he said. “Sometimes you have races where it doesn’t let up from start to finish. It’s an adrenaline-filled experience. In a lot of other racing games, you do get that, but it comes in bite-sized pieces. Players haven’t experienced any other racing game as action-packed as Split/Second.”

Prototype Controller Fun

I've been met with a number of obstacles over the past two months that have kind of kept me away from writing original material. After school and my seasonal work cleared up, I ran into a few computer problems that kept me offline but diving through the mess of folders on my laptop, I came across a photo I haven't seen in a few years and it ultimately made me realize that it was something I had never shared online and that I am perhaps the only person who still has record of this prototype contraption.

If I had you guess what this beastly controller was supposed to function with, we could be here all day, but those keen to the crafted arcade controller scene may recognize the trademark Ransai craftsmanship. While recent arcade releases of Madden, Guitar Hero and the like seems to suggest companies are trying to bring home to the arcades, believe it or not, there was a great period of time where companies strove to bring the arcade into homes. Seemingly, until the wave of guitar clones struck U.S. shores, it was perceived gamers in the territory weren't interested in shelling out for plastic instruments or mech-controlling twin sticks and this left nearly every single music game released stateside as only a shell of its original Japanese self. As such, companies such as Ransai and Desktop Arcade stepped in to provide premium controllers to those who would be willing to have a 100 percent complete experience in the home.

While Ransai's site no longer seems to exist, I was able to sample its wares not only at the 2006 East Coast Gaming Expo, but in 2004 at a local video game store, where the special guests pulled out this boomerang-shaped prototype specialized to act as an arcade-style controller for Harmonix's Frequency and Amplitude titles. To my knowledge Ransai never developed the controller beyond this stage but its design allowed for immediate four-player compatibility in multiplayer (two players on each side of the controller) if you had a multitap and once you got used to the layout, it was an interesting way to play the game.

Looking back on the controller, the only problems I had with it were with the sensitivity of input in the game, rolling the keys always resulted in a miss so you had to be really articulate with key presses and with key positioning, I felt the arrow keys were too far apart and the item activation key was placed near the top of the controller, basically out of reach from the player's stationary position. None of the problems stopped people from having fun with the controller or the game, though, and if it was really that much of a deal to someone, Pop'N Music 8 and 9 were just a television screen away (on Ransai's AC controllers, of course).

I'd never heard about or seen the Ransai Amplitude/Frequency controller since that day so I would imagine it never saw the light of day, but it's another instance of a video game peripheral spoken of but played by very few. While in 2004 a Frequency controller would have sounded absolutely crazy on the market, who would have thought back then that soon our living rooms would be filled to the brim with plastic instruments?

An Early Look at Galloping Ghost's Dark Presence

Back in the ‘90s, some companies were absolutely convinced FMV and “movies that you control” were the future. Unfortunately, the results of such efforts were deemed by the majority as below average at best and painful at worst. If capturing live actors in photo-realistic detail brought us anything, though, it delivered classic fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, which pushed the concept into the limelight in 1992. When you fast forward nearly 17 years later, though, many people might be surprised one arcade developer is giving the concept another go, even among the current explosion of 3-D rendered fighting games.

Located in the Chicago area, Galloping Ghost Studios has been long at work to bring arcades the title Dark Presence, which features footage of live actors fighting it out. Unlike the similar titles of yesteryear, however, the studio has the technology muscle of 2009 to back it up. The studio was actually formed back in 1994, when founder Doc Mack had ambitions to make a game in the same vein as Dark Presence, but the team felt the video quality and technology wasn’t up to par with what they wanted. Up front, the title will have eight playable characters, each stemming from live actors filmed at a 1080p (1920×1080) high-definition resolution. It took three years to film each actor, but that time will place 151,044 frames of animation in the game, giving each character more than 200 full animations, which includes attacks, reactions and finishing moves. The extra care to attention is the aim of the game, which has different animations for the characters’ left and right sides (removing the image flipping seen in similar games) and 437 strings of finishing moves that reflect the characters’ relations to each other – rivals will be more visceral with each other, but those with friendships and blood relations might be a little more hesitant to end one another’s life.

“While 3D and motion capture have made great strides, you can’t beat the level of realism provided with using actual actors instead of just textured 3D models,” commented Mack. “You can really see all the effort from the actors as they perform the attacks and reactions. For example with our fall animations, when our actors hit the ground you can clearly see the level of impact it has on them. Our actors were often covered in bruises from all the falls they had to film, which lent to realistic pained facial expressions. Honestly, it would have been a lot easier to just go the 3D route, but I’ve always like 2D fighting games better personally. With digitized characters, we are given a very unique look compared to anything else out there.”

The studio is also turning its attention to the backgrounds, which are developed using parallaxing. Each cabinet will have a GPS device that reads where the arcade is located, taking in account the current time of day and weather conditions. Mack is promising players that when it is night outside, the in-game environments will be seen at night; the GPS recognizes that it is raining outside, it will be raining in the game’s environments as well. Most impressively, this function is handled in real-time, so players in the middle of a match might notice the sky gradually darkening or rain could start up in the middle of a fight.

Mack also approached Dark Presence’s background by crafting a storyline that fills up more than 1,300 pages and counting. While the central plot line revolves around the character who has become to be known as the Mind Master and his quest of revenge, each character has a meticulous background story that allows players to understand why the characters are fighting should they choose to dig that far. The story also encompasses the in-game relationships of the characters and actions taken within the game will affect which of the multiple endings players will receive with their character. Mack is still plugging away at the game’s background, but it is also being written to transition into the events of a planned sequel for Dark Presence, entitled Conquering Light – a follow-up slated to have 18 characters (with only three returning from Dark Presence) and new features.

“I really tried to chronicle the entire lives of all the characters in Dark Presence and Conquering Light,” Mack noted on the storyline. “That is why the story is currently at over 1,300 pages, which makes it a little difficult to sum up quickly. You certainly don’t need to know the story to jump into playing the game and enjoy it, but for those who really want to know everything about the characters, the story is there. It’s basically a collection of short stories and really the order you read them in and what connecting stories you’ve read can really affect how you look at the characters. What I refer to as the Dark Presence story just follows the main eight playable characters and the one boss. However, several characters that appear in Conquering Light tie in with events that happen while or before Dark Presence happens.”

While there are no detailed accounts of how the gameplay will shape up, the still photos are looking great for the title, showing characters in combat and showing off a few of the brutal hits and resulting blood. The violence is there, but, according to Mack, it isn’t the focus of the game to just show off gratuitous blood and gore. Mack admitted while there is plenty of blood present that would naturally go hand-and-hand with brutal weapons-based combat and live actors, the team is putting most of its attention on the combat mechanics and the finishing moves were artistically implemented to convey the characters’ relationships to each other. Each character will have three fatalities to perform and Galloping Ghost has already stated each of the three fatalities can be linked into one execution move as players learn how to perform them. With the nature of moves depending on who the character is facing, the total fatality footage reel tallies in at an hour and a half of footage, ensuring those who enjoy messy fighters will be pleased with the results.

“We wanted to make our finishing moves a unique experience above and beyond just a vicious way to kill off your opponents,” said Mack. “Each character has three finishing moves that can be linked together. It took quite a bit of planning to come up with ways that they could all link. Everything was filmed from several different camera angles and then edited together, so it has more of a cinematic feel than finishing moves in other games. Since most of our actors filmed each finishing move with all the other actors, we were able to add variations. Sometimes it would allow us to show a greater connection story-wise for the characters. They are all pretty violent to say the least, but with how we filmed everything, we were given a lot of freedom to not just show an abundance of gore. Sometimes not focusing on the blood and centering the shot more on the characters and their facial expressions and such can make the scene have much more of an impact.”

Outside of the GPS tracking, Galloping Ghost also has a score of other plans for its Dark Presence cabinets. Through USB inputs, players will be able to keep track of personal stats, as well as participate in achievement challenges to earn in-game icons (there are 100 in total) that show how experienced the player is and players can also wager their icons against other players to win ones they do not have. A small touch screen panel will be implemented into the cabinet for players to set up these wagers, but the screen will also display special move commands as players discover them and allow arcade owners to display messages for tournaments, events and more.

The studio is anticipating a lot of customization options for arcade owners, allowing them to place 27 to 65-inch monitors in the cabinet, have prize drawer options and more. However, one of the more interesting optional features is the shock band – a wristband worn by players that generates a harmless jolt if they are hit by a fatality at the end of the match. Mack recalled the initial prototype bands had a little more juice to them, which the development team had a bit of fun with. On the other hand, the team also realized that having such a repercussion to the end of a fight made them fight more strategically and made matches more interesting, but Mack anticipates a lot of locations will opt out of the component and even for those who do not, players are not required to wear them to play the game.

“It was originally more of an inside joke to keep players from button mashing,” explained Mack. “Our programmer at the time made a prototype of the shock band and once we tested it out, we really noticed it was changing how we were playing the game. It added a whole new element of repercussions to having your character get hit and poor playing. The prototype shock band was pretty strong. It was a great motivator and elevated the strategy of gameplay quickly as you did not want to get shocked. We tested it well beyond anything that would be released to the public. It’s definitely not something everyone will want to experience but, it does really add a new level for the hardcore player.”

Currently, Dark Presence is set for a 2009 release with select arcade locations receiving test cabinets in the future.

An Early Look at System Flaw for the DSi

While the Nintendo DSi’s anticipated release has come and gone, it seems little has been done to take advantage of its features. With expanded audio features and two cameras, one would think we would be seeing more in regard to innovative games that take advantage of said features. Thankfully, Visual Impact Productions has teamed up with publisher Storm City Games in an attempt to fill this void with its upcoming Nintendo DSi release System Flaw. System Flaw will be the very first Nintendo DSi-only title to be released on a cart to retail and I even believe I overhead it being said that Nintendo had to create a brand new packaging label (“Only Plays On Nintendo DSi”) specifically for this game.

Ryan Harbinson, product specialist of Storm City Games, was on hand at the recent VGXPO event in Philadelphia and, as luck would have it, he brought a playable copy of System Flaw to the event. It’s not every day you get to see a Nintendo DSi unit suspended from the top of tent with a wire, but, then again, System Flaw is anything but ordinary.

System Flaw’s premise draws heavily from the philosophies of the Nintendo Wii, in which it directly involves the player in the game. The meat of the game pits players in a 360-degree arena where they must fend off dangerous alien-looking creatures before they latch onto the player and drain their health. While this sounds extremely ordinary for a video game, the big hook in System Flaw is in its use of the Nintendo DSi’s external camera. With what is billed as “360-degree optical flow/motion detection technology,” the playfield is reality – what you see is your environment piped through the DSi’s camera and the 360-degree gameplay is achieved by having the player physically spin to view more of the environment through the camera.

Meanwhile, the top screen is a HUD that displays the player’s stats as well as a radar that reveals where threats are approaching the player. This means if you see a blip at the bottom of the radar, you will have to spin your body 180 degrees to see the incoming creature. Once a creature is in sight, players will have to maneuver their DSi unit to put the enemy in the crosshairs and push one of the system’s shoulder buttons to fire at the enemy. What results an undeniably fast-paced and fun experience that most anyone that doesn’t mind physically getting into their games should enjoy.

Right on the cart, players will have 100 mission-based levels that start out with tutorial-focused levels before breaking into more intense fights, but players can also launch a survival mode where they engage in a standoff in an attempt to survive as long as they possibly can. Players will be fending off 10 different creature types with various movement abilities and strength. If a creature latches on to the player, they will have to shake the DSi in order to loosen the grip and stop their health from draining. Defeated monsters will occasionally drop power-ups for the player, however, giving them bonuses such as extra juice to their laser and allowing them to fire two laser simultaneously.

In my experience with the game, System Flaw’s functions operated as naturally as the concept appears on paper. You can literally just tell people to move the camera around and press the trigger to shoot and they will understand how to play the game, making it accessible and understandable to anyone (and admittedly, it can be entertaining to watch people play the game as well). While the environments of VGXPO weren’t exactly the most eye-catching, you can see in promotional screens for the title that players can find themselves in some interesting battles depending on their location. However – and I know I’m not the only that did this – I couldn’t help but smile whenever someone was in front of the camera and I couldn’t resist the urge to fire a laser at their face (the crotch was also a popular location at the show) for no reason. I found the surrealism of people living their everyday life in the background while I fought for my life amusing, but I suppose that is part of the game’s approach – through this unique device, only you can see these threats to humanity and everyone else is oblivious to the menace.

Storm City Games seems to be putting a lot of stock in the release of System Flaw, and for good reason. While in System Flaw, you can’t move forward or backward to create distance between yourself and approaching enemies, Harbinson indicated it was one of a few items the team would consider if a sequel was made possible. Seeing as the team is looking forward with possible ideas gives me the impression the studio is confident in what it has created and the title is openly billed as the publisher’s featured game. Even though System Flaw is being heavily promoted, the publisher does have a number of other Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, including a Nintendo DS port of the classic PC adventure Myst and Hands On! Tangrams, a game I was also able to try at the event.

There’s no doubt System Flaw is one of the most unique and innovative games we’ve seen lately on the format and I look forward to being able to unleash this game out in the wild. The title proved to be original and was definitely a hit among the crowds of VGXPO. In my short time with the title, I came away impressed and, honestly, the only negative thing I can think of about the title is in its portability – I can’t imagine a child would be able to bust this out and spin circles while riding in a car on a long trip. However, with the term handheld mostly replacing what we used to know as portables, it’s possible that no home will be safe from the System Flaw. We’ll find out when Storm City Games releases the title, which has a currently-scheduled release date of Oct. 27.

Seth Killian, Community Manager for Capcom, on Fighting Games

I absolutely love fighting games. Behind rhythm games, it is my favorite genre of video games and if you mix the two genres, with games such as Slap Happy Rhythm Busters or Draglade, I find the results to be euphoric. The magic about fighting games, though, is that legions of gamers share the same love for the genre, resulting in tight, competitive communities and even in the industry, there are fighting fans hard at work spreading the love for game publishers such as Capcom.

At Capcom, competitive digital pugilist Seth Killian sits as the senior manager of community for the company. Killian is responsible for much of what gamers see on the Capcom Unity community site, but that doesn’t keep him from getting his hands dirty with a little bit of game development for select titles. When it comes down to it, though, he also isn’t afraid to step down from his office chair and lay beat downs on Street Fighter players. An accomplished competitive Street Fighter player and long-time EVO supporter, Killian is just as crazy about the series and fighting games as any other fan of the genre.

Seth Killian was kind enough to accept an interview with us, so please read on as we reach into the deepest annals of the fighting game community and Killian details what got him into fighting games, the competitive fighting game scene, some of Capcom’s more obscure fighters and having the final boss of Street Fighter IV named after him.

Diehard GameFAN: You’re quite known for your competitive play, EVO presence, Capcom-Unity leadership and, of course, being involved with the Capcom company itself. They say every story has its humble beginnings, so what was it that originally pulled you into video games, fighting games and the competitive scene?

Seth Killian: I grew up playing games in arcades. I liked a lot of games, and was really good at a few, but with Street Fighter II, you weren’t just fighting for your quarter against the machine, you were fighting against another human – fighting for your quarter, for honor, for respect. Just like that, games became instant drama. I guess the magic of “winner stays, loser pays” was what drew me into the scene. I didn’t have that much money, so I had to win if I wanted to keep playing. The competitive SF scene was also taking off at the same time as the internet, so we basically used forums as a way of trash-talking other kids and then working out a place to fight – EVO grew directly out of that. I still have a picture on my desk of the arcade where I learned to play – it’s now a discount textbook warehouse.

DHGF: We see a lot of people still claim U.S. arcades aren’t dead, even though a few comments from Capcom execs seem to prove otherwise (and keep us from having legal Street Fighter IV cabinets). What are your thoughts on the issue and what do you feel that arcades could offer that the console experience does not (or even vice versa)?

SK: I don’t think the life or death of arcades is up to Capcom, but there’s no question there aren’t as many as there once were. I still love arcades, and go to as many live events as I can. Arcades have an electric atmosphere that you just don’t get online, no matter how good the connection. For anyone that plays competitive games, there’s nothing like it. Capturing that arcade atmosphere was a big part of the reason we started organizing events and one of the core aspects of EVO. Online is great, but staring down the opponent, cheering, having to skulk away if you lose, etc. — that’s really what bonds people and makes them play with their whole heart. Playing in a live event is like nothing else in gaming.

DHGF: Obviously, with the success of Street Fighter II, there had to be an original Street Fighter title. What are your thoughts on the original title that only put players in the gi of Ryu or Ken? Do you ever pull this one out on occasion? There’s got be one of these cabinets floating around the office somewhere.

SK: Honestly, I was not a fan of Street Fighter. It opened the door to Street Fighter II, but when I do play SF1, I’m usually not happy that I did. It’s got a lot of great concepts, but the controls are terrible and controls mean a lot.

DHGF: It always seems like a no-brainer that it would be sweet to play video games competitively and earn cash for doing so. What advice would you give to someone who is considering playing Street Fighter or other fighting games on a serious, competitive level?

SK: Play for the love and you’ll be happy. If you’re in it to make money, my advice would be to finish school and get your degree. Even the successful top competitive gamers make less than most game industry professionals, and they probably work harder doing it. I am a huge advocate of competitive gaming and earning money for playing is well-deserved, but it may not be a smart life plan overall. Even if the dream comes true and competitive gaming replaces the NBA, you personally may not stick around long enough to see it or maybe nobody will care about the games you happen to be great at. The people who tell you otherwise usually have their own agendas, so think very carefully about what they’re saying.

DHGF: And with that, EVO2K9 is set to take place from July 17-19. The tournament has come a long way and has seen a number of famous battles and mighty competitors and includes a number of Capcom products. What is your thought on this competition? Would you like to see more competitions like this pop up in the U.S. or is there only room for one “big one?” Lastly, will we see Capcom step up on tournament support in the future?

SK: I love EVO. It’s the backbone of the worldwide competitive scene, and all of our greatest SF legends come straight from EVO finals. One of the best things about Shoryuken.com and EVO is that they have inspired so many competitions like this around the country. EVO is the biggest by far, but since it took off, there are now hundreds of similar tournaments around the country, where before there was 1 – maybe 2 – a year. So EVO and SRK are definitely big supporters of more tournaments (all of the other events use SRK to advertise), both in the US and around the world. Capcom is a big supporter of EVO in various capacities, but they are a product-driven company like anyone else. This means they are able to support events like this more directly when they have relevant games. Capcom has tried to support EVO even when they don’t have new games as well, so I have a lot of respect and appreciation for that.

DHGF: You seem to enjoy a span of fighting game products since you feature videos, fan creations and tidbits of Capcom’s fighters on the Unity site. On the other side of the fence, be brutally honest – what fighting games do you absolutely despise and why?

SK: There are very few fighting games I enjoy playing for long periods of time, but as a student of the genre, I learn something from playing even the crummiest fighters. They all have their own ideas, it’s just that most of them are really badly implemented. I also like seeing the fighting-game mechanics that show up in a lot of crossover titles, like the new UFC game, or even in God of War, both of which benefit a lot from Street Fighter-style thinking and designs, even if it doesn’t seem that way on the surface. I did hate Virtua Fighter 3 — just because I could play VF2 pretty well, but could not win at VF3 to save my life.

DHGF: In my recent review of Sunday X Magazine, I stated Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom had too many licensing issues to become a U.S. crossover fighter and it looks like you made me a liar (please start working on bringing Namco X Capcom over). While E3 provided a great feast of news on the game, can you detail why you fought so hard to bring the game over to us? Also, in a short hype blurb, can you tell people why they should be excited about the game?

SK: I fight for the things that I believe in, and I’ve been a big believer in this game since I first saw it. People should be excited about it because it’s the best fighting game on the Wii, it’s one of the prettiest games on the Wii period, and it’s really the next evolution in the “Capcom Versus” style. It’s got amazing amounts of style, attention to little details, love for the characters … exactly the kind of stuff you used to find only in sprite-based fighters, but we’re doing it in fully rendered 3D now. It’s also just a lot of crazy fun. I’m all for top-level intensity on the most serious fighters, but if we only made games for that type of player, the genre would disappear. TvC combines the best of both worlds – easy to pick up and play, but with real depth for the hardcore.

DHGF: Street Fighter II received a super upgrade with HD Remix last year. With a solid chunk of time elapsing after its release, do you think the game achieved its goal of being as balanced as possible? What things would you change or add to the release?

SK: That’s a complicated question – the competitive community hasn’t reached a consensus about it yet. Speaking personally, there’s always more work to do in terms of balancing but HD Remix is a new chapter in the SFII series and gave people a reason to go back and re-engage with a great game and remember what’s so fun about fighting games. As the 5th version of SFII, the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo mechanics were some of the most highly-evolved anywhere in the fighting world, so for me, HD Remix is really a nice dose of icing on a delicious cake. Having 15 *years* of player feedback on SSF2T really helped give a clear picture of what needed to change, and how. I love that so many of the weaker characters like Cammy are now a lot more competitive and easy to play. As for changes, I think Akuma missed the mark in some respects, but Akuma is always a big challenge.

DHGF: When people talk Capcom fighting games, all you tend to hear about is Street Fighter and the Versus series. What games outside of these franchises do you enjoy? Is there any love for series such as Darkstalkers, Cyberbots, Rival Schools and the like and are there any franchises you’d like to see revived?

SK: Personally I’d love to see Cyberbots, just because I was really good at that game. I love Darkstalkers as well, though I got worse at those games as they went on. Although the IP isn’t popular in the West, I’d also love to take a crack at another Jo-Jo’s Bizarre Adventure. From the fans, I hear a lot of love for Rival Schools, and lately there’s been a lot of noise about Power Stone, which I do think has a lot of potential.

DHGF: It’s no secret that Street Fighter IV’s end boss shares a first name with you. Was there a process involved with this? How did this happen? Also, does anyone ever rag on you over the fact you share your name with a naked, blue man (that could wreck said people with spinning pile drivers)? It seems a lot of press outlets didn’t make any sort of correlation and completely ripped on the name.

SK: The original docs (some of which are from before I started at Capcom) talked about a Cane and Abel pairing, but, although “Abel” stayed, “Cane” got replaced with “Seth” after we’d been working together for a while. They did ask me if that was okay, but that wasn’t a very tough decision for a lifelong SF fan. I thought it was especially nice since, as you mention, Seth is not the toughest sounding name, and on top of that, the “th” sound can’t even be pronounced in Japanese at all (they say “Sesu”). Hopefully they are happy with my work, though I don’t think he’s exactly a fan-favorite character.