MotorStorm Apocalypse is the upcoming PS3 exclusive racer from Evolution Studios. Today the EU PlayStation Blog held a Live Chat with Matt Southern (Game Director), Paul Rustchynsky (Lead Designer) and Phenom_Evolution(Community Manger). They answer user submitted questions and talk about 3D, the customization and new vehicles. Check out the transcript here and if you still have any questions feel free to head over the EU PlayStation Blog and post them in the comments.

[Source: PlayStation Blog]

We stepped into the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep presentation and were surprised to be face to face with none other than Tetsuya Nomura who was sitting there with an entourage of translators.  Both Stephanie and Dave had assumed that we were in for a demo of the game itself just like all of our previous appointments had been thus far. So when we sat down with Nomura, we flipped out our notebooks and prepared to absorb in any juicy information we could pry about the upcoming PSP Kingdom Hearts title, Birth by Sleep.

The first question asked in the interview was a simple one:

Why the PSP?
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 had both been on the PlayStation 2 and there has been a spin-off on the DS and GBA so far, but with the apparent speedy delivery and quality of the Birth by Sleep, it was a fair question to ask why they decided to head to a portable system instead of on the next generation consoles.  Nomura’s answer to this was a technical one.  He explained that the similarity in the development process and performance between PSP and PS2 games is quite similar, thus making Birth by Sleep a PSP game, it streamlined the technical processes.

Since Birth by Sleep is the first prequel to enter the franchise, are there any plans for more prequels to the series? I.E. To explain the Keyblade Wars?
He answered with a rather indefinite response; he wasn’t sure as of yet, but did explain that the possibility certainly exists because Birth by Sleep’s ending leaves the story open to such a possibility.  The ending will likely leave you hanging and wanting to know more of the future rather than more prequel-type information.  There are no plans as of yet to explore the Keyblade Wars via a prequel title.

Are there many new worlds to explore that we will see in Birth by Sleep that are new to the Kingdom Hearts series?
Yes, there would be both new worlds and you will also be able to explore the worlds of some of the princesses such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the universe of Lilo and Stitch, since Stitch was featured as a summon before, but the actual Lilo and Stitch universe has yet to be featured in a Kingdom Hearts game.

The next question brought on probably the most conversation.

What changes or additions will the North American version of Birth by Sleep see?
His answer was that there would be many changes and additions.  For one, there would be several completely original, optional bosses for North American fans to tackle.  These bosses would also be significantly more difficult than anything the Japanese players had gotten to experience in their release.  Nomura said something that surprised us all as well, he told us that North American gamers expected harder games than the Japanese, who he said were almost more casual in their approach to difficulty in video games, that there were more “hardcore gamers” in American than there are in Japan.  I think this surprised everyone in the room who wasn’t actually Japanese.  In the West, we tend to look at Japanese gaming as the Holy Grail of gaming history.  They have the harder games, the longer games, the crazier games.  Japan has historically been the center of our universe in regards to hardware and software, and while the West has seen a significant rise in the past decade, to hear someone say that our games are more difficult was a bit surprising.  Aside from the new bosses, Nomura explained that there would be new items, new mini-games, and even new difficulty level settings.

He brought up that one of the optional bosses though that was added into the North American release, the Japanese testers found it so ridiculously difficult that they would cringe and complain about how excruciatingly challenging it was to fight them.

Will there be a Final Mix version of Birth by Sleep like some of the previous Kingdom Hearts games?
The answer was that no plans had been announced yet, but that Nomura thinks some Japanese gamers might appreciate a Final Mix version that mirrors the North American version due to the additional optional boss fights and new items involved.

The interview ended with a photo-op, bows all around, and some very surprised members of the media exiting the room.  Look for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep in North American retail outlets on September 7, 2010!

I know you know us at Spawn Kill. If there’s any Xbox Live Arcade/PSN game we’ve been excited about lately, it’s been Konami’s revival of their jetpacking possum icon, Sparkster, in Rocket Knight. Never having played the original myself, discovering that Konami had an iconic furry mascot of their own during the 90’s piqued my interest after reading Eric’s hands-on from the Konami Gamer’s Day event, and pushed us to pry an interview out of Tomm Hulett, the Associate Producer on Rocket Knight at Konami Digital Entertainment. Next up? Rocket Knight 2: Possums Gone Wild – Piloting Mechs.

For our readers who haven’t played the original Rocket Knight, can you tell us a little about its history and maybe what inspired you to create an updated version?

Tomm Hulett: Back in the early 90’s, SEGA created a character called Sonic (maybe you’ve heard of him) that could compete with Mario. For the next several years, every game company created some sort of cartoon animal mascot as their entry in the genre. Konami released a game called Rocket Knight Adventures, featuring Sparkster—a possum with a jetpack. But Sparkster was different from the cartoon mascot masses; for one, he didn’t have ‘tude. He was a pretty sincerely little guy, earnest in his desire to save the kingdom of Zephyrus despite his inexperience at the time. He represented Konami at the time very well—the company was making a reputation for really awesome licensed 16-bit games like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs. Sparkster’s game was similar, but obviously wholly original and created by Konami.

I was a big fan of those three games (RKA, Sparkster on Genesis, and Sparkster on SNES) and I felt like Sparkster never got a fair shake. All three of his games felt and controlled differently, and he’d kind of vanished to time… But there was definitely something there, because the game is fondly remembered. So I wanted to bring Sparkster back and give him another shot at stardom.

Other than the visuals, what else can fans of the original look forward to in Rocket Knight?

Tomm Hulett: Really solid gameplay. Sparkster can rocket through the air, and if he hits a wall, he ricochets off it. So you can literally bounce your way up narrow vertical passages. This is a great gimmick! Similar to the pogo jump in Duck Tales or the bionic arm in Bionic Commando. The rocket pack lends itself to attack, exploration, and speed running, so it’s literally the perfect game mechanic for a varied platformer. I wanted to take this element of the original and fully polish it, building the gameplay around it and making sure players could exploit it on many different levels. In the old games the rocket was dangerous, and kind of an “experts only� move. I wanted to open it up and make it simple enough that anyone could feel like they were the ROCKET Knight. (Naturally it will take an expert hand to truly master its potential!)

What challenges, if any, did you come across when updating the classic title?

Tomm Hulett: One of my biggest challenges was just getting it greenlit. Rocket Knight is a project I have always believed in, but a lot of people have to believe in something before it can get made into a game. It’s been a long process that I’ve been hard at work during my entire Konami career. It’s honestly a little strange now that the game is finally out. A big challenge for the whole team at Climax, and something we were all very aware of, was that despite the 3D graphics, our game had to feel 2D. To stay true to the series, we simply couldn’t have the weird floatyness or hit detection issues that are common in 2.5D games. They pulled off a few tricks, but I can say this is a sharp, snappy, tight game. When you need precision, the game lets you have it.

There are a lot of people who love these remakes for the nostalgic music, platforming or simply because of the adorable iconic mascot. What would you say is the one thing that draws you into Rocket Knight?

Tomm Hulett: Two things have always drawn me to Rocket Knight. The first is the general feel of the whole setting and characters. As I said, Sparkster is very earnest and sincere, and he lives in this quaint fantasy kingdom… and then three doors down are the Devotindos (Pigs) and they’re in a huge industrial city. They drive jeeps and mechs and stuff. And the story is all conveyed via pantomime cutscenes (another thing we kept!). I don’t know, it’s very quaint—but not cliché of the time period. It wasn’t ripping off its contemporaries at all. The second thing I like is the potential of the rocket pack mechanic. It’s just a great, really cool idea. In my pitch it said “Rocket packs are the motorcycles of flying.� Who wouldn’t want a rocket pack? We just needed to fully polish and develop how the rocket pack should work. So it was potential in both the gameplay and world that drew me to revive Rocket Knight, and that’s why developing both more fully was my primary goal. Hopefully I can continue doing so in the future!

With the portable systems being able to download games titles like Rocket Knight seem to be a great fit for the portable systems but we normally only see them on Steam, XBLA or the PSN. Was there ever a point where you thought about bringing this title to the DS, PSP or the various Apple products?

Tomm Hulett: When we began this, the DSi hadn’t been announced yet, so that’s one factor. But the bigger factor is game size. Since Rocket Knight was such a hard-fought revival, we didn’t have room to do episodic content or a proof of concept style game. Sparkster only got one shot, and I wanted him to give it everything he had – bold, colorful graphics presented in HD, expansive levels that could be lazily explored or frantically speed-run. Flight stages with cool camera tricks, etc. With everyone’s help, Sparkster could be presented in a variety of formats in the future, but this was his one chance to impress the gaming world at large. Hopefully everyone checks it out.

Finally, what does the Rocket Knight team have in store for us in the future? Will we ever be seeing another Rocket Knight game, another remake of a different classic title, or something all-together fresh from the well?

Tomm Hulett: I’m always working on a variety of things. I would love to do another Rocket Knight. I already know what the story and setting would be! …and maybe a giant robot or two?

Rather than transcribe the entire Q&A session we have provided you with the recording of the call. You will hear an intro from Eric and Dave; part of our very own sports podcast The Away Team, then it will jump right into the call. We’ve also got some gameplay videos that shows off the new football experience that Backbreaker offers. For you iTunes users you can download the interview here. Otherwise, skim down to the bottom of the post to stream or download. Enjoy!

So, how did you get the idea for Frobot?

Andrew Lum: The game was originally titled, “Robot Wars”, and was actually a grand space opera with robots fighting in a great war. Then the game got scaled down to a story about a robot that had to stop a spaceship’s AI that had gone amuck. A few months later, our casual games team was brainstorming tiles for a Match 3 garden game we were working on. We ended up calling the game Flower Paradise. Jonah, our casual games programmer, laughed noting that we had a fixation with the letter F. Fugazo had already developed Fashion Fits, Fishco, and then Flower Paradise. “Let’s add an F and call the game Frobot!â€� Jonah exclaimed.  Everyone burst into laughter at such a ridiculous concept. Naturally, we ran with the idea and redesigned the entire game.

Why did you decide to use the isometric view for battles rather than first-person or third-person?

Andrew Lum: The primary inspiration for Frobot was Wii Play’s Tank mini-game. I loved the simple single screen battles. The isometric view was part of the game challenge as you can hide mines and even yourself behind objects as you battle. The single screen interface allows you to see all enemies and objects on screen at once which really works for this game.

How do you hope to stand out from the countless party games out there with Frobot’s unique brand of multiplayer?

Andrew Lum: Honestly, I don’t think Frobot’s Mulitplaya Mode can be compared to the countless party games out there. Typically party games are fun in short bursts but don’t have enough depth for multiple play sessions. Our Multiplaya has a lot of unique elements like force fields, moving platforms, and teleporters. When you add in all the special weapons each player can develop their own strategies and techniques.

Your gameplay obviously draws comparisons to Wii Play. Was this intentional?

Andrew Lum: Most definitely! Eric (one of the designers) and myself played a lot of Wii Play’s Tanks together. The Single Playa mode also takes a good deal of inspiration from the original Legend of Zelda dungeons as well.

It’s obvious you’re a diehard Nintendo fan, as your reputation precedes you! Even though Frobot is headed for WiiWare, could you see it on a platform such as PSN or XBLA with the upcoming Natal and Move control schemes?

Andrew Lum: I haven’t tried out Natal yet so I have no idea how Frobot could work with it. I have tried the PS3 Move and I have to admit it’s pretty decent. That being said, we have no plans to bring Frobot to PSN or XBLA at this time.

Disco robots — are you a disco fan at all, or did you find that juxtaposition particularly hilarious?

Andrew Lum: I like disco but I’d be lying if I said I was a fan. We really found the concept of disco and robots hilarious and just ran with it. However, we have done a good deal of research into disco music when building the tracks for Frobot.

How much mileage are you expecting players to get out of the single-player campaign?

Andrew Lum: I think it’s safe to say the average player should get 6-8 hours out of Frobot on their first playthrough. We also have Speed Runs that unlock extra Mulitplaya Maps and Hair Picks that unlock new Frobot abilities that extend gameplay.

We’re looking forward to giving the full release of Frobot a spin once it hits the WiiWare stage. Hungry for more? Visit the official website to tide you over and keep checking back at Spawn Kill for more hot interviews like this one!

The main campaign of BFBC was as hilarious as it was action-packed. Did you decide to continue that trend with this game or has the focus shifted more to the intricacies of combat?

Lo Wallmo: We are trying to move more toward a serious tone in this game compared to the last game. I think some people were a little bit put off by the humor. Some people thought it was a little bit too corny, maybe. We tried to move toward a more serious military game, but still maintain the essence of the characters, which is pretty funny. They’re supposed to be funny guys and you’re supposed to feel like they’re real people and not like crazy killing machines.

So you think that’s to create more attachment to the characters, to give them more personality?

Lo Wallmo: I would think so, yeah. The characters have real hearts. You’ll like to experience this adventure together with them.

Has the health system been revamped in any way? It became cumbersome to keep using the shot over and over.

Lo Wallmo: It was a decision we made pretty early to remove that [the shot] and go for a more standard rejuvenating health system, where you duck into cover and recover your health.

Is there a set level cap for the multiplayer? And what of perks, leveling up, etc. like in MW2?

Lo Wallmo: There is a cap at level 25. Our perk system is customizable. You select the kind of bonuses you would like to apply to your character as you unlock them, so for instance if you have more health, you can have that, but you don’t get to do more damage with your explosives. So there is an either/or system, where you select one perk that is available to you — you might want to scope out your gun or you might want more ammo. You can select the perks you want.

Was the same graphics engine used in the original game implemented this time?

Lo Wallmo: Yes, it’s the same, just optimized. There has been a lot of work done to improve the rendering so we can show more cool stuff on the screen.

Can we expect to see a little more character development? I grew to love the characters and hoped for more intimate departures into their personalities with the original game.

Lo Wallmo: The characters have their own ride, each and every one of them, throughout the campaign. You’ll see that they have their ups and down. They’ll definitely be different than they were at the beginning of the game near the ending.

With the popularity of ME2’s Cerberus Network, since you’re launching day-one DLC quite similar to that, can players expect to see any free maps or characters?

Lo Wallmo: Absolutely. There is a pack of maps being announced for launch that are free, but there is also going to be paid DLC, which we will make sure is not as game-changing. There will be more things to supplement the game with later on.

What about BFBC2 should attract players scorned by the bugs and various annoyances brought on by MW2? What are you anticipating will draw in that audience? The multiplayer? A mindblowing campaign?

Lo Wallmo: We really feel like players should have an equal opportunity to enjoy the game and not be bugged by cheaters. That’s why we feel strongly about dedicated servers for this game to keep the important parts of the code away from the players. That’s something we feel strongly about. It should be fair for everyone.

Do you feel that BFBC2 is trying to bring in people with a mind-blowing campaign or is there a focus on one or the other? Or is there a good balance of effort put into both pieces?

Lo Wallmo: Hands down, we are most focused on the multiplayer aspects, as we have a lot of pedigree there from the Battlefield franchise in the past, but we also love creating single-player games and put more focus into it this time around, so I would hope that it’s 50/50, but our heart has been in the multiplayer and online. “Online vehicle warfare” is kind of our tagline. It’s what we like.

How long do you think the campaign is?

Lo Wallmo: About 6 to 10 hours, depending on how you play.

Thanks for doing the interview with us! It was a pleasure!

Thank you.

For those who don’t know what Quick Hit Football is, do you mind giving us a quick rundown on the game and maybe some key features that set it apart from other football titles?

Brandon - Quick Hit Football is a free-to-play football strategy game in which you don’t control the players but instead you coach them. As you play games against the computer or another user you gain points which are called Coach Points (CP) that can be used to upgrade any player’s abilities on your team. During the game you will be picking plays and the actions are carried out by the players so your goal is to utilize the strengths on your team while trying to exploit the weaknesses of your opponent. Everything in the game can be earned though simply playing the game or you can purchase CP from the store. You also have the opportunity to add NFL Legends to your team if and when you have enough CP.

When creating the game we wanted to tap into the free-to-play market where there aren’t many players in the sports space. 5-8 million people buy Madden every year, yet 20 million people play fantasy football and 40 million people watch it every Sunday. It’s a small amount of people who play football games and even smaller gaming online. What we wanted to do is find a way to tap into the 20 million people who play a very stat based football product but won’t ever get on Xbox Live or PSN but love football. With Quick Hit we wanted a game that was accessible, intuitive and at the same time authentic. We tried to make the game less about being good with the controller and more about knowing the game of football. If you get the basics of what football is about and the chess game behind it, then this is really the game for you.

Was it difficult to create a football game with the mindset that you won’t be able to use the NFL License?

Brandon – When we first started we did a lot of surveys of users and obviously using the license will help. We found in these surveys that a lot of people, especially with the younger generation, care less about the license and more about the fact that it’s a free game and an authentic experience. We are rapidly approaching or just past the million user mark in less than six months. I think the work that we’ve done so far proves that theory and it wasn’t a random sampling of people who were trying to be nice. Obviously there is a challenge but they don’t call it the No Fun League for nothing. The license can often times be creative handcuffs and what we have is the opportunity to build whatever we want. In the short term, for us, the hardest thing is rethinking how the game of football is played, how to make it more casual, more so than worrying about the license.

When I first started playing Quick Hit, I noticed there were some ads mainly during time outs and in between quarters. Since then there has been the addition of ads whenever you are waiting for the opponent. Is this something that can be disabled with a paid subscription?

Brandon - We’re in the process now of doing some testing of what works and doesn’t work for the users. We’ve actually increased the frequency, decreased the frequency but increased the display time and now we working on making more event driven like after touchdowns, during time outs, after first downs rather than seeing them all the day. Free to play for sports games is completely new territory. We want to make sure we are able to monetize the product and keep it free but by the same token we don’t want to annoy the gamers playing the game. Subscriptions are something we are looking at and a lot of our customers are asking for that as well. We are looking at different options, what we want to do with it and what will a subscription entail. Would it just be add free or would there be special subscription services only available to subscribers? We are basically looking at different packages and focus testing all of those trying to figure out what makes sense.

I understand that you guys were able to meet with former Steelers coach Bill Cowher to get some insight about coaching. What was the one thing you learned from him, and more importantly, how intimidating is he when he’s not on the sidelines?

Brandon – The chin is legendary and I’m a big Cincinnati Bengals fan in real life and I made sure to give him the business but honestly Coach Cowher was a class act. He was very friendly very receptive and the one thing I really appreciate about him is he is a consummate professional and wants to be great at what he does. He’s just a very genuine guy and he’s very hard working. Everything we threw at him he just took it like a champ and put everything he had in him to do it well. In that sense if he ever came out of retirement and wanted to coach the Bengals I would have a little bit of a problem with it but I’d get over it. As far as what we learned from him, I think we learned a lot in our short time with him. Every single conversation we had he gave us good insight about what it meant to be a coach what it meant to build a cohesive unit as a team, how to evaluate talent and how to take that talent and make your team effective. In a lot of ways those themes is really what Quick Hit Football is all about. I’ve worked with a lot of different folks throughout the years that were cover guys for products and I would have to say working with Coach Cowher was probably one of the most insightful experiences I’ve had in my career.

Is a Facebook- or Twitter-type of integration something you are looking into adding to Quick Hit?

Brandon - Right now we are at a crossroads with the product, we’ve obviously got our first version up and there is a lot of different opportunities for us. For us finding a way to get on Facebook and to get more people is definitely what we are looking at. There aren’t any majors players in the sports arena in Facebook, there are folks like EA trying to get into that space but it’s a lot easier for us to get into that. Their entire market is based on disc based games. If you look at the reaction they received from micro transactions they tried to add in their games it’s much harder for them to establish themselves with that strategy having already established the disc based game. For us getting on these social networking sites is something we always wanted to do and not only that our product is free, just like these sites. The big challenge for us is what are the things that we can add to or take away from the game to make it a bit more appealing to the people who are only used to playing games like Mafia Wars or Farmville. We have some cool ideas for how we can do this but I can’t really get into that right now.

The best part about flash games like Quick Hit Football is being able to jump in and out of a game. Right now there isn’t an option to quit a CPU game and complete it at another time. Is this something that will be added in the future?

Brandon – That’s something that we are definitely looking at. In the interest of a short experience we are looking at training modes, mini games, sudden death mode and shorten quarters. We are looking at all of those things and seeing what makes sense. The ability to save the game and pick it up later is kind of a no brainer when we get into a season mode or franchise mode or ever tournaments. I think it’s something you’ll see from us.

This game seems like a fantasy football fans dream come true, and I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I would love the ability to import a fantasy league to Quick Hit and play it out in real time. With the EA exclusive license this isn’t an option but if that were to expire would this be an option in Quick Hit Football?

Brandon - That’s something that honestly we’ve already gone pretty far down the line in terms of designing it out and how we do it. It’s one of things were EA has the license but if that agreement ever came up and we had the opportunity to do that I think it would be something that would be mad cool.

After our interview we went into a game and Brandon showed me some new features recently added to the title. The first thing  gamers will notice when they sign in to Quick Hit is the Team Page. This brand new profile page will show you everything you need to know about your team. You will see expanded stats, player info and you have the ability to access other Coach’s profile if you want to scout your opponent. This new Team HUB allows gamers to access the best coaches on the leaderboards and see how they train their players, what plays they pick and try to learn from them by looking at their stats. Along with that they also added daily rewards. Every day you log in you will get free CP, you can earn anywhere between 1-50 CP points, giving you an incentive to log in every day.

In terms of gameplay there are a ton of improvements and new features. During the game you will notice there is a FP Meter on the bottom bar now which will show you how much longer you have to go for the next level, in real time. It’s centered at the bottom of the screen and I hate them for doing this. Now that you can see, in real time, how far you are from leveling up you’ll just want to keep playing if you are only a few FP from leveling. Definitely something that kept me up at night in my WoW days and will keep me up when playing Quick Hit. Play-by-play text display has also been added to the in-game hud. Since you are looking at the game from a top down point of view and the players names don’t show up on the screen, the play-by-play will tell you exactly who caught the ball and what the result of the play was. You can toggle this on and off along with the ability to chat in the same window. Again you are seeing the influences of the development team who has worked on MMOs.

There were also some balancing tweaks that were done for offensive and defensive lines along with improvements to pass coverage. The game itself is constantly evolving with updates releasing almost every two weeks, which can be found here. Brandon and Samantha (Director of Communications) stressed the fact that they are very hands-on with the community and they both actively play the game. In fact Samantha and Brandon are proud coaches of high ranking teams in the leaderboads. This is something I can attest to, as Brandon was able to mop the floor with my team.

The one thing I got from the conversation was the team at Quick Hit Football loves what they do and it shows up in the final product. When you have everyone actively playing the game and talking to the community like they do it’s no wonder the free to play title works as well as it does. Quick Hit Football lets fantasy football players utilize their knowledge of the sport and take it to another level. Being able to coach a team and groom your championship squad is something that I’ve always wanted in a football game. Quick Hit is quickly becoming by favorite football game on the market and for anyone who loves the strategy of football but can’t handle the complicated controls, this is the game for you.

I’d like to thank Brandon and Samantha for taking the time to discuss the title with us at Spawn Kill, and if you want to learn more about Quick Hit Football you can always visit their home page or you can head over to the developers diary for everything you need to know about the updates.

Throughout the call no one from the dev team was shy about saying how disappointed they were with last year’s title and mentioned that MLB 2K10 is much improved. Though we didn’t get to have an open Q&A session at the end of the call the developers were able to give us some insight on what they did to make sure they don’t repeat the issues from 2K9.

Here are some of the highlights from the call and if you are interested in listening to the entire call we got that for you as well below the questions. Enjoy!

How much of 2K9 was used in 2K10 and was the game rebuilt from the ground up for the new release?

Sean: We completely rewrote everything from fielding, hitting, pitching, the physics, AI, camera views, swapped up all the animations. We had a lot of work ahead of us because I don’t think any of us were happy with last year nor should we have been. So rather than just trying to touch up last year’s game we just made sure the new game included all the fixes that frustrated people as well as a new, rewritten game.

What new additions were made to the franchise mode and how wide of a range of options are available to the player now?

Jonathan: The biggest new addition is the 40 man roster in franchise for September call up. The draft happens in the middle of the year. Another new addition is the trade finder. You can essentially add any player out on the trade block so other AI teams can make you offers for that player. In addition to that we have compensatory picks for free agents. So in the off season when you’re trying to sign a player you might risk losing a first or second round draft pick and if you lose a high rated player you will also get a compensatory pick.

Since gamers and industry critics have noted that early iterations of MLB series have struggled with technical issues surrounding pitching, hitting and gameplay, was this a primary focus of improvement for 2K10?

Sean: It’s almost an understatement to call it a primary focus of improvement. We didn’t just want to improve, we wanted to nail it. We knew that the core gameplay experience needed improvements across the board but when it came to pitching and hitting we really went beyond focusing on improving. We created an entirely new experience starting with the cameras, different strikes zones, different swing types, different analyzers, different replays and the physics were all rewritten. It was a huge primary focus of improvements.

Has there been improvement to the hitting component aside from the defensive swings? It’s either been too easy or too hard to make solid contact as the big hitters would almost always turn a fastball into a sure homerun and an average player could barely get it out of the infield.

Sean: It has been out of balance in the past. Aside from defensive swing we have made it all about the timing. The days are gone when you can simply hold the influence stick and just paint where you want the ball to go on every swing. It’s all about timing, which is very satisfying. The balls that are hit with more velocity in real life are the ones that are pulled or the ones that a right handed batter sends down the first base line weaker are late swings to the opposite field. The timing was done in a very realistic way that takes care of a lot of complaints of the past.

What determines whether or not the Batter’s Eye feature appears? Is it purely based on their real world skills or are there other factors involved such as the pitchers skills? How often can they see the Batter’s Eye appear in a game?

Sean: When this originally came up the problem we were trying to solve is we were trying to make certain players better in the video game that are good in real life at reaching base and getting walks but didn’t have that skill set in the video game. So what we did was come up with eye rating versus lefties and righties and the batters eye rating drives the frequency of the Batter’s Eye. So the guys that take a lot of walks they have a very high eye rating so they’re going to see it more often. It also helps if they have good timing.

Why did you add the My Player feature in this year’s game?

Ben: It really seems like across the board in all sports titles that are out there right now career modes in general are becoming the popular thing and something that people are expecting to see. It was a big focus for us to be able to add the mode this year. A lot of our early build up and planning went into making My Player in this year’s version. At the same time we had NBA 2K10 come out with My Player and so that was a basis for what we did too. We really felt like it was a hole that we needed to fill with 2K10.

In My Player can you give an estimate on how long it will take to get into the Majors?

Ben: That can really vary there is so much flexibility you can do. You have a lot of flexibility in terms of how you want to play the game. When you actually do play a game you are just playing the moment that your player is directly involved in. You can play though a game in 5 or 10 minutes depending on the situations you end up with. You can also simulate games entirely, you won’t get as many skill points through simulation but if you can do that. Simulating the game might take you a bit longer to get the call to the majors. Playing all the games can get you to the majors in as soon as 10-15 games.

Framerate and online lag was a big issue for last year’s title. What was done to fix the issue s for the upcoming game?

Ben: This was something that was important for us. We felt that there was room for improvement from 2K9. We definitely made sure that we got the framerate up to an acceptable level. That’s a huge part of making the experience good and you are in full control. If you get a little lag or framerate drops, it can take away some of that control from you. It was certainly important for us to make sure we were as optimized in those departments as we could be.

Is there a PC version and how did last year’s response to the PC version go?

Ben: We definitely have a PC version this year too. You will get all the same features you will get in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. I think a lot of the responses were similar across the board, just a lot of room for improvement and we definitely took a lot of the criticism to heart. The PC version just like the other versions is very much improved. The series in general is going much more in the right direction.

Why are you playing as a Big Daddy this time and what is his purpose in BioShock 2?

Zak McClendon (Lead Designer, 2K Marin): Playing as a Big Daddy is actually one of the first things that we decided on with the project. The making of BioShock 2 was challenging. We were looking at ways that we could re-evaluate a lot of things about the game, and the change of the protagonist was one of the best looks into that. Knowing that you play as a Big Daddy, we got to re-examine how the weapons looked, how the character felt,how would the balance of combat be? I think it was a good way for us to bring a fresh perspective to all the gameplay of BioShock. Beyond that, it was something that was hugely requested back then by fans and people who played the first game. It was something you kind of got a glimpse of at the end of BioShock in a way that made people really want to have the drill, the rivet gun, and other cool things that you expected from BioShock. We wanted to deliver on that experience.

In terms of his purpose, Subject Delta is in search of his original Little Sister, so he has a much more personal situation and personal tie to Rapture itself.

On the Big Daddy, theme, how does this prototype differ from the one in the original BioShock?

Zak McClendon (Lead Designer, 2K Marin): The original Big Daddy – the Bouncer and Rosie – they are very slow, lumbering powerhouses, and for something the length of a single-player game, we knew that that level of power was really suggestive to people. We knew we couldn’t do another game where you were sort of trudging around at the slow, lumbering pace of those Big Daddy characters, so Subject Delta is a lot more agile than the classic Big Daddies. He obviously can use plasmids and a greater range of weapons, but the big difference of course is that he has free will and is able to make his own choices and his own moral choices as the story goes on as well.

What role do Little Sisters play in BioShock 2?

Jordan Thomas (Creative Director, 2K Marin): Little Sisters, beyond being pivotal for the plot of the game, your goal is to track down your original Little Sister. From a gameplay perspective, they both do what they did in BioShock — accompanying Big Daddies, going around and gathering from corpses — but they also supply one of the big new gameplay additions for BioShock 2, which is adoption. You’re a Big Daddy yourself, so when you fight another Big Daddy, you can actually adopt the Little Sister and form kind of a partnership. She’ll lead you to bodies around Rapture that have ADAM in them, and it becomes kind of an often dynamic scenario where you place her down on an ADAM-filled corpse and you have to protect her while she’s gathering. It leads to a different kind of gameplay dynamic, still very optional, just like the Big Daddy optional boss fights, these are optional, but they lead to a different, lateral-thinking with how you use your tools and your defenses. You can partner up with Little Sisters throughout the course of the game and build that Big Daddy/Little Sister relationship that we knew was part of the overall Big Daddy fantasy.

We know Big Daddies played a pivotal protecting role in the first game. What about the Big Sisters? Where were they in BioShock 1?

Jordan Thomas (Creative Director, 2K Marin): Big Sisters are actually grown-up Little Sisters. There are only a few Little Sisters in Rapture — only a few that escaped the great pull. Those who have grown up and become physically unstable. The ADAM that they have been injecting for years and years and years has begun to manifest. That’s really where they were. They were gathering from corpses.

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Some intriguing insights from the devs themselves! Of course, this has only begun to whet our appetite for a second helping of Little Sister-laden goodness, and we know you’re chomping at the bit for more as well. Check out our upcoming primer for newcomers to the BioShock mythos, A Newcomer’s Guide to Rapture, and our full review of this long-anticipated sequel in the weeks to come.

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Note: The staff of Spawn Kill is not responsible for these questions. Credit goes to the respective outlets who submitted them. Thanks for participating, guys!

“Initially, ACE Team had offered to demonstrate the new moves in Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition in person for the Atlus staff,” chuckled a grimacing Aram Jabbari, Manager of Public Relations and Sales for Atlus.  “We all thought they were kidding when they talked about cool-sounding moves like the ‘headbutt’ and ’spin kick.’  After a week in the hospital, I’m happy to say that fans can expect to find those and equally punishing new attacks in Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition, and that the moves deliver the same satisfyingly visceral feel as all the other injury-inducing first-person melee combat Zeno Clash has to offer.  In other good news, the doctor says the swelling on my head will go away in about a month or so.”

For more info on the game, which is set to release March 30, 2010, exclusively for XBox Live Arcade, check out http://www.zenoclash.com, or scroll down for an ACE Team roundtable interview, discussing frequently asked questions about the upcoming title.

• 1. Can you talk a little about your role in the production of Zeno Clash?

Carlos: In Zeno Clash I basically worked as co-design lead with Andres Bordeu and also as an artist and producer. I even worked in audio. When you form an independent studio and are developing your first game, you end up working in a lot of different areas, which can be quite overwhelming, but also very interesting and fun.

Edmundo: I worked in art direction, writing, 3d and 2d artwork, level design… just as Carlos, I worked in a lot of different areas.

• 2. Where did you get the idea to do a game of this type? How did you come up with such a strange world?

Carlos: We drew a lot of inspiration from unconventional sources and decided to avoid basing our work on current popular trends. We looked at the medieval punk fantasy art of John Blanche of the 1980’s, the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and the movie ‘The Dark Crystal’. We knew we had to make a game with a distinct style and a lot of visual impact… that was our goal.

Edmundo: When writing the story, I decided to take the term “punk fantasy� seriously, and deduct from that concept what the world could be like: I thought it should be a land without a state or authority of any kind, where every character has his own values, which of course would create a very chaotic society. But I still thought it would be good to have some kind of authority figure in the world to be the antagonist of the story.

The only form of authority which has never disappeared in the world is the natural authority parents have over their children, so that influenced the creation of the “Father-Mother� character, who is the most powerful creature in the city because he/she has many children.

• 3. How did you go about refining the first-person fighting mechanics? Did you look at any other games to see how they approached it?

Carlos: The very first approach we did to first person combat mechanics was before several first person fighting games like ‘Condemned’ and ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ were released. Our first version of this game was developed many years ago on former Lithtech’s Jupiter System (the engine of the game ‘No One lives Forever 2’), but that project was unsuccessful and we had to re-think our design when we evolved to the Source Engine. I think it is fortunate that we designed our own approach to melee combat before many of the more popular melee fighting games were released, because we basically designed this from our own angle instead of trying to implement it in a way that someone else did and to try to improve that. We obviously had a look at what was done in other titles, but we used it as a reference to see what felt better and what felt worse compared to our own solution.

• 4. Although the central idea is first-person brawls, there are other stages where things are mixed up a little, like boss stages where you use a hammer or a rifle. How much effort was it to keep things fresh, both from a gameplay and world design perspective?

Carlos: It was a lot of effort because of the work involved in adding new features and also because for the PC game basically David Caloguerea was the only programmer. I really think that for a project this size David did an incredible job. Adding any new game mode meant a whole bunch of extra work from the development team and I still am quite impressed that we were capable of doing all we had to do.

It was very important for us to break apart from the regular melee combat from time to time. I think the game would have been too repetitive if we would have only based it on fighting levels. But it is important to say that we are adding new attacks and weapons to the Ultimate Edition and this will make the combat even more varied and interesting.

Andres: Actually, when we developed some of the alternative stages we were somewhat concerned that the new gameplay mechanics would feel underdeveloped when compared to the rest of the game. Our first iterations of the ‘endworld’ section were a little dull so we spent a lot of time thinking how to create an interesting experience that allowed you to take a break from the hectic combat. Surprisingly though, after the game was released, we read many very positive comments from those sections. Many people enjoyed the change of pacing –even during the boat trip level where the game is focusing on character development and the player is confined to a small space.

• 5. How did the idea to do a 360 version come about?

Carlos: We always wanted to create a game for all platforms, but for a startup studio getting a game published on a console is too hard (especially if you’re from Chile). It was the success of the PC game which has allowed us to create a special version for the Xbox 360, and we’re very happy to be able to reach the console crowd with our bizarre title.

Andres: We were approached on more than one occasion by Microsoft before we teamed up with Atlus. The game generated a lot of buzz and the post release scenario put us in touch with a lot of people. We got many requests from the community to get the game on the Xbox 360 and we felt it would fit really well in the XBLA catalogue.

• 6. Are you going to make any tweaks or changes based on feedback from the PC version?

Carlos: Definitely! One of the main changes is adding coop play for the tower challenges. We have been asked for some sort of multiplayer component for a long time and we’re happy to be including that now. There are several things we are doing with the game… I definitely think there is going to be a lot of new content to look at.

Andres: We’re always listening to the feedback we get from the game community. As developers we’re really active at the official forums discussing with people who are playing the game or just want to learn more about the crazy world we created. We’re also always on the lookout for reviews and media reactions. It’s important for us to stay in touch with our fans and the media because through their input we can improve our future games. We’re going to be really active in the web after we release ‘Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition’.

• 7. Anything else you’d like to tell people about Zeno Clash?

Carlos: The game is a surreal adventure in a completely alien world, and it’s like nothing else out there. I think a lot of console gamers will be impressed by the game and those who might think it is a bit too weird for them: Play the trial when it is out and give it a try. I’m sure you’ll be surprised. Where else can you play a game where the antagonist is a huge hermaphrodite creature, eh?

[Source: Atlus]

And in a particularly interesting turn of events, Knight was kind enough to divulge his thoughts on the criticism surrounding the video game adaptation, admitting that the game is a “bastardization” of the original poem, but its merits far outweigh the criticism levied against it. You can check out Knights’ insightful answers to the questions I was lucky enough to ask below to prep yourself for the February 9th release. We’ll see you in hell!

There are a lot of animated scenes sprinkled throughout the game. Is there any interest in making a feature film similar to what was done with Dead Space Extraction?

Jonathan Knight: Well, we have made an animated feature. It’s with Film Roman and Starz, the same partners we made the Dead Space one with. It’s coming out in February, with the game, so we have done one and we’re really excited about that project and you should be able to check that out soon.

Why the Divine Comedy? Is this an idea you had from the start, or were you sitting around discussing literature and decided “Hey, that’d make a great game?”

Jonathan Knight: Myself and the team were really interested in the topic of Hell as a setting for a video game, and what I think was particularly interesting was the medieval vision of Hell with the Christian mythos. You know, like what Hell would be like, who goes there and why. Historically, it’s a fascinating topic to research, and how we came to decide to use this kind of theological institution and what the rules were about who goes to Hell, and what it looks like there. Not everybody believes that it was a terra firma kind of place.

Dante Alighieri basically took all the thinking and synthesized it to a very imaginative vision, something allegorical, but he personalized it so that it was a real place. You had the nine circles, towers, rivers, and monsters and creatures and he basically mapped out Hell. We went from this interesting topic to falling in love with his vision of it, and we said we’d just do a video game based around what he wrote.

How do you respond to all the critics claiming that you “bastardized” the poem? How do you feel about that?

Jonathan Knight: Yes, we have done a very loose adaptation. Sure, it’s a bastardization in the sense that it’s a bastard child of the original material. I think that’s completely fair. We definitely used the source material as the foundation for the game. We are very, very familiar with it and I think anyone who read the poem and will play the game, they will recognize hundreds and hundreds of references and touch points that we injected into the game, and a tremendous amount of material from the poem. But the main thing I would say is that the game is actually pushing people to read the poem. It’s like a gateway into getting people interested in The Divine Comedy and Dante and we’ve just seen over and over people writing in to us and on our Facebook fan page, saying “Yeah, I just picked up a copy of the poem. I’m reading it and I want to know more about it because the game is going to be interesting.” I’ve had school teachers come up and say the same thing to me. So I think the main response I would have is, lots of people are going to read The Divine Comedy that otherwise would not have. Dante’s in the spotlight after 700 years, and if you’re a Dante fan, that can’t be a bad thing. In fact, real students and scholars have told me that their professors were the ones who told them about the game.

I really do think we have a celebration of this great character and in a word, it kind of breaks the gap between very inaccessible literature and exposes it to a wider audience that’s playing video games. I think [the game] is a good way to do it, and at the end of the day it will get more attention and more people will read the poem because of it.

He’s the brains behind Video Games Live, a colossal celebration of gaming and the tunes that make us the feel the things we do. I was lucky enough to chat with him regarding the concert series, his start in the industry, and several other topics. He’s a great guy with a rather inspiring (and lucky) background, and I hope you guys enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed speaking to Tommy.

How did you get your start in the gaming industry?

Tommy: My two greatest loves growing up were video games and music, but I never really thought to ever put the two together until I moved out to California when I was 21 years old. I just got in my car and I drove out west, left my parents crying on the doorstep [laughs]. I didn’t have a job, money, I had no friends, no place to stay, nothing. I just drove to California and the first day I got there — the only thing I ever really knew was Disneyland, so I set out for Orange County. When I got there I saw a job opening for selling keyboards at Guitar Center. I went down there and they hired me, and the first person the next day, the first person who walked in, happened to be a producer at a video game company called Virgin. I was wearing a TurboGrafx 16 shirt — a video game T-shirt — which, back then, 20 years ago, no one had video game T-shirts. [laughs] He saw my shirt and he asked if I wanted a job testing games. I was like “Hell yeah!” I was hired right there. I was in California for three days and I was in the video game industry.

I was hired as a tester, and every day I would come to work and bug the president to let me do music and finally the first game we worked on was the original Prince of Persia game, and I did the music for it and won an award, so they made me the music guy. Now that was 20 years ago. [laughs]

That’s impressive. You went there without anything and you just made such a name for yourself.

Tommy: Yeah!

That’s something I’d like to do — just run over to California and see what’s available. I need to just go out there and do it, I guess!

Tommy: Totally.

Have you always been musically inclined? Did you always want to make music, or did you just want to get into the industry however you could?

Tommy: I was always into music. I started playing the piano when I was three years old. I come from a musical family. My cousin is Steven Tyler from Aerosmith.

I remember you mentioning that!

Tommy: Yeah, his real name is Steven Tallarico. [laughs] I’ve just happened to play naturally. I never took lessons and I never went to school for music, but it was something I always wanted to do.

Impressive! I’m glad it worked out for you. When you compose music, what is your thought process like? Would you prefer to write it down or do you play the game you’re composing for in order for images to flow through your head?

Tommy: For me, it’s all about emotion. I really want to know the emotions of the character. What are they doing? Are they being chased or are they chasing someone? Are we happy, are we sad, are we scared? Are we searching for something? For me, it’s always about the emotion of the scene. Yeah — sometimes I actually play the game. Other times, I’ll only have a screen shot or art from the level because the game isn’t finished yet. It depends. Playing the game is obviously the coolest way to do it. Then I just sit there and wait for stuff to come to my head and figure it out on the piano. Then I’ll put it in the computer, depending on the style of music (like if it’s orchestral) and add the whole orchestra. Once I get it in there, I’ll record it with a live orchestra or live musicians.

Sounds fun. I know it has to be pretty hard to simply look at a picture and envision how you’d like for the game to sound.

Tommy: Eh, not really.

It seems like it would be difficult! But I’m not a musician.

Tommy: [laughing] There you go!

What do you ultimately hope to accomplish through Video Games Live? What would you like to do (other than make money, of course)?

Tommy: My goal was to prove to the world how socially significant video games have become. That’s why I created the show like I did. It’s not just a symphony on stage doing video game music, but what makes it really unique is that it has massive video screens, synchronized video and rock and roll lighting, special effects. I kind of like to describe Video Games Live as having all the power and emotion of a symphony combined with the energy and excitement of a rock concert mixed together with all the cutting-edge technology, visuals, and interactivity and fun that video games provide. We really want to reach a bigger audience, you know? Not just for gamers, but something for everyone so that even people who don’t play video games are able to follow along.

I’ve noticed that. I’ve been to three of your shows. I’ve worked at a couple of them and I’ve met a lot of people who have said “You know, I don’t really play video games,” — who came with their son or daughter — and they leave totally impressed. I always think to myself “Wow, that’s great!” because now they understand.

Tommy: Yay!

Do you have a favorite video game composer? Mine has to be Nobuo Uematsu.

Tommy: Yeah, I’d say it’s probably him or Koji Kondo, who did Mario and Zelda.

Definitely.

Tommy: I’d say Uematsu’s probably the greatest composer in our industry for sure. I think my favorite work from him as a body of work is probably Final Fantasy VIII. I like that whole score.

Oh, me too. Especially the Balamb Garden theme.

Tommy: Lots of great stuff on there. I like “Eyes on Me,” “Liberi Fatali”…lots of awesome work.

Liberi Fatali is a classic. Always will be. Now, do you have a favorite game that you’ve worked on? I’m a big fan of your work in Advent Rising.

Tommy: Advent Rising was very special to me. It didn’t sell very well and it wasn’t popular, [laughs] but yeah, I loved creating the music for it because I wrote it as an Italian opera and that was something I always wanted to do, so that was kind of fun. Earthworm Jim was another game back in the early 90s that I really enjoyed working on. It was just so much fun. I’d say Earthworm Jim and Advent Rising are two different reasons.

Earthworm Jim was awesome. I actually had forgotten that you worked on it, silly me! Speaking of awesome music, what selections (if any) would you like to add to the roster for Video Games Live in the coming shows? If you could add anything but there’s something holding you back…anything.

Tommy: There’s nothing really holding us back, but we always have stuff on the list that we always want to add to the show. For example, recently we have added things like Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill, Mega Man, Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger…next on the list we’re adding Super Smash Bros. We’re actually working on an Earthworm Jim segment right now. You know, probably add Street Fighter. We get a lot of requests for Pokemon. That’s the great thing about the industry. There’s so much in content and material. It’s easy to draw from these great libraries.

And there’s always going to be more. There are constantly new games.

Tommy: Exactly! We’re playing music now from games that haven’t even come out yet like StarCraft II and Diablo III music already.

I think the last time I went you guys did some StarCraft music.

Tommy: Oh, great!

Is there a composer that you’d like to work with on a game sometime?

Tommy: Yeah! I’d probably say Nobuo Uematsu or Koji Kondo. I was asked the end of last year by Sega of Japan to compose some music for the latest Sonic the Hedgehog game back then. I created three songs for Sonic and the Black Knight. I worked together with the composer, so that was pretty awesome. It was a great honor for me.

I can imagine a lot of people share that ambition. I’m no musician, but it’d be an honor for me as well to work among such talented artists.

Tommy: [laughs] Oh yeah.

So what was the very first song in a video game that jumped out at you and caught your attention?

Tommy: Probably Donkey Kong back in the 80s, as simple as it was, but it had the first catchy beat in my realm of video game music.

I’d probably go with Pac Man.

Tommy: Yeah! Pac Man was a year later, so yeah. [laughs] That was around that time, for sure. Pac Man would be my number 2, for sure.

I can’t get it out of my head when I’m listening to it.

Tommy: Actually, that’s another one that we’re working on — Pac Man. We don’t it have in the show yet.

Would love to hear that, especially with your usage of The Go! Team’s Pac Man video at the beginning of each show.

Tommy: Yeah, with Ms. Pac Man going through the streets of New York?

Loved it. Had to look it up on YouTube and favorite it as soon as I got in that night.

Tommy: [laughs]

Do you think you’ve achieved what you have set out to do with Video Games Live as a whole so far?

Tommy: Yeah, so far we’re really happy with the level of interest and success. We play about 60 shows a year and always playing new countries, so we’re really spreading video game music around the world. It’s been great, but we still have more to go. We have countries we haven’t played yet. And the great thing about our show is that we’ve created over 60 segments for Video Games Live, but we can only play about 20 of them a night. So, every year, we come back and we want to present new material and a new show. The next show you’ll see will have a bunch of new material you haven’t seen before. We always try to keep it interesting.

I hope I’ll see it. Are you guys going to come back to Louisville? You weren’t here this year!

Tommy: We want to play there every year. It’s all up to the symphonies to make some time for us. So do us a favor and write the symphonies and tell them “We want Video Games Live back!”

What’s your favorite game? I know it’s hard to pick. I can’t do it myself. Don’t be afraid to say more than just one!

Tommy: Probably Super Mario World. It’s one of my favorites. I enjoyed its layout and design and everything about it.

Most people want to pop off with Halo or BioShock or something silly like that, when they’re overlooking the classics. That’s got to be one of the best games ever. All of the Mario titles, especially Super Mario Bros. 3.

Tommy: That was another great one.

How did you get your start on TV with Judgment Day and Electric Playground?

Tommy: Victor Lucas, the guy who helped create the show, wanted to do an interview with me at E3. This was back in 1994 or something. He interviewed me and the interview went so well he asked me to be the co-host of the show. He hadn’t started the show yet, but he was shooting the pilot for it. We had a really good screen presence together. He asked if I wanted to host the show together, and I said “Sure, why not?”

That’s fun. I used to watch it on G4 before, well, I don’t want to say when it got bad, but…

Tommy: No, no, say it. Don’t pull any punches. G4 sucks. [laughs]

I’d never expect you to agree!

Tommy: Yeah, G4 back when it was not shitty.

Yeah, G4 was great back then. I used to watch Judgment Day every day, what with your “Trooooooooooon!” outbursts. That’s how I first heard of you. I had no idea that you actually composed music back then.

Tommy: A lot of people just know me as “that review guy who always gives games crappy scores.”

Right! The short angry guy. People would refer to you as that and I would say “He’s not angry, he’s just honest!” [laughs]

Tommy: I had to be the bad cop to Vic’s overly good cop. [giggles]

It was a great show. Miss it. So which composers have inspired you?

Tommy: My favorite composer of all time is Beethoven. The music of John Williams was also another big influence, but I’d probably have to say Beethoven, and of course Steven Tyler — seeing him up on stage and thinking “If he can do it, I can do it!” Kind of a wacky combination: Steven Tyler, John Williams, and Beethoven.

Since Steven’s got his own music game have you ever been interested in putting your hand in creating a music/rhythm game?

Tommy: Yeah! In fact, I was the one who hooked Steven up with Activision to do tht game. We were actually kicking the idea of doing a Video Games Live game or something for the iPhone. The problem is getting all of the different rights to the music, because none of the companies want to be on the same game together. We’re trying to figure out a way around that, but it’d be cool to do something like that.

Definitely. Do you have any favorite music games or would you rather not play them since you’re so immersed in the musical world already?

Tommy: Oh, no, no, I love music games. They’re great. Yeah, you know, I play Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band, really looking forward to Guitar Hero: Van Halen. But I have to say Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, or else Steven would get mad at me, so I have to say that one. [laughs]

Right. Wouldn’t want to anger family! Well, I know you’re busy, but are there any current games that you’re playing?

Tommy: I’ve been playing a lot of portable games, because I’m always on the road, so a lot of DS and PSP. I’ve been playing Indiana Jones: The Staff of Kings on the PSP, so basically the PSP and DS are all I play. Also, on my PC I installed Beyond Good and Evil. I never finished that game and it’s one of my favorites, so I installed it on my PC.

It’s a great game. Can’t wait for the sequel…whenever it comes out.

Tommy: I know! I heard that they put it on hold, though. That sucks. They’d better come out with that.

I think we’re just about finished here, but I have one last question for you. What are your plans for the future of Video Games Live?

Tommy: Keep taking it around the world. I’d like to keep seeing new cities and different countries. We’ve been to a lot of places, but there are still some places that we haven’t been yet. We get a lot of requests from Russia, the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece. This year alone we’ve been to countries we’ve never been to before, like Japan, Poland, and Ireland. That’s the cool thing. Wherever we go around the world, there’s always demand for video game music. I think that says a lot. It’s pretty rare that music crosses all international boundaries, like a band that may be big in the USA may not be big in Japan or a band that’s a hit in Brazil might not be big in Germany. To have this universally-loved music around the world says a lot about the game industry.

It’s certainly a transcendental medium. Well, thank you for answering all of these questions. I’m sure you’re a busy man and we really appreciate it.

Tommy: Cool, thanks.

For more information on Tommy and Video Games Live, you can visit the official site here. Thanks for participating in the interview!

Molotov Cupcake: I encountered “30 Lives” while playing DDR X. It was a pleasant surprise to find a band cheekily tossing in one of the most widely-known codes in the history of gaming! Tell us about your history as gamers.

Michael Epstein: I’ve had a long history, so bear with me here! When I was quite young, my father had bought a pong system.  It wasn’t the very first one that was made, but it was early.  It also included the very first gun games.  I would shoot at boxes on a 12″ black and white TV.  Soon after that, we got a Colecovision with Atari 2600 adapter system, so I could play both Coleco (e.g., Turbo – with steering wheel – and Smurf) and Atari games.  Back around then, I also started playing games on a Vic 20, the predecessor to the Commodore 64.  You loaded them off a tape drive.  It used regular audio cassettes, but they weren’t much fun to listen to and loading a game took about 10 minutes. 

When I hit 6th grade, I got seriously into the Commodore 64 – joined a local gaming club and all that.  That was probably my heaviest gaming period and the era of my favorite game of all time, M.U.L.E. This was probably also the first major era of cheat codes becoming a regular part of gaming.  I subscribed to  Commodore Magazine and one of the columns Commodore contained was called Gold Mine (by Louis F. Sander) and it featured gaming tips and tricks – including cheat codes and game hacks.  I actually wrote one in for a game called The Last Ninja and it got published both in the magazine (January 1989 issue, page 100 – http://www.scribd.com/doc/14573079/Commodore-Magazine-Vol10N01-1989-Jan ) and in a book that collected many of the columns. My tip said, “The Last Ninja: To get past the Dragon throw the smoke bomb right under him. With practice you’ll hit and he’ll cripple down.”  I was pretty young, so please pardon my strange phrasing.

A little later on, I got a Sega Master System.  I got that over the NES because everyone I knew had an NES.  I also actually won a TurboGrafx-16 in a newspaper contest, so I played that for a bit, but it never really grabbed me.  My sister started getting into gaming around this time and she got an NES and a Game Boy.  I picked up an Atari Lynx, the first color handheld console.  It didn’t have a lot of great games, but it was pretty awesome anyway.  I still have it around somewhere.

Around ages 12-14, I spent more or less every single day at the mall arcade.  I didn’t have a lot of money, so I found that I had to get good at games quickly in order to stay occupied.  When I was down to my last 50 cents every day (many days, all I had was 50 cents), I would play one game of Street Fighter and one game of Double Dragon.  Street Fighter was tough to consistently beat.  The last two guys (Adon and Sagat) in Thailand (spelled incorrectly as Tailand in the game if I recall correctly!) were never easy even if you were pretty good at the game.  I could always get up to them if left to play.  However, usually, most of the evening was spent with lines of people showing up to try and challenge.  I almost always won when I was on the Ryu side.  On the Ken side, I was a little slower, but still pretty good.  Playing the game every day for a year or so makes you pretty unstoppable. 

After I finally lost, I’d head over to Double Dragon, which was less popular by this time, so it was usually available.  I got good enough at the game that I always beat it.  Every single time.  I actually beat the game once without even getting hit.  Usually I screwed up something along the way and got offed once before I rescued Marian from Machine-Gun Willy. I found it interesting that my two go-to games were Double Dragon and Street Fighter because I had always heard a rumor that their names were switched in production.  I am sure this is not true, but it makes more sense that Street Fighter should be called Double Dragon and Double Dragon should be called Street Fighter.

I was also pretty heavily into PC gaming in my high school years and played a lot of competitive games like Warlords, Doom, and Star Control.  We had a network of PCs at our high school and when I took a computer science class, our teacher would sometimes let us get away with playing Doom.  It was the first time I had ever played a networked game (apart from playing text MUDs on the pre-web Internet) and it was a pretty amazing experience at the time. 

Once I headed off to college, my gaming time decreased significantly and I mostly only played games heavily if someone I lived with had them.  Our apartment was heavily into Mortal Kombat 3 for a while.  I played it a lot and got pretty good.  I would play against people with less experience without looking at the screen and still easily beat them.  I played a lot of Halo for a period.  My roommate had purchased two Xbox systems so that we could have 4 vs. 4 team Halo in our apartment. 

Nowadays, I have very little time for gaming (or any recreation really), so I am pretty limited to games that are quick, can be learned easily, and played with a bunch of friends (so it is part of socializing).  Mostly, that means Wii games.  Right now, at my house, it’s the only game system I really have. We play Mario Kart, Rock Band, Boom Blox, and Wii Fit mostly. I also bought a PS2 just to play DDR X.  I have DDR Universe 3 for Xbox 360, but I don’t own a 360.  I’ll most likely get one in the near future.

Molotov Cupcake: So how did you guys get started, anyway?

Michael Epstein:  The band formed out of a studio project that I was working on originally just as a last way to document music I had written before I essentially retired from actively pursuing music.  Then, a funny thing happened.  People started responding really well to it.  College radio was all over it, SPIN wrote about it, and it more-or-less immediately felt like something that was worth continuing.  So, we all got together and sort of figured out how to make it happen as a real band and how to turn it into a good live show, etc. 

It was interesting because the day we played our first show ever, one of the issues of SPIN Magazine that we were featured in came out. We all kind of looked at it and thought damn, we better actually make what we do with this band worthy of the attention we’re getting.  So, we worked really hard, especially early on.  We videotaped ourselves performing and figured out how to not be boring on stage.  Things like that.  It actually has worked out that four of us in the band now have just worked really well together.  I was certainly afraid of what would happen as we moved forward and operated more collaboratively to arrange the songs and craft them into presentable works, but I think we’re getting better at it every day, so I am enjoying the fact that we are still growing in this area almost 4 years into this.

Molotov Cupcake: How did the DDR deal come about? Were you fans of the game before being featured within them?

Michael Epstein: I brought “30 Lives” to the band and expected some serious eye rolling.  It was much sillier, at least on the surface, than anything we had been doing and I kind of wondered if I walked in with that song, how everyone would react. Well, it turned out that they were all into it.  Once they all gave it their approval, I pushed it further.  I told them we had to do a little dance to it when we performed the song.  They were game.  Finally, I said, okay, if we make a dance remix of this song, I can get it into DDR.  That was literally the explicit goal and motivation for making the dance remix.  I loved the DDR series the first time I saw it.  I didn’t get to play it much because there are so few arcades these days.  I had looked into getting a home version, but I had my heart set on getting a real setup and not just a soft-pad version.  So, it never really came together and I never managed to play at home.  Whenever I was at an arcade, I was sure to play.  The problem with getting good at it was that the game was always swarmed with kids who were amazingly good and it was tough to bring yourself to play in front of them.  They had sweatbands and towels and stuff that they had brought for their DDR sessions.  I am just some uncoordinated dude.  So, while I did always jump at the chance to play, I was never very good at it.

Once we had the dance remix made, I basically sent it in to Konami and they loved it!  Music director Stillwind Borenstein, who very sadly passed away recently, sent me an e-mail that said, “I have heard many songs in the past which include references to our games, but I have yet to hear one turn the legendary 30 lives into an undeniably catchy love song. I think it will be a great addition to our game.”  Needless to say, I was EXTREMELY excited about this! I had been very cocky telling people about how they’d love the song and we’d get it into DDR, but the reality was, I never thought it would actually happen.  When the band first got together and saw the game, we were all jumping up and down with ear-to-ear grins chanting, “We’re in a video game! We’re in a video game!”

Molotov Cupcake: Your music seems to span a wide variety of genres – have you ever thought about experimenting with that of chiptune to match the obvious taste in video game culture?

Michael Epstein: I think that would be a lot of fun.  We pride ourselves on playing a pretty wise range of styles within the context of our instrumentation and interests.  Right now, we hardly do anything “electronic” in our normal writing and performing, so it would be a pretty grand departure.  I’ve done a lot of work with MIDI (and MOD even) in the past, so I do have some experience with similar types of things.  Only the future knows…

Molotov Cupcake: Have you noticed much more of a wider response after being featured in such a popular title as DDR? People do seem to overlook it as a marketing tool when it comes to discovering new artists.

Michael Epstein: Absolutely!  I think a lot of bands nowadays know that video games are a huge market, particularly with the popularity of music games. It presents us with an interesting problem of sorts.  We play mostly 21+ (or at least 18+) shows because that is just what is generally available and a lot of the fans we’ve been getting through DDR are younger.  We’ve been trying to figure out how to reach them.  We thought about doing an arcade tour or a gaming store tour or something, but it hasn’t yet happened.  That is one of the reasons that we’re very excited to be part of Game Unicon this weekend.  It will give us a chance to reach out to that audience.  We love meeting people and playing shows for all different types in all different settings, so it’s always a joy to expand our audience, particularly into an area where we have such rich personal histories and interests.

Molotov Cupcake: You’re in the music business, so I have to ask – are you all interested in Guitar Hero or Rock Band? Plan on infiltrating the games if possible?

Michael Epstein: I never really loved Guitar Hero.  I played it a bit, but it never really struck me as much fun.  When Rock Band came out, I was immediately hooked!  I love the idea that a group of people can play together and work together as a band.  I also really love playing the drums in Rock Band.  That may be partly rooted in the fact that I can’t really play an actual drum set.  I am terrible at it.  The rest of the stuff – guitar, bass, and singing, I do pretty regularly on real instruments, but the fake drums are a lot of fun. 

As for getting our stuff into Rock Band…yes! We are in the process of preparing several of our songs for inclusion in the Rock Band store.  We’re hoping to get them out to the world before the end of 2009.

Molotov Cupcake: Was “30 Lives” written for anyone special? I know I’d love to be serenaded via video game nods in a song. Come on, you can tell us!

Michael Epstein: I actually appreciate you saying this very much.  I wrote “30 Lives” for my wife, who is also a musician – she drums and sings (and I play bass) in the band Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling ( http://www.donotforsake.com).  She kept joking with me that I never wrote a love song for her.  Neither one of us tends to write songs with very positive messages.  So, after she asked me a few times, I decided I would do it.  I pondered it while doing some mindless painting – painting walls that is.  We’ve all heard so many love songs and it really felt like there was nothing left to say regarding love, so I stepped back and tried to think of something new.  While rolling a brush across the ceiling, it hit me…I had never heard a song about reincarnation and spending more than one lifetime together.  Great, I had a new angle, but I didn’t want it to seem new agey or something, so I kept thinking.  Aha! In video games, you get multiple lives!  Almost immediately, it became clear that a song about using the Konami Code to get “30 Lives” to spend with a partner was it and somewhere in the middle, we’d chant the Konami Code with select start at the end to signify two players.  My wife hasn’t totally accepted this as fulfilling her demands.  She says it’s about video games instead of love, but it was intended as a love song first and a video game song second.

Molotov Cupcake: If you could incorporate any other video game-themed cheat code or meme (such as “all your base…”), what would it be and how would you go about doing it?

Michael Epstein: I actually wrote a song called “Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb (All Your Base Are Belong to [Old Band Name Here])” a long while back.  I have it somewhere. I can’t even remember how it goes except that I know it was terrible.  Inspiration is funny. If I try too hard to force it – like writing an All Your Base song because All Your Base is popular, it turns out pretty awful.  It all just kind of needs to happen naturally like “30 Lives” did.  Maybe I need to hang out in some paint fumes for a few days and another game-related song will arise.  I’d love to write a song about M.U.L.E. someday.  I once knew someone who played in a ska band that covered the theme song.

Molotov Cupcake: Thanks so much!  Give us the dates you’ll be appearing at the Game Unicon and we’ll definitely give you some massive pluggage.

Michael Epstein: Thanks a ton!  We’re playing the 8/22 Saturday concert with Bang Camaro, PowerGlove, Jesus Candy, and Planetoid. Tickets and info at: http://www.gameunicon.com

A big thanks goes out to Michael Epstein of The Motion Sick, as well as the rest of the band for agreeing to the interview!

Molotov Cupcake: The zombie maps seem to keep evolving into a fleshed-out experience, even adding character bios and real playable characters to take control of rather than faceless soldiers. Is this a hint toward a move to creating a separate Nazi Zombies spinoff title?

Josh Olin: CoD:WaW’s Zombie mode is a really long story… The short version is: we never really knew how popular it was going to be. It started as just a side-project for some of the developers here during the development of CoD:WaW (like a mod), but rapidly began growing in popularity within the studio. It got to the point where most people were spending their free time playing it, so we decided it would be cool to dedicated some resources to polish it up and put it on the disc for all to enjoy.

After the game shipped, we quickly realized just how much of a Zombie epidemic was sweeping our online community. It became very clear that we had the opportunity to really blow the feature out with downloadable content.

So that’s precisely what we did with Verruckt, Shi No Numa, and most recently Der Riese. Each Map Pack brought this iterative improvement over the last, and continued to add more new features while retaining those features introduced in the previous pack.

Candidly, there has been talk about what we want to do with our Zombies moving forward. I don’t think we’ve even got that decision made yet, much less are ready to discuss it.

Molotov Cupcake: Are there any more planned map pack releases after Map Pack 3?

Josh Olin: Anything is possible; I guess it all depends on the success of Map Pack 3, as well as how our agenda here at the studio pans out. As developers, we love downloadable content, as there is always something we can improve upon or iterate on with another go. It’s all just a matter of timing.

Molotov Cupcake: What inspired Treyarch to implement devices such as teleporters in Der Riese?

Josh Olin: The teleporters are just a fun way to move around the map. The idea is, you never know what might be on the other side, but in most cases it is probably better than the overrun swarm that you may be facing prior to teleporting. Of course there is a certain story element to all the trinkets in our Zombie levels, but we don’t want to give all of that away.

Molotov Cupcake: What determines when a new map pack will be released and if it will be – demand by players, sales, or simply the desire to keep pushing more content to keep people playing?

Josh Olin: All three, actually. Of course if nobody is buying it, then that’d be a good sign to stop making it! Fortunately in our case, that hasn’t been an issue. So to us, it’s more about timing; how long it takes us to collect the feedback from the prior pack, and incorporate that feedback into our next DLC. Take Breach, for example (1 of 3 new MP maps in Map Pack 3) – players wanted larger infantry-based maps, that were not sniper-fests. We created Breach as this dense Urban environment with lots of buildings, flank points, and obstructions that allowed for that larger Objective based game mode to play really well, without forcing the players to just dodge sniper fire the whole way through.

As entertainers, we always want to ratchet that bar up. We’re not blind to reality – CoD:WaW was not a perfect game, and there was a lot we wanted to do that we just didn’t have time to. When you have a deadline you can’t move (ship date) some things you may have really wanted to do get sacrificed.

DLC is a way to bring those things back to life. Nazi Zombies is a perfect example of that – we put a lot of effort into the original level that shipped with the game, but didn’t have time to do nearly as much as we wanted / imagined. Our MP content too; Nightfire (from Map Pack 1), for example, was a level we were originally developing to release with CoD:WaW. We just didn’t have the time to finish it, polish it, and put it in the box – but we were able to make that vision into a reality by way of DLC.

Molotov Cupcake: How did you come to be community manager at Treyarch? Was it always your dream to join up with them or did you happen upon it out of luck?

Josh Olin: I always wanted to be in game design in one form or another; I even started my own PC modification for Call of Duty 2 back in the day. Over the years, as just an everyday gamer, I began to latch onto blogging, and took a real interest in getting my voice out there as a critic. That slowly evolved into operating one of the largest Call of Duty fan sites on the ‘Net.

Before I knew it, I was flying out to preview events for the new Call of Duty flavor of the year, and breaking bread with some really awesome industry insiders. One day the call came; Treyarch was seeking a community manager for CoD:WaW, and I was a recommended candidate.

I’ve come to learn that game studios love pulling from their community for talent. If you’ve made a great mod, it hasn’t gone unnoticed. If you’ve made a gripping independent Machinima trailer, it hasn’t gone unnoticed. That kind of self-motivation & passion in an individual speaks really loudly to recruiters in this industry.

So do I consider myself lucky? I don’t like to call it luck – I worked hard to get my work out there, and it paid off. Am I fortunate? Absolutely!

Molotov Cupcake: What do you have to say on the fact that many gamers turn a disapproving eye to World at War and claim that Infinity Ward did it “better”?

Josh Olin: I think every game has critics. Selling more than 13 Million copies of World at War worldwide, as well as a few million map packs and counting is a resounding testament to the fans who do enjoy CoD:WaW. No game is going to fit every gamer’s taste. If any developer tried to accomplish that, all their games would really suck =P.

Molotov Cupcake: Be honest – the Monkey Bomb or the Wunderwaffe?

Josh Olin: Monkey Bomb, definitely. The Wunderwaffe is a fine weapon if using the proper strategy, but I find myself more interested in a Ray Gun + Browning combination anyhow. The Monkey Bomb, however, is universally clutch for every player. If you’re at a high level, and a teammate goes down – you let loose a Monkey Bomb while you revive your teammates, or you’re dead.