Dazkarieh
To fold or to FOLD?
Revelado o segundo título secreto da High Voltage software. Zombie's slaughter!
Early build images:
Interview:
The Grinder looks amazing. It reminds us a little bit of one of your earlier games, Hunter: The Reckoning. Is there any relation or are there any influences here?
Kerry J. Ganofsky: Thanks! We are extremely proud of how the game is coming together. We have worked on a number of games throughout our 16-year history and we do draw from them in different ways. A major vision point of this project was to present traditional monsters in new and interesting ways.
Matt Corso: Yes actually. Now that you mention it The Grinder does resemble Hunter just a bit. [Smiles] I happened to be the lead artist on the Hunter Xbox games many full moons ago, and Eric was my Art Director at the time. There are also a few other team members from the Art, Design, and Programming departments that also worked on the original Hunter games. The Grinder is our chance to improve upon the work that we did back in the old days. There are a lot of influences throughout The Grinder's design from the original Hunter games, but there are also many combined years worth of game development experience, and a fully matured technology foundation, to take this game well beyond anything that we ever could have accomplished back in those days.
Eric Nofsinger: I can't tell you how excited we are to be sharing The Grinder with you! We've been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead and there really isn't that kind of frantic cooperative experience on the Wii right now. There's certainly nothing that takes advantage of the Wii hardware the way we are able to with our engine. One thing that we learned from working on the Hunter series is that we'd prefer to feel like badasses who are suiting up to go out and slay monsters. This opens up all sorts of possibilities for enemies, weapons, characters and story.
Tell us about the storyline. Is it intentionally over-the-top?
Eric: I don't want to give too much away right now, but the game takes place in a world we've imagined where monsters are real. Vampires, werewolves, and undead are all a part of everyday life and this world has adapted to their presence. Our group of heroes is a sort of the cryptobiological A-Team of going into areas with infestations and killing everything that moves. We've definitely been influenced by lots of great horror movies and the grindhouse style is something we've tried to incorporate into our characters and storyline.
Kerry: Each of our monster exterminators has been called into action by a secretive contact known only as Book. Your job is to exterminate the monster threat and to discover the reason for the recent monster outbreak. As to whether it is over-the-top, I will let the gamers answer that, I like to think of it as just plain fun.
Matt: There's no point in trying to be subtle when telling a story about a team of freelance hunters that ruthlessly exterminate savage armies of bloodthirsty monsters. We want our characters and storyline to be memorable, so you can expect to witness events and creatures that you never thought a developer could be twisted enough to intentionally create.
IGN: You can play as four selectable characters. Who are they? Do they have different attributes?
Eric: Hector, Doc, AJ, and Miko all have different backgrounds that provide them with special skill sets. Hector is a bounty hunter who has tracked targets on both sides of the border. Doc wants to figure out what makes the monsters tick. AJ is an urban explorer who had a very bad experience and is looking for revenge. Miko is an assassin looking for a new challenge. They all bring something special to the table in terms of gameplay.
Yeah, that's right -- you're shooting a werewolf.
Kerry: Each character has different strengths and weaknesses, but none are useless. They each also feature their own signature weapons which define who they are.
Hector is boastful, arrogant and greedy. He used to be a professional hunter, but has pissed so many people off over the years that he can't land a job with any of the professional companies any more.
AJ is the sole survivor of a Slasher attack. She knows that it's only a matter of time before the unkillable monster that slaughtered her sorority sisters on a weekend camping trip catches up with her to finish the job.
Doc was a hunter for years but he left the life behind years ago when a mission went very badly. Since then, he's been working as an underground doctor.
Miko is a Japanese assassin. She was getting bored with her job, until the night one of her targets turned out to be a Werewolf. Despite nearly getting killed, she found the battle exhilarating and immediately set out to take down more monsters.
Matt: We've lovingly crafted four new characters to throw into the meat grinder. It's all very dramatic stuff, and fortunately, the player gets to benefit from the entertainment value of their personal tragedies. We've worked elements of each hunter's past, into their in-game story and individual skill set. Every character in The Grinder is worth playing through the game with, just to take advantage of their unique abilities.
IGN: Can you upgrade your characters throughout the adventure?
Matt: Although The Grinder E3 demo we are showcasing has been designed to focus on a limited set of abilities and weapons, we currently have plans to incorporate weapon and character upgrades into the final version of the game.
Kerry: We also have a couple of non-traditional ways to upgrade each character that we aren't ready to discuss yet. We'll be sure to deliver more information and some concrete examples of these upgrades in the near future.
Eric: We are definitely big believers of light RPG elements that make the characters more powerful throughout the game, but we're eager to hear what fans have to say now that the cat is out of the bag.
IGN: We can tell in screenshots that you're pushing a lot of on-screen characters. Tell us about this advancement to the Quantum 3 engine. How many characters can you push at once?
Eric: Right now we're pushing many highly detailed characters at once; better looking than almost anything else you'll see on the Wii right now.
Kerry: We call the technology our Imposter and Instancing system. We are able to take a single enemy and replicate him over and over again. Along with the replication, we can also scale, color, and otherwise modify each instance. This allows us to get an unprecedented number of unique enemies on screen at once at a fraction of the cost to do it otherwise. During our in-house testing, we have been able to see up-to 65 enemies on screen at once. These were initial tests… [Smiles]
Bloodlusters will be happy to know there's plenty of gore to be found.
Matt: Quantum 3 has once again been upgraded to pull off some majorly cool visual effects. It seems like we should be able to pull off even more on-screen enemies at some point. We never put a limit on our creativity. If it seems like it's worthwhile to have a cool feature in our games, we always find a way to make it work in the engine. It's pretty incredible to see so many monsters rushing after you in The Grinder. Each one is moving independently and doing its own thing. But all of them are trying to kill you.
IGN: Does the framerate take a major hit?
Matt: No, not really. We're right up around the framerate that we are currently at with The Conduit. I expect that it's even going to improve at some point, now that we've learned new ways to optimize our visuals.
Eric: The key is to let the gameplay determine how many characters you want and then start looking for tricks that will let you have the gameplay, the visuals, and the performance that you're looking for. Luckily we've discovered some very methods that allow us to have lots of characters on screen without sacrificing quality.
Kerry: If there is one thing that I can say about HVS it is that we are never satisfied and we will continue to push the hardware to get every last frame that we can.
* Sample music track #1 from The Grinder
* Sample music track #2 from The Grinder
IGN: The music samples we've included are amazing. What kind of mood are you hoping to create for the title?
Eric: We want to capture the sound of Trent Reznor and Ennio Morricone in bar room fight after watching Dusk Till Dawn, Dawn of the Dead, An American Werewolf in London, and Tremors and doing copious shots of tequila. Our phenomenally talented audio team is going for lots of Skinny Puppy / Coil-style ambience and music that that adapts to what is going on with gameplay. We're trying to alternate between creepy music that generates tension and all out frenzied tracks for the times where you're mowing down hundreds of vampires.
Kerry: We feel that music is often overlooked in games yet it has the potential to drive emotion into gameplay.
Again, that's a freakin' werewolf for the win.
Matt: With The Grinder, we want the players to feel like they are hunting monsters. We have created a tone and pacing in our musical score that emphasizes the power of being a monster hunter but at times forces tension into the game.
IGN: What kinds of foes will you do battle with and how do their attacks differ?
Eric: For the E3 demo you will see feral vampires, werewolves, and the Slasher. The characters in The Conduit were primarily focused on ranged attacks, but our vampires are all melee. They do have some teleportation tricks as well. The Werewolf is more a mini-boss character who requires coordination between the players to defeat. The Slasher I'll keep under wraps until E3, but he's got some special tricks up the sleeves of his straightjacket.
Matt: The basic vampires will rush you and attempt to bite and claw you to death. But they also hunt in packs, and each one attempts to find its own way over to reach you. Some will smash directly through windows, some bust down doors and some will come down from ceilings, or other unexpected paces. There is a big focus on fighting packs of intelligent monsters in The Grinder. There will also be the larger and more dangerous foes, like the Werewolf or the Slasher. Each of these enemies tries to hunt you in its own way. Only they won't just try to rush after you. These enemies are being designed to match human opponents. They'll be trying to outwit you, and to kill you in ways that you might not be expecting.
Kerry: Players must think strategically and cooperate in order to survive.
IGN: What kinds of weapons do you get in the game?
Matt: Similar to The Conduit, we're planning on arming players with a huge arsenal of uniquely useful weapons. Dual wield weapons is one of the more obvious new additions from The Conduit, but we've also got some creatively cool new weapon designs that we think are really going to get people very excited about this game in the coming months. Of course, you can expect to see us taking advantage of the Wii remote's highly awesome interface.
Eric: At E3 you'll see dual-wield .45s, an SMG, a pump-action 12-gauge and an AK-47. We've added a new bullet penetration feature that allows us to punch through multiple enemies at once. For the full game we're developing some exciting new weapons that are much more imaginative. We get to imagine what people would want to take with them into a monster hunting situation and then build those weapons!
Kerry: We have a huge variety of weapons in the game. Some typical human weapons like an AK-47 and a combat shotgun, but we also have many non-traditional weapons. We were inspired by movies like From Dusk Till Dawn and John Carpenter's Vampires.
IGN: We noticed that one character is a Japanese assassin. Any chance you'll be wielding any swords? How about MotionPlus support?
Kerry: Miko specializes in killing. She is a master of just about any kind of weapon, so it would be safe to assume that swords would be a specialty.
Matt: This question has got me smiling ear to ear. Of course, we all love the Wii MotionPlus. And what self respecting Wii sword fighting/action game would be complete without it?
Eric: MotionPlus support and swords certainly seem appropriate for an assassin.
IGN: Nice! Will the Grinder feature the same level of customizable controls as The Conduit?
Kerry: No, it will have even more customization options. The Conduit set the bar with the level of customization for console games and we plan to leap over that bar. We are looking at giving players even more control over how to play the game.
Eric: This was an amazing feature we developed for The Conduit and we fully intend to expand on it.
Blast the undead with whatever weapon you can get your hands on.
Matt: And then, of course, we'll also be sure to listen to your feedback after playing through The Conduit a few times online with your buddies, and we'll definitely be looking to improve on The Grinder's fully customizable control interface.
IGN: All right. Let's talk about a great feature. The Grinder features an online multiplayer mode. Tell us all about it. How does it work?
Eric: With The Grinder, we really wanted to provide people with a top-notch cooperative experience so we've included online cooperative mode, which you'll be able to see at E3.
Kerry: The game is being designed from the ground up for online cooperative gameplay experience. Players are able to play the entire single-player game over the network. We do have some additional things planned, but we are not ready to talk about those at this time.
Matt: So far the co-op mode has been working out great, with zero lag while displaying tons of enemies on the screen at once. We've wanted this feature in our games for a long time and we're really proud to be bringing this feature to The Grinder. Oh and there's also split screen coop mode currently running in the demo, which is also pretty awesome for those who may not have access to play together using a Wi-Fi connection.
IGN: You supporting WiiSpeak? Leaderboards? Achievements? If there are achievements, can you give us some examples?
Kerry: Those are three very good ideas. [Smiles] Our goal is to provide gamers with all the bells and whistles that they deserve. We are evaluating a number of options for the game and those three are among them.
Matt: I believe that WiiSpeak is a no-brainer, considering the fact that it already work for The Conduit's multiplayer modes. We can definitely expect to see it working in The Grinder. And more details regarding Leaderboards, Achievements, and other online gaming awesomeness will be coming soon.
Eric: WiiSpeak is definitely an important component for a cooperative game, so that's something we intend to include. Leaderboards and Achievements are certainly big factors when it comes to replayability and this is definitely a game that we want people to get many hours of replay from.
Kerry: As to the specifics on the achievements, we are not yet able to give specifics but you can be assured that they will be in there and that the gaming public will play a role in defining what they are.
IGN: Have you considered upping the cooperative mode to three or four players a la Left 4 Dead?
Kerry: Did we announce a limit? [Smiles] ()
Eric: We think Left 4 Dead set the standard for this type of game and we fully intend to support four players.
Matt: With so many monsters attacking all at once, you're going to need somebody covering your back. The Grinder will make the most of its co-op mode, so you can expect to hear about lots of cool multiplayer features as more information becomes available.
IGN: Can you play through the game in single-player mode? How does it change?
Eric: We haven't ironed out all of the details, but the simple answer is "yes." Players will be able to play through the entire game in single-player and have an awesome experience, but much of our focus will be on crafting the game for cooperative play.
Kerry: Our AI takes control of the other players during a single-player game session. As to how/what changes, we are still evaluating that.
Matt: What we can say is your friends will have the option to jump in and out of the game in mid-play. We're shooting to make this easy for other people to jump into the action and start having fun without sitting around waiting for their buddy to finish what they're doing during the single player game. We're also done a lot of work under the hood to ensure that our monsters, weapons, and pickups spawn in unique locations each time you play the game. The game should be different with every play through. Our goal is to bring as much replay value to The Grinder's single-player game as we could with its multiplayer features.
IGN: How do the levels work? Is it one big world or a series of stages? What kind of locales will you travel through? And how interactive are the environments, if at all?
Eric: The game unfolds in a series of stages, often with multiple paths that the players can choose from. Our focus right now is on Southwestern locales. We have pushed for a lot of interactivity in the form of breakable objects, interactive elements that you can use to help you fight enemies, and NPCs who you can choose to rescue.
Kerry: The level design and AI Architect system work together to provide a nearly endless replay ability. Each level starts with a single path to the end. At key points along the path, there are event triggers. These event triggers can cause a change in the path through the level. Along with the events, our enemy spawners are triggered based on how the players are doing. So if a group is struggling in the game, the AI Architect evaluates their current health, position, equipment, and efficiency and then determines what type of enemies spawn, where they come from, and how many to spawn.
Matt: We're shooting for no load times at all, and we'll see how it all turns out when the game is done. So far we've had really good luck with streaming game assets into our engine, so I don't foresee it being a problem for us to do the same thing for The Grinder. Regarding the interactivity of the levels, there are a lot more breakable objects that are currently working in our demo from what we've done in the past. There are already broken tables and lamps, bottles, crates, wall decorations, etc. We'll have some more examples of our level interaction coming soon. And of course, we're always working to improve on our system by incorporating new technologies all the time to make the cool stuff work even better.
One more time, a badass werewolf! And all right, the gun detail is pretty impressive, too.
IGN: It's called The Grinder, a double-meaning, we presume. How bloody does the game get?
Eric: Somewhere between Dead Alive and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Right now you will see several hundred gallons of blood if you play through the E3 demo.
Kerry: There will be blood... and lots of it. This is not a game for the squeamish.
Matt: And yes, The Grinder is referring to something terribly horrific, featured in our game. We'll push for turning up the horror and gore. After all this is a game about hunting monsters. But we'll see how it all turns out when we get closer to launch.
IGN: When are you hoping to release the game?
Eric: The goal is holiday 2010 and our projects tend to ship on time more often than not!
Matt: Just as soon as we find a publisher for the game we'll be able to give an official release date. This all feels pretty similar to where we were at a year ago with The Conduit. Only we've actually got a consumer display booth as a base of operations at this year's E3, which is cool on so many levels! The best part for me personally being that Eric Nofsinger won't make me carry around a Wii dev kit and TV on my back like a pack mule, in order to give demos of the game during the show. Or at least I don't think that he will.
Eric: We'll talk later, Matt...
Kerry: But fortunately for The Conduit it all worked out pretty great in the end!
IGN: We have to say, this game looks absolutely spectacular. Any final words for newly initiated fans?
Matt: Thanks! We really appreciate hearing that. I guess the only thing that I can think to add would be that you should all be on the lookout for more, bad-ass High Voltage games in the future. We've all worked together for many years, bringing this studio to the point where we can now deliver top quality entertainment to the gaming masses. The Grinder and Gladiator A.D. are already looking great, and will continue to improve over the upcoming months. But we're not nearly satisfied yet, and we won't be kicking back on our laurels anytime soon. Mark my words; we're just getting warmed up.
Eric: The team has been pushing incredibly hard to make this game truly gorgeous and also a ton of fun. The style of gameplay is a big departure from The Conduit and the online cooperative play is a ton of fun. If people get excited about this, we encourage them to post their opinions in the forums. We read everything you have to say and we gather a lot of ideas based on what people want. We can't wait to see you at E3!
Kerry: The Conduit set the bar. Gladiator A.D. and The Grinder are both raising it. We promise to not sit idle and allow ourselves to settle. We are going to push harder than we ever did before in order to provide gamers with the type of games that we believe they want.
in http://wii.ign.com/articles/986/986663p1.html
EDIT - Mais imagens early build:
Última edição:
Foi um dos últimos FP que me deu imenso prazer jogar ocasionalmente (emborqa não o tenha, em casa de amigos). Espero que HV se foque em inimigos rápidos e franéticos para além da quantidade.
that's new 
