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| CellFactor: Revolution Interview Part 1 by Jonathan Trevisani,Computer Games Online  Jonathan Trevisani presents an interview with Jeremy Stieglitz, President and Lead Developer of Artificial Studios, about the upcoming first-person shooter CellFactor: Revolution. The game evolved from the glorified tech demo CellFactor: Combat Training and will be released for the PC in December. In the first part of the interview, Mr. Stieglitz talks about the evolution from demo to game.Jonathan Trevisani: What do you think of the response to CellFactor: Combat Training? Did you expect all of the excitement that it generated? Jeremy Stieglitz: It's been quite a ride for our small development team. Back in January 2006 when we started work on CellFactor: Combat Training, we simply planned to develop a PhysX-accelerated demo. But that little demo got such a strong response that here we are expanding it into a game. We're certainly very excited to have the opportunity in CellFactor: Revolution to build on the original demo's concepts, while taking them to a whole new level of PhysX hardware usage and gameplay features. Jonathan Trevisani: When did you realize that CellFactor has the potential for a full-scale game? What was involved in the process of turning a tech demo into a video game? Jeremy Stieglitz: We began to think about a full-scale game at GDC 2006, where we showed the first version of the Combat Training demo (less than 2 months after we started developing it). People were crowding around the AGEIA booth, watching us developers play a 4-player LAN game, chatting excitedly about what they were seeing. After our game sessions, people would come up and ask us all sorts of questions, but the one most often repeated was, "So when does the game come out?" At the time, we didn't have an answer to that question, but it quickly became clear that proceeding to develop a full game was inevitable. It took us a couple months after that to figure out how to structure the development process to fit alongside our other projects, but soon after E3, we got it hammered out. To turn a tech demo like Combat Training into a full game, we decided to take the best elements in the demo (such as the core mechanic of simultaneously using guns and psychic abilities, and tons of physics objects), while adding features that we wanted to have in the demo but couldn't for lack of time (such as destructible environments and character classes). Then we looked at the technology used in the game, decided what we'd need to add to support a wide variety of system configurations and make further use of the PhysX hardware, and decided that Internet multiplayer was a must. So while the Combat Training demo sketched out some of the raw ideas for CellFactor gameplay, we now have the time and resources to put just about everything we want to see in Revolution. Jonathan Trevisani: What changes and additions were made to CellFactor? What is different from CellFactor: Revolution and CellFactor: Combat Training? Jeremy Stieglitz: Combat Training was essentially a concept demo, and as such had very limited content. Revolution, on the other hand, is a value-priced game, and as such expands the gameplay features and content considerably. From a gameplay standpoint, these include character classes with totally unique abilities and corresponding play styles (varying from using only psychic power to only guns), destructible environments (you can now tear up all sorts of architecture and use its debris as physical weaponry), Kynapse-powered Bots that intelligently use all psychic abilities and vehicles and Internet multiplayer. On the content side, we're including five large, interactive levels, several new vehicles (including a very powerful mechanical battle-suit), a variety of new weapons (some of which are PhysX based) all capable of dual-wielding, several new gameplay modes (including "PhysX Sports" which are a bunch of unique physical mini-games), and more stuff that will be revealed soon. As for the game's technology, in addition to further working on performance and graphics capabilities, we've been working to support Internet multiplayer (with all its bandwidth and latency limitations). Since Combat Training, we've also been exploring what we can do with the PhysX hardware, and on this point we've found that there are a lot of capabilities that we're now making use of ? hence the emphasis on destructible architecture among other things. Jonathan Trevisani: What is the storyline for the game? How do the characters have these super-human abilities? Jeremy Stieglitz: It's the near-future on Earth. After a series of cataclysmic events, the world is now dominated by a superpower dedicated only to the advancement of technology ? no matter what the human cost. This technology forms the basis of an army composed of cybernetic-enhanced humanoids, whose telekinetic powers are used to maintain relative order across the planet. A human resistance fights for one last shred of freedom. But while the members of this scattered resistance have also started to develop psychic abilities, theirs is a desperate fight against an invincible enemy. Never the less, in Revolution you can play as characters from both sides of this war, as the setting simply forms the backdrop for the levels in which you play. Jonathan Trevisani: What are the new psychic abilities in the game? Can the Psi attacks be used on opponents or are they limited to objects? Jeremy Stieglitz: One of our goals in Revolution has been to make the psychic powers a more aggress option, and to that end we added a character class dedicated soley to psychic powers, named "Bishop." She's one of those "cybernetic-enhanced humanoids, " and though she can't use guns, she more than compensates for having some extremely powerful character abilities. Once properly powered up (through those helpful Psi Canisters), she can actually grab other players and rip them limb from limb, or apply such a huge pressure to whatever she's holding that she causes it to implode. She can also rip the environment apart at will, or collect hundreds of objects and move them all at once. She can even form a shield with these objects, shoot them out one-by-one like gunshot ammo, or scatter them left and right to literally create a huge swath of destruction in front of her. Needless to say, playing as the Bishop is a unique experience ? you just feel absolutely powerful. That said, a "Guardian" wielding dual-rockets (or sniper rifles) is no slouch either. In the second part of the CellFactor: Revolution interview, Mr. Stieglitz talks about the fully destructible architecture and the new vehicles in the game. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Game News :: home page |