ECTS 1998 Ubi Soft Entertainment Press Kit (Europe)

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Text File | 1998-08-21 | 19KB | 580 lines

COMPANY CONTACT: MEDIA CONTACT: Carrie Tice 11-331-48-1852-38 Keith Sloan ctice@ubisoft.fr http://www.ubisoft.com Ksloan@ubisoft.co.uk 'SPEED BUSTERS': DEVELOPERS Q&A (St├⌐phanie Poulin - Project Manager) Background on Ubi Soft Entertainment's New Action Racing Game Q: Who created Speed Busters? How many people were on the team? A: The original concept for the Speed Busters car racing game was defined by Pierre Szalowski, a former project manager in Ubi Soft's Montreal-based Canadian subsidiary who became the game's producer. Marc Benoit and the game's design team elaborated on the concept, and Louis Turcot defined all the artistic orientation. The project manager, Stephanie Poulin heads a team now consisting of nearly 50 people from Ubi Soft's Montreal office, including seven game designers, 18 graphic designers and 19 programmers. Q: Is this Ubi Soft's first game to be created in North America? A: Yes, Speed Busters will be the first game to have been completely created in Montreal since the opening of Ubi Soft's North American subsidiary there in June 1997. Q: What platforms will the game be available on? A: The game will be available on PC CD-ROM in October 1998, with Nintendo and PlayStation versions planned for subsequent release. SEGA Dreamcast is also being considered. Q: How long has the game been in development? A: Since July 1997. Q: We hear there is a real story-line, which is unusual in racing games. What is it? A: The gist of it is that a policeman wins $1 million, then wants to give his money to the hottest of the hotshot "speed busters" he meets. That's why all the rules of the game revolve around police radar and money. Q: What is the goal of the game? A: To blow up the police radar at the highest speed. The faster you drive toward the radar, the richer you will be. Two factors will affect the money you receive: your speed and your final position. To walk away with the biggest jackpot, you must finish first. The farther from first place you are, the less money you will be able to keep. You can use the money to buy upgrades for your car. Items for upgrade range from road assistant kits, radar detectors, road maps, car insurance and more. Plus, you can enhance your auto with spoilers, blowers, side exhaust, turbo engine, nitro tank, car color, detailing, and much more! Q: What were the game designers trying to achieve? A: Says lead game designer Marc Beno├«t, "We started by observing what had been achieved in racing games in the past, then selected elements that brought gamers the most fun. We also tried to take a different approach by figuring out what would be cool to do with our cars other than just race against someone. We decided we wanted to deliver a true feeling of speeding, a feeling of ownership, the need for driving strategy, and surprises like jumping on a train that is running and using it as a shortcut, avoiding an avalanche crashing in front of you, or being chased by water in an irrigation tunnel. "We also wanted to make the tracks a lot more open so that you don't feel like you're in narrow path anymore. The tracks are larger than usual and they also include different branches with lots of secret shortcuts. We also tried to bring back some of the management aspects of the old 16-bit racing games. That's why the game emphasizes earning money and buying new upgrades for your cars." Q: What technological innovations will Ubi Soft bring to Speed Busters? A: Speed Busters is built on the engine of Ubi Soft's F1 Racing Simulation, but there have been many enhancements in the engine since that game. One of the biggest innovations is in the area of interactive animations. Animation is rare in racing games, and if there are any, they are only ambience animations that are there just to liven up the scenery. In Speed Busters, Ubi Soft has pushed the technology to be able to include animations that interact with the player. Players will be able to drive on a train, get lifted up on a sewer, and even struggle with King Kong, Jaws and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. Q: What other technical advances are here in the Speed Busters game ngine? A: The Artificial Intelligence (AI) of opponents has been improved to react to player behavior, creating a more challenging game where the player is always in the action. Force Feedback has been enhanced over F1Racing Simulation and POD to provide the best feel on the market. In addition, Internet play has been improved in response to input received from POD fans. (Speed Busters is playable solo or with up to eight players in the multiplayer mode via Local Area Network, link, modem and Internet.) Q: What's new in the 3D engine? A: First, players will be able to customize their cars by adding new "skins" (fancy paint-jobs). This isn't just a change in color; this is a complete custom paint job. (See below.) We've also added new color light effects and dynamic ambient light that give the game a realistic atmosphere. In addition, the use of blending surfaces has improved the graphic quality by adding transparency effects on surfaces like water, and particles systems are used to enhance effect such as smoke, sparks, snow and rain. Finally, the 3D engine is now a DLL that has been separated from the game engine, simplifying game installation and upgrades. Instead of copying all the executables, it delivers everything in one file. Q: How does this new technology affect the handling of the car? A: The handling of the car is based on Ubi Soft's continued development of the F1 engine, delivering a realistic arcade style that raises the gameplay to a new level. If you look at other arcade racing games, you will see that the cars have a stiff feel and are very easy to control. In Speed Busters, the vehicles are more sensitive and therefore harder to control. They behave almost like real cars. Q: How does this new technology affect the tracks, cars and environments? A: In addition to the ability to modify, add and exchange "skins" for the car body, the new technology delivers tracks that are chock-full of details, textures and different environments. For example, in the Hollywood track you race on the beach, in the Hollywood studios, on Hollywood Boulevard and in Beverly Hills. The cars' behavior will also be affected by the different drivable surfaces. On the sand of the beach, for example, a car will slide more, and cause a decrease in speed than on the grass or asphalt. Q: How does Speed Busters differ from Ubi Soft's F1 Racing Simulation and POD racing titles? A: Speed Busters is a very different kind of racing game. It's not a simulation game like F1 Racing Simulation, and it's not futurist and pure arcade like POD. It's a mix of the two. Players will be able to play in unexpected places, driving cars with realistic behavior as in F1 Racing Simulation, without removing all the arcade pleasure and the shortcuts of POD. The cars' behavior is a cross between the handling in both earlier games as well. The cars are more sensitive than in POD, less sensitive than in F1Racing Simulation. And while they are not to hard to drive, it requires a certain level of skill to be able to succeed. Q: How does Speed Busters create more action than other racing games? A: Start with the thrill of busting radars, super-sophisticated AI opponents and a heart-pounding sound track. Then add the presence of a nitro tank, a hand brake, cars that sustain visual damage, and surprise animations like a King Kong who comes out of a Hollywood studio, and you've got more action in five minutes than most games have in 50. Nitro is used to give a car a great burst of speed, but it also makes the car harder to control. The good news is that this doubles or triples the feeling of speed; the bad news is that using it at the wrong time could mean an accident and a bad ranking in the race. And because nitro is available in limited quantity, the player has to manage its use to ensure that he has enough left at the end of the race to leave his opponents eating dust. The animations add even more tension. Most are collisionable and can appear anywhere at any time, adding the element of anticipation and surprise. In multiplayer games, these animations can be used as a strategic advantage to distract the other players and/or damage their cars. Q: How many tracks does Speed Busters have, and what's different about them? A: There are six main tracks and one hidden. Five tracks are in the U.S., ranging from Hollywood to the Nevada desert, the snow-covered mountains of Aspen and the Louisiana bayou. The others are in Canada's farm country and Mexico's Inca temples. The tracks were inspired by the real thing, so you will be able to recognize buildings and landmarks along the way. Another unusual feature appears in the arcade mode, which not only gives you day, sunset, night and rain-relatively common in racing games today-bit goes a step further by actually allowing you to select the settings you prefer. Q: How many cars does the game have, and what are they like? A: There are six main cars and one hidden vehicle, all inspired by the cars of the 50s and 90s. The cars from the earlier era will be competitive with the 90s models because their engines have been modified. Players will be able to select the model and paint job they prefer. Also, the cars will be damageable. When you hit another car or a wall, you'll see the results on your vehicle. The more damage you have, the more it will affect your top speed, so it will be very difficult to finish the race. Q: Are there any hidden tracks or cars? A: Yes, one of each. And the hidden track is a doozy. We wanted to do something different because it's the reward for the best driver, so instead of simply making three laps in a bid to finish first, the player will be faced with special challenges that will make it harder to win. Q: How will you be able to change the look of your car? A: When you choose a car model, you will have the choice of six different paint jobs. Then you'll be able to create your own "skin" from scratch to produce a complete custom paint job, just like the pros. (Hello, Picasso!) You'll need a special program that will be downloadable from the Ubi Soft Web site, plus a drawing program like PhotoShop. The result: a one-of-a-kind design that expresses you to a "T." Q: What is different about the game's introduction? A: It was shot in super 35 mm, the same equipment used for the movie Titanic, and it was shot on location in Drumheller, Alberta, in the same place Jurassic Park was made. This is a completely original idea which differs from the competitor games. It reflects the spirit of Speed Busters, which aims to reinvent the whole racing genre. Q: What advances does Speed Busters offer in the arena of game music? A: A lot. Gamers are accustomed to having either Hard Rock or Techno music looped from the start to the end of race. Speed Busters offers musical themes specifically designed for a particular track sector or even a particular racing event . For each track, there may be three or more different musical atmospheres written to match the different graphical environment that appear on the track. This is comparable to scoring a movie, and it's a first in racing games. Q: How were the graphical environments created? A: We wanted the tracks to have real scenery with recognizable landmarks and accurate local characteristics, so we hired a picture researcher, Sonia Menard, to research the various geographical areas we had chosen and compile a picture database. Then we selected the major elements we wanted to have in our circuits and included them in the storyboard of each track. From there, everything went to our graphic studio, where our graphic artists worked in teams of two. Each team created the track together. Then one team member handled the modelization of all the 3D objects in the scenery; the other was responsible for creating the textures and mapping the 3D elements to give life to the track. Q: How were the cars were created? A: Since we didn't want to have licenses for our cars, we had the freedom to do what we wanted. We started by analyzing well-known cars from the 50s and the 90s. The graphic designer then selected his favorite parts of each car and pieced them together. To design the upgrades that will be available for "purchase" by the players who earn the most "money," we looked at the skins and other components of modified racing cars and incorporated the elements we liked. Q: How were the animations created? A: Typically, any animations in racing games are small ones that don't affect the gameplay. We wanted to change that. Some ideas we had were not technically feasible at first, but our programmers developed an editor that permitted us to do three kinds of animations: collisionable, ambience and sector. The sector animations were the greatest triumph because they allow the player to drive on an animation in motion, something that has not been possible before. That's what allows a gamer to drive a Speed Busters car on a moving train. The ambience animations are smaller animations that bring life to the circuit. In this category, there are birds, a cable car, a snow bike, Indians dancing around a fire, an airplane and many others. The collisionable animations are bigger and more impressive. These are the surprise animations like King Kong, Jaws, a UFO and others that spring upon the driver with no warning. The challenge is to avoid them, because if you don't, you will lose time and damage your car. Q: With French-speaking designers, is the game geared to Americans or Europeans? A: The spirit of the game is very American. The action takes place in American cities with inspired models of American cars. But that doesn't mean players from all over the world won't like it. If you like speed, you'll love Speed Busters. Q: Is Speed Busters a multi-player game? A: Yes, it will be possible to play on link, modem, Internet and network, with the ability to play up to eight players simultaneously over a LAN or the Internet. Q: Will a game service be offered? A: Yes, and this is a very significant point. Not many racing games on the market today are playable on a game service. Q: What is unique about this new Ubi Soft Game Service? A: It's universal, which means it is usable for a variety of different games rather than being developed for one game in particular. In addition to Speed Busters, the free game service will be released with a poker game and a board game called Blobwars, with a Tarot card game next on the list. Eventually, it will encompass shareware games that will be downloadable from Ubi Soft web sites or from the Ubi Shop. Ubi Soft also plans to partner with other companies to make their games available through the Game Service. The Game Service client (or software) itself will also be downloadable from these sites, so that even gamers who have no multiplayer games will be able to participate. The service will include a pager that allows you to send a message to another player who is connected at the same time you are, and it will also enable you to page a group of friends simultaneously. In addition, players will be able to choose from Ubi Soft's servers around the world to select the server with best response time. This will ensure the most exciting game. Q: What is different from the POD game service? A: In POD, the game service was integrated into the multiplayer menu. It is now completely outside the game, making it possible to connect to the game service even if you don't have a game from Ubi Soft. Additionally, the entire interface is much more user-friendly and easier to navigate. Q: Will new tracks and cars available? A: New cars will be downloadable directly from the Internet. These will be special upgrades to the 50s- and 90s-inspired cars already in the game. New tracks will not be available, however, because each track takes about four months to make and involves a commitment of staff resources that we would rather channel into designing new games. Q: In what other ways will Speed Busters utilize the Internet? A: Like other games from Ubi Soft, Speed Busters will be directly connected to a special Web site via a Ubi Online button on the first page of menus. This is where players will be able to download or upload new skins for their cars, download new cars, and access any news on the game itself. This site is completely separate from the Ubi Soft Game Service. Q: What are the system requirements for Speed Busters? A: Minimum requirements include a Pentium 166MHz with 16MB of RAM and optimized for a 3DFX card. It will be compatible with all 3D cards on the market. Q: Which 3D accelerator will the game be optimized for? A: It will be compatible with all 3D cards but optimized for Voodoo2 and AGP. Q: What is the game release date? A: October 1998. Q: Will there be a multiplayer demo available prior to the release? A: Yes, there will be a larger multiplayer demo distributed via magazines and other promotions, as well as an online demo available for download at www.ubisoft.com at the end of August. Q: What is the target audience? A: Primarily males, ages 10 to 30.