{"id":2263,"date":"2010-02-28T04:12:35","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T04:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2012-03-11T09:55:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T09:55:53","slug":"questions-for-radical-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2010\/02\/questions-for-radical-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions for Radical Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">Ages ago, I was asked to write a series of questions for an interview with Radical Entertainment for <a href=\"http:\/\/pixelhunt.com.au\">Pixel Hunt<\/a> (yeah, yeah, <a href=\"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2010\/02\/pixel-hunt-re-examined-some-words-on-retroaction\/\" target=\"_blank\">I know<\/a>) which unfortunately never eventuated. This was part of a cover feature scrapped at the last minute because of unresponsive PR people, hence the awkward promise of an interview on the front cover.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">Radical Entertainment are the developers behind <em>Prototype<\/em>, the open world PS3\/360 adventure released last year. In case you need a reminder, here&#8217;s a trailer:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Prototype: 3 Minutes of Gameplay\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L0hrpf9oSW4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">I&#8217;m a huge fan of their sleeper hit <em>Hulk: Ultimate Destruction<\/em> and at the same time was very cynical towards the mindless violence and brutality which seemed to frontline <em>Prototype<\/em>. The opportunity fell into my lap and as you can imagine, I was pretty ecstatic. Talking directly to the developers, sharing commentaries and analysis is frankly a dream for me. So rather than settle for the standard template which&#8217;d allow the developers to act as pseudo PR folk, spruiking their wares <em>(\u201cTell me about this patented mechanic..\u201d, \u201cHow will this patented mechanic make your game better than similarly derrivative titles?\u201d, \u201cWill you be taking it to <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">&#8216;the next level&#8217;<\/span>&#8220;?<\/em>), I wrote a list of questions which I felt would benefit the readers as much as possible.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">You can find the questions below, for your perusal. Who knows, maybe one day I&#8217;ll get some answers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<h3>On the Prototype universe\/Trans-media Franchising<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">Video games and comic books have had a rather fruitful history together. <em>Prototype<\/em>&#8216;s protagonist Alex Mercer and his story seems like something taken right out of a comic book. In fact much like <em>Dead Space<\/em>, <em>Prototype<\/em> has its own comic book series in production. What do you think of the merging of these two mediums, and how do you think<em> Prototype<\/em> will continue to expand this relationship?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">On the comic book, the first issue is already available, does this make<em> Prototype<\/em> a video game adaption? How do you guys handle both of these properties?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">With both the comic and video game, in a sense it seems like you&#8217;re creating a universe, rather than say a conventional game property. Do you think the <em>Prototype<\/em> universe will continue once the game is released?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">Downloadable content is all the rage these days, are the team interested in exploring this option and do you think it&#8217;s likely <em>Prototype<\/em> will feature any?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<h3>On Radical Entertainment<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">Radical Entertainment has produced several successful open-world titles in recent years such as <em>The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction<\/em> and <em>Scarface: The World is Yours<\/em>, how does the team go about finding new ground to cover in the open-world genre?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">As someone who thoroughly enjoyed <em>Hulk:UD<\/em>, I was pleasantly surprised to see how similar the two titles are, particularly in terms of ability sets. This is by no means a negative criticism, <em>Hulk<\/em> was fantastic, but how do you balance new and borrowed gameplay mechanics?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<h3>On the game itself<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">What I personally enjoyed about <em>Hulk:UD<\/em> was how the game empowered the player, you felt like you were this green wrecking ball of destruction. <em>Prototype<\/em> carries the same bad-ass mantra. How do you give the player such a strong sense of empowerment and how will <em>Prototype<\/em> elevate this feeling from <em>Hulk<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\"><em>Prototype<\/em> is the first Radical Entertainment title made exclusively for the next-gen systems. What sort of features are we going to see in <em>Prototype<\/em> that couldn&#8217;t have been done on previous systems?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">Interactivity and destruction is a trade mark quality of your titles, how much of<em> Prototype<\/em>&#8216;s world will be destructible?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">In the recent story trailer, executive producer Tim Bennison said that the \u201cweb of intrigue\u201d narrative system, where players obtain past memories through taking the form of NPCs, plays well to the strengths of interactivity in games. Can you elaborate on this?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">In the same trailer, I noticed that the game had this sudden injection of colour, particularly green and red. The original trailers had a very limited colour palette, mostly greys, was this change a conscious design choice or hadn&#8217;t we just seen those parts of the game yet?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<h3>Violence<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\"><em>Prototype<\/em> is obviously a very violent, mature-themed title, as developers of adult games are you ever concerned about the implications of markets that haven&#8217;t yet adopted an R18+ classification, such as Australia?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">On an online podcast, several reporters were airing their concerns about the way <em>Prototype<\/em> depicts violence and how the people showcasing the game were proud of the glorification of violence. Several of the reporters found it rather distasteful, how do you walk a fine line between cool\/disgusting or tasteful\/distasteful violence?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<h3>Etc.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\"><em>Prototype<\/em> has been compared to <em>inFamous<\/em> (PS3) by Sucker Punch. Coincidentally they&#8217;re two open-world, comic-book-inspired titles with parkour elements being released in extremely close proximity. The comparison obviously isn&#8217;t fair for either company, but what do you make of their efforts?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\"><em>Do I make a good interviewer folks? &gt;_&lt;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm\"><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ages ago, I was asked to write a series of questions for an interview with Radical Entertainment for Pixel Hunt (yeah, yeah, I know) which unfortunately never eventuated. This was part of a cover feature scrapped at the last minute because of unresponsive PR people, hence the awkward promise of an interview on the front [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[294,654],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-interview","tag-prototype"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4126,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions\/4126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}