Aliens Vs Predator 1
18:25, 04 December 1998
Jason Kingsley is the CEO and Creative Director of UK based Rebellion, the developers of Aliens Vs Predator. It's his job to make sure that the Alien license transfers smoothly from the big screen to the PC monitor via Rebellion's Oxford based studios.
GameSpot UK: What materials have you had access to?
Jason Kingsley: We had all most everything: the original scripts, library footage and reference material. We've also had access to the sound effects tapes which we've used in the game.
GameSpot UK: Why is this game going to be THE 3D shooter of 1999?
Jason Kingsley: Firstly, the engine is better than the Quake, Unreal and -- based on what I've seen of it -- Prey. Take Unreal, its characters have 400 polygons, the smallest number of polygons our creatures use is 860 and our most complex character, the Alien Queen, uses 2,200.
We've had the luxury of working on an engine which is solely designed for the game. We haven't created it with a view to licensing it or creating other games or making it easy for other people to work with it.
GameSpot UK: The game looks almost cinematic -- how have you achieved that?
Jason Kingsley: The frame rate we're aiming for is 33 frames per second and it should never drop below that even on a low spec machine. In hi-res we've aimed for 70 frames per second. We're pushing out a maximum 25,000 polygons per frame.
GameSpot UK: So why is called Aliens Vs Predator:- is there only one Predator?
Jason Kingsley: No, there's more than one Predator. Aliens Vs PredatorS just didn't sound right. There are lots of different Predators, with different hunting styles. Some of them are sneaky and hide all the time. Others get up close and gut you. And some will taunt you.
GameSpot UK: How many characters do you control?
Jason Kingsley: You control one character and you don't have any AI buddies. We determined early on that didn't work. You'd get your AI buddies to do all the work -- it would be like watching the movies.
GameSpot UK: Tell us about the Marine character
Jason Kingsley: The Marine is a guy stuck in a difficult place, he's been done over by the corporation, as in the films. But now he's not only got weapons from the Alien movies, but he's got access to ones from the Predator films too. The marine starts with a powerful weapon. We went through the stages of thinking should we give the Marine a knife or a pistol, but what good are they against an Alien? We used a the movies as a point of reference, so the Marine starts with a pulse rifle.
GameSpot UK: So how does a Marine kill an Alien?
Jason Kingsley: There's lots of ways. Shooting an Alien's head off, or hitting their main body will kill them. But just shooting at them blindly will not work. For instance you can shoots their legs off, but they will still crawl towards you.
GameSpot UK: So what's cool about playing an Alien?
Jason Kingsley: The fact that you have complete freedom of movement: you can walk up vertical surfaces and can crawl up walls. You can hide in the dark. Another cool thing is that you are the weapon. With the Predator and Marine you have weapons, the Alien is like a guided missile.
GameSpot UK: So what can the Predators do?
Jason Kingsley: They have an invisibility mode which bends light, so it's not perfect you can see them moving as in the films. That's really important in the game. Occasionally the field sparks, so you can see them if they decided to stand still. They also have to breathe so you pick them up on the motion tracker.
All their devices run off a central field charge. So you have be careful to make sure you have enough charge -- otherwise you'll just be left with the knives. There are two different vision modes one is heat seeking (for marines) and the other is an Alien seeking.
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