The Wheelman Interview
2009-02-02 16:34:10 (284 views)
Most games based on movies tend to well suck. The only one I could think of that didn’t was Starbreeze Studios’ Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from butcher Bay starring tough guy, Vin Diesel. While Starbreeze Studios are busy working on Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, a remake cum sequel to the game, Vin Diesel struck a deal with Midway to work on a video game adaptation of his upcoming movie, The Wheelman.
Now it’s too early to judge the game since we haven’t even played it yet, but we were given a small taste of things to come when we sat down and spoke to Simon Woodroffe, Creative Director at Midway Games Studio Newcastle.
How was working with Vin Diesel? How involved was he in the project?
Vin has been a great inspirational figure to work with. He was on board with the idea and design principles of the game from the get go and has had a hand in shaping many unique elements of it. Where I think his real strength is, as a Hollywood star – he really GETS games and the differences between them and movies as forms of entertainment. He’s keen to bring movie production standards into games but not at the expense of the interactivity that makes games unique.
Since driving is an integral part of the game, what kind of physics are we looking at? Can we expect Burnout Paradise-esque slow motion car deformation?
Our physics system is based upon a heavily modified version of Havok – so it’s ultimately grounded in reality. Each car has a fully working vehicle dynamics simulation on top of which is layered our driving helper systems that provide an interface between the player and the native car handling.
The end result of that is a very accessible simulation – that handles somewhere in between a typical open world driving game and Burnout. We have some really interesting vehicle damage technology of course – in that regard the game is more like Burnout. When an enemy is destroyed by the player – that’s a big moment of satisfaction for them – so it had to be extremely rewarding to pull off.
Will the game have multiplayer? (If so could you elaborate and if not, why so?)
We are not supporting traditional multiplayer; it is a single player focused experience but we will be supporting the game with DLC post release.
What kind of OST can we expect in this game? Will we be able to customize the track list with some of our own songs?
We have support for customizable soundtracks, multiple radio stations in open world roaming and a fully dynamic music system in our missions to really enhance that AAA movie feel.
Can we expect any sort of car/player customization in the game?
Vin’s character (Milo Burik) isn’t the type – he takes cars and wrecks them so fast it’d be almost pointless to customize them! Part of his move set – and another pacing tool – is the ability to leap from one car to another (called the Air Jack) whilst they are still moving. This is a pretty incredible move to pull off and helps re-enforce the ideal that vehicles are temporary weapons that Milo can use to attack his opponents. Once he’s battered one, he moves onto another.
Games based on movies more often than not end up sucking. You think The Wheelman will be able to break the curse just like Diesel's last outing Escape from Butcher Bay?
I’d agree games based on movies often end up sucking – which is why this game isn’t based on a movie. The arrangement is that the two co-exist as related entertainment products – not that one is ‘the crap version of the other’. This was identical to how Vin and Tigon approached Butcher Bay – and that was an excellent game and movie combo that complimented each other really well. We have certainly not been restricted by the ongoing movie developments in any way – the process has been two way since the very beginning.
The Wheelman will release on the PS3, Xbox360 and PC by the 20th of March 2009.
Avinash Bali
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