Mark Rein: Well, did you play the PS3 version yet?
SPOnG: Yeah, I just played it, briefly, upstairs. It seems to be pretty much the same game, though a bit slower than the PC version is all, was that deliberate?
Mark Rein: Yes, because you’re playing with a controller. With a keyboard and a mouse… look (picks up nearby mouse and quickly waggles it about making a ‘Zhzhzhzhing’ noise!)… You can’t do that with a controller! Like, your fingers just cannot do that, right? The PC is just a totally different animal.
But what I’m really proud of is just how great it is on PS3. Like, I’ve been playing the game a lot recently on the PlayStation 3 and I’m totally sold on it. It’s a great console game.
I mean, when you play Halo on PC, you notice the difference too yeah? This is also the reason why we don’t have cross-platform play, between PC and PS3, because you have got to make some compromises for each platform. But you play Halo on console and you find that it’s slower too, right… they have to be slower, because your fingers are just not as precise as your whole arm, right?
(Actually that sounds counterintuitive to SPOnG – but that’s probably one of the reasons that we’re not all best-selling, legendary game makers. Depressed Ed.)
SPOnG: Do you think UT3 on console has really captured the PC experience though?
Mark Rein: Yes. Absolutely. That, to me, is the most exciting thing right now. How well the game translates to PS3 and how much fun it is to play. I mean, I’ve been playing ‘warfare’ and ‘capture the flag with vehicles’… last night I was playing a death match and I turned on this thing called ‘slow kills’ so when you get a kill time slows down so you can see the guy being hit. It was really fantastic. To me the movement and speed as a console gamer is just right. And you can adjust the sensitivity of the controller too if you like. If you’re a died-in-the-wool PC gamer you can turn it right up but the default is 10 out of 20. So, you can double that and make it way more sensitive, but personally I don’t do that.
SPOnG: Two things that really stood out for me, having just played the Sandstorm level on the PS3 version, were the hover boards and the (immense robotic tripod) Darkwalker. That thing is fantastic!
Mark Rein: Yeah, and did you check out the Sixaxis motion-control with the hoverboard? Oh man! And so is the Redeemer (rocket launcher), which is just a natural thing anyway, because I find that when I’m aiming I’m already doing this (moves hands I’m aiming a rocket launcher motion!) so it’s a pretty natural way to control it.
The hoverboard is a really great addition to the game. Particularly when you’re playing ‘warfare’ or ‘capture the flag with vehicles’ and you want to get somewhere quickly, it really is fantastic; and it’s balanced just right. Did you notice when you get hit you fall off and you’re a little bit stunned? I mean, the problem is, if you’re on the hoverboard and you have the flag or the orb, then you can really zip in and out and if there is no penalty for that then it wouldn’t work, there would be no way for people to stop you. It’s hard to shoot you when you’re on that thing, so the reward for somebody hitting you is that you fall off and you then have to get back on. So, in my mind, it’s really well balanced.
SPOnG: Unreal has a real reputation for being a hardcore gamer’s game.
Mark Rein: Absolutely.
SPOnG: But now, with it moving onto console it’s going to appeal to a much wider audience, to casual gamers as well as the hardcore… I suppose a big part of introducing new gamers to the experience is the single player campaign mode.
Mark Rein: Yeah, and we’ve simplified the game too. You know, in the last game, we had like seven game types. So this time, we said, ‘Instead of having Onslaught and Assault, lets meld them together into this Warfare mode… let’s just do the things that we do really well and make them work on console”.
You’re exactly right, it’s the single-player game that, even though you’re playing through all the different levels, feels more like a ladder with a story. It’s just a much better introduction to the game. Like, for instance, I love it when you first go into the Capture the Flag mode and they talk about flags… and we give it a ridiculous acronym, like ‘Field Level Something-or-other Generator’ (I should commit that to memory, I know!) and you have two bots arguing about it, saying “But it’s a FLAG, it looks like a FLAG, I’m going to call it a FLAG!!”
It’s just fun, the way that they bring you into the game and they teach you how to play. There’s a little bit of humour and there’s a great story, great cinematics and a nice little twist at the end. I mean, it’s not Gears Of War-style big; not epic, single-player storyline, but it’s the best, most robust single-player we’ve ever had for a UT game. And it should be real fun for the console guys.