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Hard Reset Review

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Disclaimer: Blade Runner was not harmed in the writing of this review.

For those potentially coming fresh off Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the cyberpunk action-adventure of the moment (also included on our list of recent cyberpunk titles), Flying Wild Hog’s début throwback FPS Hard Reset might take some getting used to. After all, the game’s name could and should be taken in reference to its status as an earnest homage to “all those forgotten Dooms, Quakes, and Painkillers” 1)http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/hard-reset/news/6326099/hard-reset-qanda-whats-old-is-new-again?sid=6326099&mode=previews&tag=topslot;thumb;2.

What the ex-members of CD Projekt RED, People Can Fly, City Interactive and Metropolis do is literally drop the you onto a dank, bleak futuristic alleyway, with barrels and crates strewn across the street, glowing power-ups beckoning. Efforts to interact with this architecturally impressive scene will prove much in vain, however, with items merely bumping, bouncing and rolling about; If you discover an explosive barrel or a glowing transformer, you can rest assured its only function is to act as a stationary tool for tactical destruction.

Stuff blows up. Big time. End of story?

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Interview with Epic Games’ Jay Wilbur

Nabeel Burney 161 Comments

Since its inception in 2008, the Dubai World Game Expo has been the annual showcase for game developers in the Middle East. In the last few years many western studios have taken an interest and have come to sponsor or give panels, including CryTech, Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Epic Games.

Epic had a large presence at DWGE 2010, showcasing their latest development tool, the Unreal Development Kit. Their booth featured a workshop with tutorials on the basics of the UDK, and representing Epic at DWGE were Jay Wilbur, Vice President, as well as Markus Arvidsson and James Tan – two of the independent developers behind UDK-based game The Ball. I sat down with these fine gentlemen to discuss a variety of topics including Unreal Engine 3, the UDK, and games development in general. What follows is my conversation with Jay.

The Slowdown: The Unreal Engine has a long history of licensing and modding; how did the decision to launch the Unreal Development Kit only come about now after all these years?

Jay Wilbur: So, all the while, we’ve always made our games open and available for people to mod – Unreal Tournament 3, going back to the original Unreal. People would be able to use the tools to make their own mod. But that locks those creative endeavours to the game, so somebody else would need to own that particular game in order to play the mod. With the UDK, we’ve freed developers to create standalone applications, turn it into a standalone playable entity – asset, I should say, and then deliver it to anybody who wanted to play it. They wouldn’t necessarily need to own that game in order to play it. So the goal was basically to have more people use Unreal Engine 3 in the development and also have more people be able to play the end result.

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The Journey Down Interview with Theodor Waern

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

In this interview with main Skygoblin Theodor Waern, who is fresh off releasing the very first chapter of his four-part adventure game series, The Journey Down, we discuss the game’s unique look and feel, Waern’s inspiration for the game and find out more about the role Adventure Game Studio played in the game’s development. We also got around talking about the importance of polish, what makes a puzzle a good puzzle, and Waern’s workflow.

In addition to this interview, we have also simultaneously published our review of the first chapter of the game here at The Slowdown. “Over the Edge” can be downloaded from Skygoblin right now.

The Slowdown: Starting off, I would like you to return to the origins of the series for a minute: In the manual provided with “Over the Edge,” you reveal how the game’s origins actually lie in brainstorming sessions with your colleague, Mathias Johansson. How big a catalyst, though, was simply finding the correct tool to work with?

Theodor Waern: There’s no point denying that when me and AGS first laid eyes on each other, we both knew it was love. I realized right from the start that this was THE tool for me. The learning curve was perfect. I had a problem, I banged my head at it, I solved it. I had another problem, I banged my head some more, and I solved that one too. It has been that way ever since I started production on the game and I doubt I will ever come to a complete stop.

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Interview with The Whispered World Designer Marco Hüllen

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

Note: This is Day 3 of “The Whispered World Week” at The Slowdown.

Maro Hüllen, with Pet

In today’s interview, we talk to the original designer and primary illustrator of The Whispered World, Marco Hüllen (on the right), in the hopes of shedding more light on the curiouser details of the development process of the game – especially, on details that are still left uncertain for non-German audiences.

After all, German fans of the adventure game have had the privilege of reading Marco’s posts on various adventure gaming forums – as well as having already played the game. For those of us not yet in the know, the interview below should hopefully reveal some further facets of the make-up of the wildly imaginative ride that is the six-year development process of the game.

Finally, please do remember to take a look at our introductory post to The Whispered World – the article, written in conjunction with this interview, details the game’s history from inception to conception, between the years 2004 and 2010, and should by all means get you better prepared for the game’s release on the 23rd.

A special thank you goes to the very genial mister Hüllen, who braved our questions despite a minor language barrier. Therefore, the interview has been translated, from German into English, by Martyn Zachary and Richard Scary for The Slowdown. The original answers, in the German language, will also be published on the website later.

The Slowdown: After having worked so long on a project that began way back in the first half of the 00’s as an university project, are you feeling any fatigue now that the game is finally coming out?

Marco Hüllen: A little, but the joys do outweigh the fatigue. When I first started work on the game, I never expected it to become such a marathon for me. Much has been enjoyable, and a lot was equally frustrating. In the end it all came together nevertheless, and with that in mind it has all been worthwhile.

How long have you been working on the game, exactly?

Oh, it has already been quite a few years: I started work in the year 2004, with The Whispered World as the topic of my diploma thesis. When I completed my degree in late 2005, I made the decision to develop the game further at Bad Brain Entertainment, for whom I had done graphics on some other titles during my studies.

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The Whispered World Week

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

Note: This is Day 1 of “The Whispered World Week” at The Slowdown.

Cover Art

This week, after a brief stretch of inactivity, The Slowdown prepares to turn its knobs to full blast with five days solely dedicated to the German-made, apocalyptic fantasy point and click adventure, The Whispered World!

I consider this week, from the 19th to the 23rd, just as much a return to my gaming roots – the adventure game genre – as it is a gesture towards the game’s only true leading man, lead artist and designer Marco Hüllen, who has in my mind received far too little attention in the English-language press for his imperative contributions to the game’s development. His omission from the game’s marketing discourse, in a way, is an example of the disconnection in-between different subsections of gamers as demarcated by language.

Therefore, the week starts with full force tomorrow, Tuesday the 20th, with a detailed timeline of the astonishing six-year development history of the game, detailing many of the turning points and pivotal moments of a process that in many ways culminated back in the August of 2009. For comparative purposes, the article also contains rare screenshots from the original demo version way back from 2005!

Sadwick and Spot

On Wednesday, we will be posting a translation of our one-on-one interview with the game’s lead artist and original designer, Marco Hüllen. Among the topics discussed were the scholastic origins of the game, Hüllen’s past and present influences, the role that the infamous Bad Brain Entertainment played in the game’s development, and the formative origins of the protagonist, Sadwick the clown. Finally, we’ll at once discover the true nature of Sadwick’s sidekick, Spot!

For Thursday, I have prepared a thickly descriptive interpretation – a review, if you will – of the very generously paced demo of The Whispered World that is currently available for download from Deep Silver.

And to seal the deal, Friday the 23rd (the game’s EU release date) comes with a tiny surprise!

Note: This post will be updated with links to the respective articles to reflect the state of the upcoming coverage, so stay tuned for more! I hope you will all enjoy these articles as much as I have enjoyed working with Mr. Hüllen for the past few weeks!

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