We chat to senior producer Dave Hasle and primary lead artist Matthew Allen from developers Monolith games about the game’s cinematics.

Senior Producer Dave Hasle, Monolith Productions:
I work with a Primary Lead Artist, Matthew Allen, who is pretty much a hardcore fire-fighter for anything content-related. An issue pops up – technical, pipeline, aesthetic, whatever – Matt will jump on it and put it out quickly and efficiently. As a Producer, I don’t close out games at Monolith unless I’ve got Matt Allen helping keep it all under control and fitting in memory.

One of our issues was with the production schedule of cinematics. We had a certain quality bar that we wanted to hit but the schedule wasn’t allowing for it to happen. In stepped Matt to establish the pipeline and help render out the final frames. Of course, our cinematics could not have been done without Rocky Newton, our cinematic director, and Nick Kondo, cinematic guru, being as dedicated as they are as well.

Matthew Allen, Primary Lead Artist:
My job has covered a whole range of things, but my major focus over the last three months of the project has been getting the final cut-scenes into the game.

One of the things we identified as needing a lot of work at the end of the first Condemned game was the cut-scenes. We had spent a good amount of time developing a new process to get them into the game with consistent movement and camera animation, all controlled by the animators. However, as it was our first real console title we ran into a couple of issues; the biggest two being memory and frame-rate. As we were working with a limited amount of memory, and the cut-scenes needed to be rendered real time in the same streaming region as the rest of the game, we were forced to cut back on both texture resolution and animation fidelity. This led to some of the camera cuts and positions, which the animators choose based on how well the models looked in Maya, to look very pixilated and ‘last gen’. Frame-rate also became an issue. Since all of our lighting and shadows are dynamic, being generated real-time, our frame rate is greatly affected by the amount of lights we have in a scene. So, we were severely limited by that factor also.

Early in production on Condemned 2, our cinematic director, Rocky Newton, and I sat down and brainstormed possible solutions to these issues. For the greatest flexibility form an animation standpoint we decided that we were going to pre-render all of our cut-scenes in Maya, using Mental Ray. This solved a number of our original issues, but created a few more – plus, for a number of folks it was disappointing. We all know that our engine can do some pretty amazing things, so there was some push for us to figure out a way to get the cinematics back in game.

Regardless of the final “how” of the rendering, Rocky Newton was able to move forward with storyboards and animatics. He used a very early draft of the script, along with pickup voice acting from the Yeti team and various Monolith employees. This was the first time we had ever done full animatics and storyboards for our game cinematics, and Rocky’s unique drawing style was perfectly suited for the task. Very early in production the team was able to see a number of very high quality timed animations, and the excitement level was high. At the same time, we began exploring mental ray and the pipeline for moving things back and forth between the game and mental ray. While we did get some excellent results, it was a very cumbersome process and both the mental ray rendering time and turnaround time for game assets became problematic.

Around the same time, a number of folks seemed to have a “Eureka” moment. So why not use the engine to offline render the cinematics? This way we don’t have to worry about frame-rate, so we can add as many lights and as much shadow casting geometry as we want… and we also don’t have to worry about memory, since we were rendering it on a beefy PC. The memory stuff allowed us to up the resolution on all of the textures so even close-ups on people’s eyes could look good. Our Lead Engineer Brian Legge worked with John O’Rorke, our Principal Software Engineer, Engine Architect, and very quickly implemented this for us and the results were very strong.

Since we were now using the engine to render the cinematics, I could now use the latest in game art assets for rendering, including effects. This freed up a lot of time in our schedule which allowed us to focus on some of the cooler animation stuff. Most of my time could now be spent on lighting and tweaking effects rather than moving things into mental ray and trying to replicate our in-game shaders. We could also now do a bunch of stuff that the engine can handle, but modern consoles can’t - like turning up the real-time velocity based motion blur, and running with 30 to 40 lights per scene. We can also use a ton of our in-game special effects together: things like depth of field, full screen color mapping, film grain, sharpen, and a whole host of others, that the console aren’t powerful enough to use together in real-time.

There is still a number of workflow issues that we will need to solve for next time, but for the most part our experiment has been a resounding success and has really allowed us to produce some of the highest quality in game cut-scenes I have personally ever seen. It has been very exciting to watch this whole process unfold, and to bring to life all of Rocky’s initial storyboards, while being able to highlight the great amount of talent of both our artists and our engineers here at Monolith.

We’re very pleased to announce that we, the SEGA Europe Online Community Team, are now on Facebook. We’ve setup a nice page and we’ll be using it to talk to all our friends out there on the Interweb. We’ll also be putting up the latest info on our games as well as some exclusive bits n bobs when we can. So pop along to Facebook and join our gang.

Continuing with our posts that probably reveal more about ourselves than is necessary, we present to you our top ten most played songs on our iPods (or other generic MP3 player). Just what do we listen to when we’re knee-deep in work? You may be surprised…

The Big Cheese:
1. Pacific State - 808 State.
2. Hard2beat - Hard-Fi
3. Slave to the Rhythm - Grace Jones
4. Imperial March- John Williams
5. Voodoo Ray- Voodoo Ray
6. Eple - Royksopp
7. To Cut a Long Story Short (12inch)- Spandau Ballet
8. Return of Forever- High Contrast
9. Anakin Vs Obi Wan- John Williams.
10. Love Can’t Turn Around -Farley Jackmaster Funk

Martin – the fat ninja:
1. Kingdom – Dave Gahan
2. Carnival of Rust – Poets of the Fall
3. Dirty Little Rockstar – The Cult
4. Chapter XIII (+44)
5. Always the Sun – The Stranglers
6. Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode
7. Extreme Ways – Moby
8. Holy Mountain – The Cult
9. Vision Thing – The Sisters of Mercy
10. The Nobodies – Marilyn Manson

So, what are you guys n gals listening to?

Sitting here with our tea and biscuits, we often debate the important issues of the day. Issues such as: whose turn it is to buy the sugar?, what to have for tea?, is it justifiable to buy a movie in HD when you’ve already got it on DVD?, and which biscuit is best for dunking? But one question remains unanswered; a question that has caused more disagreements and raised voices than a Labour Party Conference. Just what is the best videogame in the world ever?

With a combined gaming age of over 100, the five of us have played more than our fair share of gems (and rubbish) over the years. And as we can’t agree on the best game in the world ever, we’ve compiled our individual top 20 favourite games of all time.

Some of them may not be the most technical or re-playable games in the world, but they mean something to us in some way or another. Some of them created a genre; some took it to a whole new level; while others are just good old fashioned fun. Some of these you will no doubt agree on, others will probably leave you shaking your head in disbelief.

In no particular order (after about number 5), mine are:
1. Saturn Bomberman – SEGA Saturn (without doubt, the best multiplayer game EVER!!)
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – Xbox 360 (the best single-player game ever)
3. Alternate Reality – Atari 800xl version
4. Mario 64 – N64
5. Silent Hill 2 – PlayStation 2
6. GoldenEye – N64
7. Super Puyo Puyo - SNES
8. Tempest 2000 – Atari Jaguar
9. Magical Flying Hat Turbo Adventure, AKA Decapattack – SEGA Mega Drive
10. Street Fighter 2 – PC Engine
11. Splatter House – PC Engine
12. Resident Evil – PlayStation
13. Galaga 88 – PC Engine version
14. Super Mario Bros. 3 NES
15. ChoroQ – PlayStation
16. Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time – N64
17. Tomb Raider - SEGA Saturn
18. GTA: Vice City Stories (PSP)
19. Super Mario World - SNES
20. Wii Sports - Wii

Dave:
OK, here goes. There were so many that could and possibly should have been on this list. And I’m sure I’ve overlooked some crackers:

1. Super Mario Kart – This game has taken up months of my life
2. Football Manager Series – This one is possibly touching years of lifetime consumption.
3. Sensible World of Soccer – In short, the most in-depth action footie game of it’s time.
4. Virtua Tennis 3 – I’ve had some amazing multiplayer duals on this bad-boy, it’s still my game of choice in the online office.
5. Football Manager Live – THE most addictive game I’ve played ever.
6. GTA 3 – My life was taken over by this game for a month. I even started talking in an Italian accent and everything!
7. Worms – The ultimate war game, Noggin, Smidge and the gang – I salute you!
8. Arkanoid II – Simple game, hugely addictive, massively frustrating.
9. Wizball – I was enchanted by the originality of this Atari ST classic.
10. Formula One 97 – Myself and a friend got very good at this game and had some Prost / Senna like battles.
11. Chuckie Egg – Delicious!
12. Super Grand Prix – An Amiga classic, race as an F1 car, a tank, a motorbike or even a dragster – classic racing!
13. Kick Off 2 – Oh the fun myself and my brothers had playing this footie sim. It was the game of choice until SWOS came along.
14. Starquake – I got lost on this wonderfully large world of caverns and caves many a time. Avoid the evil crosses!
15. Tetris – The only game that allowed me and my mum to compete on a level playing field.
16. Brian Clough’s Football Fortunes – It’s a computer game, and a board game; and it was the only management game where you could lose two of your star players in a car-crash – what more does a football fan need.
17. Grand Theft Auto – We’ve got a ten thirteen at South Miramar
18. Ikari Warriors – Multiplayer Rambo style brilliance.
19. Ski Challenge – Classic simple skiing action.
20. Super Mario Bros. 3 – Lovin’ that racoon suit.

The ‘so close’ contenders were…
Sim City
Striker
Pro-Cycling Manager
Super Bomber Man
New Star Soccer 3

ArchangelUK:
1. Turrican 2 (Atari ST)
2. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GC)
3. Tales Of Symphonia (GC)
4. The Legend Of Zelda: Link To The Past (SNES)
5. Llamatron (Atari ST)
6. Sonic Triple Trouble (GG)
7. Sid Meier’s Colonization (PC)
8. Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC)
9. Star Goose (Atari ST)
10. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PC)
11. Star Wars: Original (Arcade)
12. Time Crisis II (Arcade)
13. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GC)
14. Soul Calibur II (GC)
15. Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games (Wii)
16. Double Dragon
17. Sonic 2 (MD)
18. Shadow The Hedgehog (GC)
19. Bomb Jack (Atari ST)
20. Unreal Tournament (PC)

Juuuust missing out:
Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg (GC)
Crazy Taxi
Halcyon: The Fringe (PC)
Half Life 2 (PC)
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Need For Speed Underground 2 (PC)
Offroad Thunder (Arcade)

The Big Cheese:
1. Civilisation (Amiga)
2. Total War: Rome (PC)
3. X-Wing (PC)
4. Football Manager 07 (PC)
5. UFO Enemy Unknown (PC)
6. Super Return of the Jedi (SNES)
7. Sensible World of Soccer (Amiga)
8. Star Wars Lego the Complete Saga. (Xbox 360)
9. Mario 64 (N64)
10. Kick Off 2 (Atari ST)
11. Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (PS2)
12. Grand Theft Auto- Vice City (PS2)
13. Midwinter II Flames of Freedom (Amiga)
14. Grand Theft Auto- San Andreas (PS2)
15. Elite (ZX Spectrum)
16. Arnhem (ZX Spectrum)
17. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Megadrive)
18. NHL 2004 (PS2)
19. Tracksuit Manager World Cup Edition (C64)
20. Half Life 2. (PC)

Mark O:
Compiling a list of my top 20 games is tricky because it means excluding the hundreds of others that I have enjoyed over the years. I obviously also love the Total War series, but I have left them of this list to give you an idea of what else I play.

1. Crackdown – Xbox 360
A hugely entertaining game that is fun in both single and multiplayer. With all of the bosses now defeated, my hunt for green and blue orbs continues!

2. Final Fantasy VII – PSOne
This was my first real introduction to RPG’s and remains a firm favourite 10 years later. I proudly dedicated 81 hours of my life to exploring this epic world and racing my prized Chocobo!

3. WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw - Playstation 2
Having played all 9 titles in the series, I am so fond of the games that I even moved to Los Angeles at one point to work on two of them!

4. Bioshock – Xbox 360
One of the greatest single player FPS games of all time. If only it had a multiplayer mode it’d be perfect!

5. Grand Theft Auto 3 – Playstation 2
The leap into 3D corrupted my fragile little mind!

6. Call of Duty 4 – Xbox 360
I’m a huge fan of the COD series, and the latest entry is the best yet. I have recently become quite partial to the Domination mode on Xbox Live.

7. Knights of the Old Republic – Xbox
The best Star Wars game. Ever.

8. Worms – PC
I still cannot resist the charm of throwing a sheep or banana bomb at the enemy to hear them retaliate in a high-pitched voice “You’ll regret that!”

9. Fight Night Round 3 – Xbox 360
This 360 launch title has still yet to be assigned to my “gathering dust” pile, and I currently have a 20 match undefeated streak on Xbox live!

10. Crimson Skies – Xbox
Crimson Skies was a very pleasant surprise, and is definitely worth checking out.

11. Super Mario Galaxy – Nintendo Wii
While all Mario games probably deserve a place in this list (well, except SMB2), his latest adventure is a current favourite.

12. Metal Gear Solid – PSOne
Fantastic espionage action with unique boss battles. A bit text heavy though!

13. Guitar Hero 3 – Xbox 360
Who’d have thought a brightly coloured plastic guitar could provide so much fun!

14. Ape Escape – PSOne
With a unique analog control system, Ape Escape was one of the best platformers on PSOne.

15. Tomb Raider – PSOne
The T Rex scene on level 3 was an iconic moment in gaming. As was jumping off the waterfall and purposely missing the water! :o)

16. Crash Bandicoot: Warped - PSOne
The third in the series was packed with humour and had gorgeous visuals.

17. Timesplitters 2 – Playstation 2
There is something indescribably brilliant about being able to run around as a duck and throw bricks at the gingerbread man in a supermarket.

18. City of Villains - PC
Superheroes are more fun than goblins – fact!

19. Super Monkey Ball – Gamecube
Monkey boxing rules!

20. Dancing Stage: Euro Mix – Arcade
The best pre-Wii Sports exercise around, and for some reason I’m actually quite good at it.

With Christmas fast-approaching, we thought it’d be a bit of fun to find out what’s on YOUR Christmas list for this year. Think of this as your wish list; and if anyone asks what you want, just send them here. I of course will be passing this link on to my ever-loving girlfriend in the hope that she actually gets me what I want. I mean how difficult is it to buy a short, slightly-overweight man a ninja suit?

I’ll kick things off; although I might actually be revealing a bit too much about myself in the process. I’ve also added some handy links off to some online stores that you can purchase my gifts (other internet places of retail are available) if you’re feeling a bit generous.

- Apple MacBook white 2.16GHz (or 2.2GHz one)
- Tamron AF 70-300mm Lens F4-5.6 Di LD Macro 1:2 Pentax
- Calumet 7100 Tripod with Three-way Quick Release Head
- A nice flash unit for a Pentax K10D
- A case for my LG KU900 Viewty phone
- RockBand PS3 bundle from the USA (well I can dream)
- Remote gun holder for the Wii (ready for House of the Dead and Ghost Squad)
- The Comic Strip Presents DVD boxset from HMV (currently on offer for £16.99)
- Blade Runner: Ultimate Ltd Briefcase Ed Blu-Ray (US Import)
- HD-DVD player for Xbox 360 (Only because Heroes isn’t on Blu-ray)
- Heroes season 1 on HD-DVD (US Import is cheaper)
- Stardust on HD-DVD (from the USA)
- Tabi Boots size 7 (from a Japanese store on eBay)
- Ninja Suit size short ‘n’ fat (you can buy these on eBay)
- The QI Annual 2008

I’ll be updating this regularly when other members of the team get me their lists. After Christmas, we can all return here and show off pictures of us wearing the sweaters we received instead. If however, I do manage to get a ninja suit and RockBand on the PS3 I’ll post a video clip of me, the drumming ninja just to prove it.

We catch up with The Club developers to discuss the different multi-player modes in the game.

Design Goal
“Our goal when creating The Club’s multi-player was to create an accessible and compelling multi-player experience which was consistent with the game’s setting while offering something new and fresh to the genre.”

Kill match - This is a tried and tested death-match mode. The player with the most kills at the end of the game is the winner.

“We really wanted this core game mode to be included in the design for it’s ease of play and simplicity however it’s granted an extra lease of life due to The Club’s interesting suite of characters, environments and weapons.”

Score match - This is a points based death-match where players rack up points for kills using the same scoring mechanism which is used in the single player game. As with the single player game, the key to big scores is combo.

“We wanted a free-for all game which was close to the single player experience but with real human opponents. The scoring system works well in a death-match environment. Quick, successive kills are the key to winning a score match and hunting for an opportunity to gain multiple kills adds excitement.”

Hunted Killer - When the game begins the first player to make a kill becomes the Hunted. While hunted, a player’s score ticks up constantly. Only one player can be the hunted, and if a Hunter player manages to kill the hunted, the hunted status will pass over to the killer. Becoming the hunted and surviving for as long as possible is the only way to score. The hunters are equipped with radar which shows where the hunted player is all the time. The hunted player does not have a scanner so he must keep on his toes to avoid his pursuers.

“Hunted killer is all about being the hunted. It captures the spirit of The Club in a frantic death-match game. The feeling you get when you become the hunted and run for your life with all the other players trying to hunt you down is what this mode is all about.”

Team Kill match - This is a regular team kill match. The team who scores the highest by killing their opponents will win.

“Team Kill match is a regular “Team DM” game mode which (like Kill match) we wanted to include because of its simple objective.”

Team Fox Hunt - In Team Fox Hunt one player on each team is assigned as the “Fox”. The objective is to hunt and kill the enemy team’s Fox without them doing the same to yours. All players begin with the same amount of health however the fox player can use health packs dotted around the level to bring his health up to a maximum of 400%

“The “Fox” player is so much tougher than a regular player in The Club. We wanted to make sure that players could not exploit the game mode and one of the ways that we found that the game mode could be exploited is by simply holding out in the team’s spawn area and force the enemies to advance. We countered this by changing the Fox’s health mechanism and placing the best health and weapon pick-ups in the middle of the level to draw the fox players out from their initial spawn areas.

Another problem which we had to overcome was the fact that your whole team’s performance relies on the ability of the fox player. We didn’t want to have a situation where players would resent a poor Fox player and so we made it so that after each round the Fox player status was assigned to the best players on each team.”

Team Capture - In this game mode, both teams have a base objective. The aim of the game mode is to capture the enemies’ base objective while defending your own. Bases are captured by standing on them and holding for 30 seconds. The team who manages to fully capture the enemy team’s objective or the team with the most capture time when the game timer runs out is the winner.

“This was one of the more straight-forward game modes to develop. We spent a lot of time with the team-game modes ensuring that the maps were balanced for both teams (even though the areas are not symmetrical) We carefully tweaked spawn positions and weapon pick-ups to ensure balance.”

Team Siege - This game mode is inspired by the single player “Siege” game mode. In Team Siege teams are assigned the role of either attack or defence. Defending players have only 1 life whereas attacking players re-spawn when killed. The game plays out and the attackers must kill all of the defending players as quickly as possible. The teams then swap roles so the attackers become defenders and the defenders attackers. To win this round teams must survive for longer in defence than the attackers did.

“This game mode started out as probably the least favourite of the bunch here at Bizarre however we took a step back and addressed key problems with the flow of the game mode. We realised that the original level design didn’t accommodate enough strategy and different plays from the attackers. We fixed these issues and what we have now has become one of our favourite game modes.”

Team Skull shot - The aim of this game mode is to destroy all 5 of the enemy team’s skull shot targets while defending your own.

“The challenge for us with this game mode was the levels. The concept of the game mode was simple enough, however there are many ways in which the levels could be made. Initial attempts to create the concept of a ‘base’ area for each team were not good enough and made the game mode feel similar to some of the other modes. In the end we opted for a topology which promoted a “tug-o-war” style of play where attackers would push back the defenders as they destroyed their skull shot targets and vice-versa.”

If you’re getting a bit bored with your current gaming collection, perhaps we can entice you with one (or maybe more) of our new releases for this week. For those of you looking for something a bit portable we’ve got Sonic Rivals 2 on the PSP. This sequel to Sonic’s 2D action-platformer features all-new ‘jostling’ controls for tighter competition and a brand new Battle mode allows two players to jump into six different multiplayer challenges by sharing one disc. And if you haven’t seen it already, our amazing Sonic portal, Sonic City is now live.

If you fancy travelling back to the 90s for a bit of retro reminiscing, then check out our two great Virtual Console releases for the Nintendo Wii in the shape of Rolling Thunder 2 and Light Crusader. Both of these games are available to download now for a mere 800 points each.

Rolling Thunder 2 (originally released in 1992), the follow-up to the original classic (which is a personal favourite of mine), once again sees you as a member of Interpol’s Rolling Thunder task force, and it’s up to you to stop the return of the evil Geldra organisation. Use your bullets wisely and make the Rolling Thunder proud!

Light Crusader is an action RPG that was developed by Treasure Co. Ltd and originally released back in 1995. In this highly visual game, players take on the role of Sir David, and you must get to the bottom of the mysteries of Green Row. It’ll take both brains and brawn as you fight enemies and solve puzzles to save the kingdom.

Games Testers, 3 month fixed term contracts available, Chiswick, West London Do you possess an absolute passion for video games? Want to be the first to play SEGA games before they are released in the shops? If you said yes to the above then apply for one of these sought after positions now! PLEASE APPLY FOR THESE POSITIONS BY VISITING WWW.SEGA-EUROPE.COM WHERE AN APPLICATION FORM CAN BE DOWNLOADED AND YOUR APPLICATION SUBMITTED TO JOBS@SEGA.CO.UK.

Please note that we are only able to accept applications where both a CV and completed Application Form is provided, thank you. Hourly rate starts at £6.00 per hour exclusive of shift allowance.

Shifts available: Monday to Friday, 7.30 am to 3.00 pm or 3.00 pm to 10.30 pm Monday to Thursday 10.30 pm to 7.30 am (Night shift commencing late December)