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Friday May 02, 2008
Inside Secret LevelI know more than a few of you are interested in what it’s like to work at a video game company, and from time to time we’ll try to give you a look at our ritzy, glamorous, fun-filled lives as gaming rockstars. Oh, wait, I’m thinking of someone else… scratch that. Anyway, yesterday I got to head over to offices of Secret Level, the studio that just developed our Iron Man game and is hard at work on Golden Axe: Beast Rider. It was my first visit to their headquarters, which is only about six blocks from the SEGA offices in San Francisco and is situated in a great location right across from AT&T Park, the home of the Giants. The building itself is brick both inside and out, and the interior workspace had a lot of character; it was fairly dark inside, but the walls are covered with concept art and posters from Golden Axe and various other games, and employees’ cubicles are also adorned with lots of pictures, action figures, and other random gaming paraphernalia. You definitely know that you’re at a gaming company when you’re inside, that’s for sure. While Mike, our Golden Axe: Beast Rider product manager, received status updates on the game from various producers and artists, I tagged along and took a bunch of pictures, which I’ve posted on our Flickr account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23380910@N04/sets/72157604845979266/ There are some decent Beast Rider concept art shots in there, as well as a look at a few computer screens that have various animatics and render art on them. There are a couple other office interior shots as well as a good shot (poached from the Secret Level website) from the roof of the building, showing the ballpark across the street. Finally, I’ve thrown in two exclusive preview screenshots and two new pieces of concept art from the game, so you can get a clearer idea of how Beast Rider is shaping up. As for experiencing the game itself, I didn’t see any specific gameplay, but the art and renders I saw were pretty unique, and I did see a demo of Tyris riding one particular beast that will deal some severe swipe damage with its claws. There are several types of beast mounts in the game, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and my bet is that there will be points in the game where you have to ride a specific beast in order to accomplish certain goals — but that’s just a hunch. FYI, our SEGA of America community team (Clumsy, EggShen and myself) are off on Sunday to London to meet with our European counterparts, so we’ll be a bit scarce for the next week. I’ll be back after that with tons of photos of Stonehenge, the Tower of London, and Shakespeare’s birthplace, which I know is all you guys want to see from our big England trip. Until then, happy gaming…
Posted by SegaDawg in golden axe on 1:40:45PM May 02, 2008
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Comment # 1
Hope you all have a safe trip to Europe, and remember to take pics of the PLAYSEGA Billing server so people can have fun photo shopping it in certain situations! =D
Posted by Shadiwulf on May 2nd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Comment # 2
Be sure to take photos of Hardian’s Wall if you can! And have a very safe and fun trip in Europe, can’t wait to see you back!
Posted by Shenmaster777 on May 2nd, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Comment # 3
hey, i like the ideas coming up but something has been bothering me still, what will be the next idea for sonic? is it just going to be another copy of every other adventure? same amount of active characters? same speedy gameplay? or is the next adventure going to be different, is it going to be fresh? new enemies, new paths, new story?
Posted by Stephen on May 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Comment # 4
Have fun with the with the guys in the UK - they’re a nice bunch of people there.
-Get them to take you to the Bavarian Beerhouse - you’ll definitely have a good time ;o)
(check their Flickr page, they have images there from an event)
Have a good time.
Posted by ~G~ on May 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Comment # 5
Ironman is crap… Secret Level are crap. Why would Sega close down Sega Racing Studio instead of Secret Level? What a stupid mistake.
I’m going to be so f’ing angry when Secret Level ruins Golden Axe which they so obviously will do.
Why is it with Sega that every 1 step forward is followed by 2 steps back?
Sega needs to sell Secret Level and buy Obsidian and Gearbox.
Posted by Ryan/Sharky on May 5th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Comment # 6
The concept images look really nice at least
Posted by GutsGO on May 5th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Comment # 7
Sharky,
While you are entitled to your comments and I don’t wish to stifle any valid opinions here, it would be nice if you posted more constructive observations rather than just dismissing something as being ‘crap.’ I (as well as hopefully most of our readers) am more interested in an exchange of substantive ideas and opinions, especially if someone has a decidedly negative stance on something. That being said, care to elaborate on your post so we can better know where you’re coming from?
Posted by SegaDawg on May 6th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Comment # 8
What I beleive Sharky is trying to say is that he feels somewhat outraged over the fact that the british studio Sega Racing Studio was shut down over, presumably, the lackluster performance of it’s debut title, Sega Rally, also known stateside as Sega Rally Revo.
Especially in light of Sega Rally Revo having been praised by critics, unlike the official Iron Man video game which so far has earned mixed reviews.
He’s also displeased with some of the elements in the upcoming Golden Axe: Beast Rider, as all of us have our own doubts and in some way are a tad scared over the fact that some titles may or may not translate well into a next generation experience.
But anyway, looking at some of the photos on Flickr, I must say that the concept art does look mighty impressive.
There’s a weird medieval Mad-Max vibe emanating from this some of those photos.
Posted by Carlos on May 7th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Comment # 9
Here is what I am getting at SegaDawg,
First of all it is very obvious that Secret Level weren’t picked up by Sega of America because of their talent, it was due to them being conveniently close to the SoA headquarters, which only goes to show money is more on Sega of Americas agenda then quality games when it should be money though quality games.
This is backed up by the fact that Ironman the game is an extremely poor game, I’ll back that up with some reviews:
Playstation: The Official Magazine (US) 4/10
IGN 3/10
1UP 3/10
Not lets move onto Golden Axe, Not only does the game look pretty bland and boring from screenshots, it seems to re-use textures from Ironman and it has nothing that appealing about it what so ever. The character redesigns are awful and have no hint of their original designs not to mention the lack of multi player co-op in a Golden Axe game is just blasphemy, not to mention putting tits in a game as a selling point is just lame. I could go on.
As far as I can see, Sega of Japan are doing their bit to make some really awesome Sega games and Sega of Europe are too and would be well on the way to rebuilding Segas reputation as a great developer but Sega of America are just taking the easy way out and ruining one of Segas classic franchise and buying up crappy development teams like Secret Level.
If you can’t cancel Golden Axe then just rename it Beast Riders so we can all just forgot about it and it wont ruin Segas reputation anymore then has already been done.
Finally, The best thing Sega of America has done so far is work with Obsidian and Gearbox, don’t let them fall into the hands of EA or Activision like Bioware did so you have even less good developers to work with. Sega West have said many times they aren’t done buying new studios and they are always looking out for new talent. Well there they are, staring you right in the face.
Posted by Ryan/Sharky on May 7th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Comment # 10
Secret Level, meh…The England trip sounds more exciting.
Posted by rf switch on May 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm