PS3 |
by Dan Nicolae Alexa |
3rd January 2008 |
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune |
One of this year's biggest hits for the PlayStation 3 is getting a sequel, according to Christophe
Balestra from Naughty Dog studios. During an interview with
French news channel TF1 Balestra (who until recently was the Chief Technical Officer and is now the co-president of the studio) finally confirmed what everyone has been suspecting for a long time: that Nathan Drake's adventures are not over.
Here's the translation for the interview:
TF1: The hero of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune has the deceiving look of an Indiana Jones. Is this a deliberate borrow?
CB: Yes, just like Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake is a treasure hunter. He inherits a ring on which the coordinates [of the treasure] are engraved. [The ring] is what involves him in this adventure, where he will have to confront modern-day pirates. So he is a modern-day Indiana Jones. We have had a lot of influences, besides this single hero [Indiana Jones]. Concerning television and cinema, we have been inspired by the LOST series and the movie The Mummy. Concerning video games, there are references to Tomb Raider and Gears of War.
TF1: Your hero is nevertheless wiser than the one incarnated by Harrison Ford. [Was this because] you had to remain "general public"?
CB: It's true that Nathan Drake is "cleaner", we wanted him to be like that. But just like in Indiana Jones or in Pulp Fiction, there are opponents that fight bare-handed, there is a physical side of things. Just like in those movies, the hero is rarely alone, he is accompanied by other actors and can interact with them. It's a game, but with a more profound history, very cinema-like.
TF1: The animations and the graphics have been particularly polished. Was that a part of your mission to prove what the PlayStation 3 is capable of?
CB: Our studio, Naughty Dog, is now owned by Sony and one of our jobs is indeed to be like a presentation-window, to pull the maximum out of the PS3. This machine is much more powerful than what we've seen before. We can for example have multiple layers of animation which add to one another.
TF1: What exactly does that change on the screen?
CB: It's much more realistic! The hero for example will be able to hide somewhere while at the same time changing the pistol. Moreover, he will be able to blink if someone shoots very close to him and his breathing will be more or less intense, depending on the action. We can thus have seven simultaneous animations, like merged layers. These are just details but they keep us going, because they allow for more
immersiveness. So what I'm most proud of is the fact that gamers literally immerse themselves [in the story]. If your girlfriend sees you playing, she's also going to be caught by the history because, as in a film, one wants to know what will occur.
TF1: Besides the narration, the game is also "sold" like a movie...
CB: With the PS3 we thought that, technically speaking, we could do things that were impossible to achieve in the past. If we're to talk about the emotional plan, the game approaches a movie. We've also worked hard on the bonus part, like the DVD with the interviews of the team-members and the behind-the-scenes cuts. We explain [there] how we create the cinematics, with the Motion Capture technology that captures the movements of the comedians .
TF1: At the end of the creation of a game, are there any "feeling-blue" moods?
CB: No, because I came to talk about Uncharted in France. I think that the game has a profound side at the history level which might appeal [to European gamers].
And after all, we're soon going to start working at the sequel. For that we need to sit back for a while and look at the game from a different perspective, in order to see in which direction we're going to push it.
But the world is there, it's rich... So there's plenty of space for a new passionate title. Even better [than the first one].
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