Interview between Gaetano Prestia (Editor - MyWii.com.au) and Ben Palmer (Executive Producer - Heatseeker, IR Gurus)
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What's the story behind Heekseeker and were there any initial inspirations for the title?
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Heatseeker is one of your standard "peace-through-superior-military-firepower" kind of story, all about lots of military hardware. The main idea is to take out the best bits from an arcade game, and condense it so you will have much more explosions per minute, and up the kill rate. It's not suppose to be real (flight) simulation, it's a game with lots of missiles, lots of cool weapons and lots of explosions, then add in the background world conflict. Since you can't pick real countries because they might get offended, we are generating our own bad guys and we work out the storyline from there.
We see Heatseeker as the BurnOut of flying combat, as the racing genre has moved from primarily F1 racing to Car Racing to BurnOut. This is the BurnOut equivalent; it's all about the kill count and causing lots of mayhem and destruction
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How far in to development are you?
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The Wii version is about 6 months in. It's at a kind of stage where we can experiment with all the Wii specific features, playing with the Wii controller for example. The Wii remote is a different way to go and we want to introduce mechanisms such as enabling you to select multiple targets and launch a wave of missiles at them. There is also quite a bit we can do with the rendering engine one with the Wii, we want to explore it a bit more, there are a number of effects still in development.
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When you mention effects, do you mean effects like afterburner motion blur?
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There is some blurring stuff in there, and there is some lighting stuff we want to try. We want to experiment with bump mapping on some of the air crafts and alike. Whether this will enhance the game, let’s just try it and see if we like the result.
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What's it like to work with the Wii controller
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This is an interesting one, the Wii controller. It's easy to work with, but you just have to rethink everything. I like to think it's a lot closer to the PC; on the one hand, there is the Nunchuck, which is to control the direction, and on the other hand, the pointer device, like a mouse. So it’s kind of like a PC configuration. Then you have the accelerometer, all the additional movement to make it a bit special. The question is how far you can go without it becoming confusing for people, to the point where they can't coordinate and perform two functions at the same time, one in each hand. It's a similar kind of problem to when you drive a tank, one hand to drive the tank and the other one controls the turret, and at a certain point, you will be disorientated, and it will be like "Where am I actually going?". There is a lot of scope and you have to decide for yourself where to place the boundaries.
The Wii remote is really interesting. Its full marks to Nintendo for doing something different, and it seems to be very accessible. At a demonstration, I saw Martia Thompson playing the Wii Sports tennis, and the fact that she got it in the time it took the press to take a photo, that's pretty accessible, I am sure she's not the world's best console player, and I was pleased that she could've done that.
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What is the main difference between the Wii and PSP / PS2 and versions, besides the controller.
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The PSP version, because it's a handheld, all the levels have been redesigned for the PSP; there are twice as many levels, but they are only half as long. The whole PSP storyline is different. The PSP version also has the adhoc multiplayer.
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What does the Ad Hoc multiplayer mean for the PSP version?
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Ad Hoc multiplayer on the PSP means you can engage your friends in a multiplayer dogfight.
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How many players would this multiplayer support?
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We haven't decided on this yet, we have only tested this on 4, theoretically it can do more, we just need to set up more tests.
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Can you tell us a little bit more on the multiplayer capabilities for the Nintendo Wii version
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We don't have multiplayer for the Wii version, I think partly because the timing of this game is fairly close to the Wii launch, there wasn't enough certainty on what the multiplayer infrastructure would be like and it was regarded as a high risk till we understood it a bit more. We would love to do a multiplayer version, but not in this version. This is a new console, we want to be a little cautious on the first one, but yeah it would be fun to do it, and I don't think it will be a bit leap for us to do a multiplayer flying combat game at some point.
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Does Heatseeker utilise the same graphic engine as Heroes of the Pacific?
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Heatseeker uses an enhanced version of the Heroes engine, the engine continues to evolve, and there is a lot of reuse. This allows us to focus more on the content. The Wii version uses a lot differences in the engine, mainly because we have written the Wii engine ground up, where the PlayStation 2 version runs on Renderware and the Wii version is developed in our own code base, same as the PSP. It's also in our own code base.
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Are all the planes in the game available from the start?
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No, they are all unlockable unless you use a cheat code. They are unlocked at stages, there are 38 flyable planes and 10 non-flyable planes, and the non-flyables are big transport planes or oil tanker planes.
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In the future it will be really good to see a flight combat game designed and built ground up especially for the Nintendo Wii to take the full advantages of the online capabilities and its innovative controls, maybe in the next iteration?
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I think the next iteration, people knowing where it is headed, there is a really good chance in doing that, we will definitely be doing more Wii work, since we have made the investment in moving across to that.
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Are you still targeting for March 2007
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Yes, it will still be March 2007, same as US and European release date.
More about Heatseeker
Heatseeker, the most explosive, destructive and exhilarating arcade aerial combat experience ever, will lead its attack on Wii, the PSP (PlayStationPortable) system and the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system.
Designed to be an incredible lock-on/shake-off experience, Heatseeker reinvents missile combat to give gamers a massive rush of destruction. Set to feature an incredible collection of current and near-future military fighter jets, Heatseeker’s arsenal includes the stealthy F-22 Raptor, the classic F-15 Eagle, the cutting-edge F35 Lightning II, and the aerodynamically advanced Russian SU-47 Berkut.
Heatseeker is a joint development project between Codemasters and IR Gurus, the Australian studio behind the acclaimed historic air combat title, Heroes of the Pacific.
Heatseeker will strap you into the pilot’s seat and deliver an exhilarating white-knuckle ride that’ll have you clutching the joypad as you engage in face-melting 6G turns and fight against a seemingly-impossible amount of airborne enemies.
And when you launch a strike, you’ll follow your missiles as they ruthlessly home in on their targets via the Impact Cam. Delivering awesome cinematic 3rd-person camera cutaway scenes, the Impact Cam will reveal the results of your attack in all their devastating glory from all kinds of dynamic angles, complete with jaw-dropping explosions and smoke trails.
15/12/2006
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Combat
Flight
Heatseeker
Interview
IRGurus
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