[Wii] Zombie Massacre

[神祕人1號]

Zombie Massacre
http://nintendojo.com/previews/Wii/v...php?1189722824

More and more large developers are beginning to see the potential financial windfall of Wii development and are increasingly bringing more resources to bear on the console. Unfortunately, Wii owners have been deluged with more mediocre ports and shoddy cash-ins than they would like to remember.

Beneath the profit-driven mentality of some of the larger houses, however, lies a movement of independent developers who are also beginning to explore what Nintendo new console can do...and bringing some truly unique ideas to the table in the process. One such developer is 1988 Games, which recently sat down with Nintendojo to share some information on their upcoming Wii project, Zombie Massacre. This offbeat action game takes its cues from the action movies of the 80s as well as some of the arcade scene most compelling genres, promising Wii owners something altogether different off the retail shelf.

impressions
Zombie Massacre is still in the early stages of development, and as a result, we were not yet able to see any screenshots or gameplay footage. However, the developer was able to share several important pieces of information with us. According to 1988 Games, Zombie Massacre is meant to be a fusion of the timed arcade racer (such as Crazy Taxi) and the on-rails co-op shooter (such as House of the Dead or Virtua Cop). The premise is straightforward: zombies have sprung up in a city and its up to four heroes to put an end to the madness. How? By driving a ticking nuclear bomb into the heart of downtown and then getting out before the whole town turns to toast. This is no Sunday drive, as endless hordes of zombies lie in the wait to stop the heroes. In addition, an even more formidable challenge lies in the game timer: the players only have a limited amount of time to drop the bomb off downtown and get out before they are themselves obliterated.

The game allows for 1-4 players, but uses four characters at all times. This means that possible playing combinations range from one player and three CPU-controlled allies to four human players. One player drives the vehicle -- a vintage 1950s convertible -- while the other three are responsible for mowing down any undead standing in their way. (The driver, incidentally, can also use weapons while driving, but has the additional responsibility of the steering wheel.) Players can switch positions on the fly, allowing different players to take on different roles over the course of the game. The game life bar consists of bottles of anti-mutagen, which are lost whenever a player is attacked by a zombie.

Upon starting the game, players choose a perimeter starting point. Each starting point commands a different level of difficulty (like the old Star Fox games) and features different game scenarios. In addition, players will be able to choose from branching pathways to the city during their suicide run, offering a variety of experiences that the developer hopes will give the game a lot of replay value.

The primary objective is to deliver the nuclear payload, but along the way the players will run into innocents that they can save, who will serve an important role in the game. One, they provide extra bottles of anti-mutagen for the players. Two, they serve as a "human shield," sacrificing their lives to save the players in the event that a zombie gets into the car. Three, some innocents have unique professions that unlock special weapons; rescuing a firefighter, for example, gives a player access to the firefighter axe.

Along those lines, we all know that a zombie game wouldn be complete without lots and lots of weapons, and Zombie Massacre promises to deliver an arsenal of them. Some weapons will be dropped by dead enemies during the course of the game, while others can only be acquired by rescuing specific civilians. Standard weapons in the game require ammo (which can be picked up during the run) but pack a lot of ranged punch, whether they be machine guns or shotguns. Special weapons are designed to wipe out large numbers of zombies at once and include such favorites as the flamethrower and the shoulder-fired rocket launcher. When ammo runs low, however, Zombie Massacre allows players to fend off their mutated foes with a wide range of melee weapons, including bats and lead pipes. Finally, Zombie Massacre also allows players to pick up up some truly bizarre weapons, such as holy water, a lawn mower, and -- no, wee not kidding -- even a kitchen sink.

Controls are no small part of any Wii game, and Zombie Massacre mixes in some Wii conventions with a few unique twists. All weapon controls are mapped to the Wii Remote, while all steering is mapped to the Nunchuck -- this enables the driver to both shoot and steer at the same time, should he or she so desire. Shooting is handled with the Wii remote IR functionality, with players shooting or swiping at everything in sight. Weapon cycling is handled with the D-pad, while shooting is handled with the B-button. The A-button is reserved for the air strike -- a limited-use, mass damage attack on all the enemies onscreen. Steering is effected by holding the nunchuck sideways and tilting it in an arc pattern. Acceleration and braking are tied to pushing the control stick left (or up, accounting for the 90 degree turn) or right, respectively. The Z button allows the player to jump the car over obstacles, while the C-button engages a limited-use Nitro boost.

There are a couple of other game features worth noting. One, 1988 Games is promising compatibility with both the Wii Zapper (via a special gunner only mode) and the Wii Wheel (via a special driver only mode). Two, although the game will likely not support online gampeplay, the developer is looking into cultivating an online community through online best time rankings via the Wii Internet Browser and through sponsoring Wii parties.

Word on the Street
With the game still early in development, this is a game that remains largely below the radar. Expect to hear more from 1988 Games as the project continues to move forward.


from the horse's mouth

Welcome to the world of Zombie Massacre?/p>

In a city of over 5 million people, complete anarchy takes siege when a train carrying several tons of toxic, biohazardous waste derails near downtown. Now, three ravenous street punks turned heroes and one cop will bear the burden of finishing a job that no one else was man enough to take on. Their mission: to get a fully armed warhead that stashed in their trunk downtown by any means necessary. The catch? It already ticking! With the barrels of their guns and the strength of their bumpers, these men will accomplish their mission or die trying. There may be an endless wave of undead maniacs standing in their way, but as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with...a Zombie Massacre!

overall

1988 Games is promising a great deal with Zombie Massacre, including four player co-op gameplay, fast-paced arcade racing, multiple game scenarios, cool weapons, and loads of zombie-shooting mayhem. While wel have to wait to see the idea in motion before formulating more concrete judgments, this is certainly a project wel be keeping a close eye on. Stay tuned.

[神祕人1號]

Zombie Massacre Interview - Part 1
Interviewee(s): Benjamin Krotin
http://nintendojo.com/interviews/vie...php?1189722831

Zombie Massacre is timed, like Crazy Taxi or Blast Corp. This is a great element in an arcade game -- for both economic and gaming reasons -- but it translates into a potentially short experience for a console game. How long will the countdown timer be, and how long will be a single play session?
BK: We definitely don want to deprive the player of opportunities to explore the game's environment or to limit their gameplay options, but we also feel that putting a limit to how much time a player has will foster a creative sense for developing richer gameplay strategies. So in essence, by creating a time limit, we're focusing the player in on finding new techniques, paths and power-ups throughout the game that will help them streamline the amount of time (and attempts) it takes to finally beat it. Of course, we also don't want to make it a frustrating experience, so we will absolutely play with the settings until we get it just right. If you look at a game like Blast Corps, it did a great job structuring its gameplay with a time constraint and delivered even more replay value because of it. This is something we would like to emulate.

At the moment, the rough figure that we're throwing around is 45 - 60 minutes on the timer. The original idea was for 30 minutes with the addition of performance-based bonus time added on at checkpoints, but we felt that it took a little too much away from the rigidity of having a timer on the nuke. We want players to realize that the timer is final, and when it goes, so does the city!

It is true that if a player does not play the game with enough focus, they will reach a point where they will not have enough time to make it to the center of the city. When this is the case, the nuke will go off, obliterating everything in its path, triggering a special gameover cinematic. Because of the nature of the game design, we expect that this will happen to many players before they finally triumph and make it to the final checkpoint. It is for this very reason that the timer on the nuke is so critical to the design, and why it will be tweaked until we get everything just right. We want to allow for enough time to play through the game with a challenge, but not enough to where it becomes daunting to retry the game.

Where does the replay value come from? Unlockables? High scores? Online achievements?
BK: We think that like any great game, much of the replay value has to come from the core gameplay itself. It's that sense of enjoying a game so much that you have to play it again and again -- that's what makes it great. However, by having a sort of rigid gameplay structure, we want players who have beaten the game to say, "Hey, I think I can shave five minutes off of my best time if I just figure out a way to get my car on the roof of that building." So, to help drive this, we are going to actively sponsor an online "best times" ranking forum (accessible through the Wii Browser or a PC), and we're even considering having tournaments (sort of like Wii Parties) for individual players or for groups of players. Ultimately, I would love to see some Japanese guys figure out a way to beat the game in five minutes! Of course we will include a great selection of unlockables, such as new weapons, characters and even vehicles. Finally, to help give the gameplay a less hurried feel, we might also include some side-modes that could act as a sort of mix between the missions in GTA andthe fun of the Crazy Box/Pyramid challenges in the Crazy Taxi games.

Is Zombie Massacre multiplayer?
BK: Yes, it absolutely is! It four total players, or anywhere from one to three human players along with CPU-controlled allies. Players will be able to enjoy the game alone and be accompanied by three CPU-controlled allies; but if they have up to three other human players, they can all jump in on the action. It's the multiplayer aspect that we feel really brings the game to a new level.

How will multiple players be assigned in the game? Are we talking one driver and three gunners?
BK: When the game is first started, players can select who will initially drive or be a gunner. Once the level is started, the driver may at any time elect to switch off to a gunner position and have whoever they replace become the driver. If a player isn playing with any human allies, players (who will of course be driving by default) can still elect to switch off to a gunner position; but after a brief amount of the time, the CPU controlled-driver will give them back their original post as driver. We don't want players getting lazy! Regardless, even the driver gets to shoot -- it's just that they have the additional burden (or joy) of also having direct control of the vehicle.

You mention switched mechanics for going between driver and attacker. Encore Software's Circus Maximus (Xbox ) used the same mechanic for its chariot combat/racing. What, if anything, in that game has helped 1988 inspire or refine gameplay concepts for Zombie Massacre?
BK: Wow, Circus Maximus is a game I haven't played in a long time...However, I do think that one of the best aspects of that game was when it was being enjoyed by several friends at once in a multiplayer setting. Having to work together with the driver in order to enhance driving and combat really created a unique atmosphere that I have always felt was important to games. Shouting things out to your partners like, "Get ready to duck!" or "Get that guy off of our side!" was just plain fun. So with that in mind, we wanted to take that same feeling and setup, but to really amplify and elevate it to a whole new level by adding more to it. Although Circus Maximus did not have any direct impact on our design, it has in the past definitely served as a reinforcement to our belief that when you create a cooperative multiplayer situation, you can discover many new interpersonal facets to gameplay that might otherwise remain untapped.

Will players have the freedom to shoot 360 degrees around the car, but still drive in any direction? Or is this a straight ahead type of game?
BK: We definitely want to give players the freedom to drive and shoot in every direction possible. The way we will work this into the game is by locking the game's camera to the car. Other than that, players will be able to drive and shoot anywhere they'd want to; although, there will be times where we sort of focus the driving attention down to particular paths, which will be roomy and varied in appearance. We want to go the route of not quite offering the player the driving freedom of say the GTA games, but at the same time not stifling their freedom either. Sort of like the city in the first Crazy Taxi game, only with MUCH more detail and driving area, and few, if no invisible barriers. Unlike the GTA and Crazy Taxi games, the player won't start off in the city, so the amount of driving to get to it will always be vast and varied, and it will be littered with opportunities to take detours or alternate angles of approach. Bottom line, our main philosophy here will be that if you can see it, you can shoot it or run it over!

Most driving games on Wii use a tilting motion to steer, rather than the simulated steering wheel motion used in Zombie Massacre. How well do you think that will work, and what made you think of using that style?
BK: We think that this will actually give the driving a deeper sense of control and will allow players to really feel as though they're in the game. It sort of like having a gun hand and a wheel hand. The original idea for the game was to use the analog on the nunchuk as the steering method, but we felt that we could do better, and we also wanted players to have analog acceleration. So the idea of the steering wheel was born. To us, tilting is a little bit boring, and we typically find that it's usually too sensitive as well. We wanted to develop a new method for controlling the car, but one that had a lot of physical play so that players didn't feel as though one incorrect flick of their wrist would send the car sailing into a wall at 80 MPH. We will, of course, tune the sensitivity and the depth of the steering so that we can accomplish a great and complex feel for the driving gameplay.

With games like Manhunt 2 under scrutiny, do you worry about future rating issues?
BK: This exact topic has come to mind in light of recent events, but we feel that our game is sufficiently less reality-based than the Manhunt series; and therefore, will likely not catch undue attention for its controls. In Manhunt, you're almost talking about virtual murder gameplay, but in ours the intention is a little different. Though you operate many of the weapons with a realistic gesture, unlike similar games, our focus is on the comical and highly-implausible act of physical violence against an army of already dead opponents. For us, it's just a bunch of goofy-looking green zombies with just a little too much blood in them. We are expecting an M-rating, and as such, we will make sure to cater the game to that audience only. I we do find that there is too much sensitivity with the ESRB in the methods for controlling the game, we will tone it down. Namely, the controls will stay the same, but the blood will become purple instead of being red.

Is the company exploring this as a WiiWare title or a full-fledged retail game?
BK: Our expectation is to develop this into a packaged retail disc. Although we love the idea of downloadable games for Wii, we have always intended Zombie Massacre to be on a larger-scale than what can typically be expected from a download. Our ideas for art, programming and audio assets exceed what I think we can accomplish with the WiiWare platform. We do, however, have several other ideas that would be compatible with Nintendo's download service. We will definitely try to exploit that stream in the future.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stay tuned for the second part of our exclusive interview with Ben.

[martinyau1979]

一路楂車, 一路射喪屍??? 真係有的興趣,可惜無圖.....

[神祕人1號]

Zombie Massacre Interview - Part 2
Interviewee(s): Benjamin Kroton
http://nintendojo.com/interviews/vie...php?1189830606

How long has the game been in development? Do you feel there isfurther refinement that will be done to the game's concept, controls orotherwise?
BK: Well, as you may now know, the original game concept for Zombie Massacre is several years old, but in its current form, Zombie Massacre has existed for a little over a year now. I absolutely do feel that as the game progresses through the development cycle, there will inherently be many refinements that come with that. However, I do think that we have to have a few things (such as the controls) pretty much pegged down right from the start. Those core things are the essence of the project, and other than fine-tuning certain behaviors or making a few minor adjustments, doing anything drastic could end up compromising the final product.

Have you reached out to any publishers yet? Do you have a wishlist of which developers you think would be ideal to publish this title?
BK: We have reached out to a select group of publishers already. We feel that this game is very special, and as such, we don want to throw it to just anyone. So before we started talking with companies, we made a point to pick out the publishers and developers that we felt would best fit the project. Some we picked were based on their previous catalog of releases, and others we picked because we felt that they were poised to bring something new to the table. But yes, as we speak there are people who are reviewing this game from a publishing standpoint. I cannot name names (because all of them have big and scary legal departments), but you can rest easy knowing that there are some of the usual suspects on that list, as well as some very out-of-the-blue names that you wouldn't expect.

Are you waiting to secure a publisher prior to starting development work?
BK: Absolutely. We tried it the other way around on previous concepts, and we found that in videogame publishing, no one is ever happy. If you have a demo, they want more. If have more than a demo, they want a finished product. There is no winning...So in this case we wanted to focus on bringing the strongest and most flexible concept as possible. We are allowing publishers to tell us how they want the game developed, or even if they wish to develop it themselves. Our sole focus is just to design the best game possible, and then to make sure that it gets developed to our specification. Whether we accomplish this by developing the game ourselves or by working with a publisher is entirely at the discretion of our publishing partners and their needs. It's all about being flexible!

How long will the development cycle take? Do you have a release date/season/quarter/year in mind?
BK: Realistically, it will take 12 - 16 months to develop Zombie Massacre. However, if we had everything go our way, I would absolutely shoot for as close to the 12 month mark as possible. I think we could do it too, because we have always kept technical limitations in mind for the entire time that we have been designing the concept. If we could have this game nearing completion by this time next year, we would absolutely be hitting the sweet spot in terms of market penetration and saturation. As a result, we are doing our best to move this game into production as quickly as possible. Wii players want more action, and we certainly want to give it to them.

What age rating do you expect the game to get?
BK: We fully expect this game to get an M-rating. I would not feel comfortable with a rating less than that. Not so much because of the xcessive" violence, but just because of the depiction of recklessness and gun violenceagainst human-esque enemies. Plus, we'd likely catch some flak for having swear words in our soundtrack and dialogue.

Will this be a full price or budget priced game?
BK: This game will absolutely be a full-priced SKU for Wii. The game will feature rock solid gameplay, smooth graphics, Wii Accessory support, 1-4 players and a blaring 80s metal soundtrack. All of that combined makes us feel very comfortable in offering it as a full priced title.

Do you have any intention of making Zombie Massacre a franchise with sequels, expansion packs, downloadable content or ports to other platforms?
BK: I could definitely see Zombie Massacre making a comeback in at least one sequel, but as with anything that is good, moderation is the key. I think that if we put out the game, see what people love, gauge what people dislike, and then add more to it, we could put together an even more exciting follow-up. We could also supplement the first game with additional add-ons through the Wii's download service; but this is something that we would have to feel out through the course of development. As for porting the game, I'm afraid that it simply would be impossible for us to port this game to any platform other than Wii. Wii's unique controls allow us to take our game, which was originally an expensive arcade premise, and bring it home without forcing players to buy a single add-on for their console. Other than that, we've always joked that Zombie Massacre would make for a great movie starring Casper Van Dien! What makes it really funny is that not one, but two film producers have both told us that it would in fact translate well to the silver screen. Maybe we should start talking to Uwe Boll or something... Haha!

Do you plan on licensing any particular game development software, graphics or game engines, etc. for the title's development?
BK: We are intending to support the Philips amBX technology for Wii. We have always been impressed with the potential that the amBX technology offers to players, and our interest actually stems all the way back from when the game was still an arcade concept. As such, we have a great relationship with Philips, and we will definitely be supporting their technology with excitement, pending its release for Wii.When players run over zombies, we want them to feel it!

How will you handle the soundtrack -- will it be internally composed and recorded or licensed? Will the development team be expected to record screams and growls for the game audio? Will there be voice acting?
BK: There will be plenty of screaming and growling for sure! I plan on adding double-sided tape to all of the armrests on everyone's chairs...This should provide us with just the right blend of painful moans to really convey a sense of despair on behalf of the zombies. Actually, we are already in discussion with several talented audio guys who are really contributing their talents and know-how to the project. We are also actively seeking out some high-profile talent from the whole 80s glam metal scene, because we really want to capture that feeling in all of our audio whether it be licensed or original. So far we have really been turning up some positive feedback from all sides, and if we're lucky, we might just be able to score some really nice cameo appearances for the game. Ultimately though, we do plan on having some original audio pieces composed for us, in addition to anything that we license. A big part of our audio design will also come in the form of voice acting, as we really plan to be meticulous with the dialog for the game's characters, in addition to the gimmick that we have planned for the car's radio.

Are you hiring staff to ramp up development on the game?
BK: Right now we are in what we call "hover mode," where we are simply waiting to see how our publishing agreements develop. If it looks like we'll be taking on the game's development internally, then we will absolutely boost our staff size in order to ramp up for production. Until then, we maintain a skeleton crew that we keep alive with one Tic-Tac and a thimble full of Mountain Dew a day. If you ask me, they're overcompensated!!

Thanks Ben, and we look forward to seeing more of Zombie Massacre.
BK: Absolutely no problem!

[jyeung1]

Zombie Massacre
好出名的嗎???


好似1998 出過一隻同名Game??
那隻究竟玩乜???