nreal Tournament 2004 is about to rock your PC next week, and Game Informer Online's Managing Editor Billy Berghammer talks to the legendary Unreal Co-Creator, and UT2004 Lead Designer Cliffy B about the new features in UT 2004, design challenges, mods, the state of the deathmatch, and what games he's currently playing... 

Game Informer Online: So, the game has officially gone gold?

Cliffy B: Yep.

GIO: So, the game will be in stores next week then?

CB: Yep, one day before Battlefield Vietnam. You know I joke about that, but one of the things that I think is cool about the game is there’s a chance for plenty of elbow room from product to product and there are some similarities, but by and large they’re both unique games that I think people will want both of.

GIO: How long was Unreal Tournament 2004 in development?

CB: A little bit over a year. Initially it was slated to ship for holiday of 2003, and it would end up slipping to give it that extra two or three months of polish that can tend to give it all the difference in the world.

GIO: Were there any things that you took from 2003 and sunk into 2004?

CB: It’s actually shipping with all the characters and levels that shipped in 2003, and initially the thought was going to be that it would be backwards compatible, but we wound up changing enough code and modify enough where we ended up deciding that it wouldn’t be worth it.

To be frank, in hindsight it would have ideal to not even include all the stuff from 2003 except for things like characters that do return, and levels that do have reduxes because having to retest all that stuff in the kits would be tricky with QA.

GIO: Could you go into detail into some of the new things, and why people, who have 2003 should pick up 2004?

CB: First and foremost there’s more cool stuff in 2004 than there was in 2003. Some people had the perception, when we initially announced the product, that it was some sort of caption attempt and I think what we ultimately wound up doing is more than worth what your average person would wind up paying for your standard video game these days. It’s shipping with more new levels than 2003, and it has 24 new characters. We’re bringing back a bunch of old favorites, such as the series favorite Skaarj Aliens. We’re taking Malcolm, who was the poster boy for the series, and we’re expanding his team into a full-on squad of characters. We’re bringing the original Xan, who was the original boss in the original UT and filling out his team as well. The biggest two things for me are Assault, which is just a return of the classic gameplay type from the original UT and Onslaught, which is new to the series. It’s much more vehicular based, medium to large scale terrain that some people have compared to Battlefield but I feel that comparison is somewhat without merit because the pacing of UT is so much faster. It’s much more of a sci-fi product. If you’ve had a chance to play the demo you’ll see how this node system that we’ve implemented is significantly different from the ticker system where there are two goals. You’re essentially trying to blow up the enemy’s core and the only way to damage the core is to make a direct connection with these sub-nodes. With the sci-fi angle you’re not always stuck walking, you have the chance to teleport from node to node, whereas in other games you have to walk if someone steals your Jeep or whatnot. When you couple that with the faster movement speed, you wind up with a gaming experience that doesn’t become Unreal Hikefest, it’s Unreal Tournament - and it’s about action and the time to action for 2004.

GIO: You brought up Battlefield and you’ve obviously been making FPS’s for quite a long time. Were games like Battlefield or anything else for that matter inspiration for some of the ideas behind the additions to 2004?

CB: I was kind of disappointed after Battlefield came out because for awhile there Battlefield was the kind of game I wanted to make. And I was like “they got to it first!”  But, it was actually good for us because we got to look at what worked in the game and what didn’t, as well as in Halo and Planetside.  And, not only make what we feel is a better formula for our game, but also give it those strange, quirky little touches that the Unreal franchise is known for. Instead of just doing a buggy, we have a buggy that that shoots out this energy weapon that wraps around people and then blows them up, and we have a cowcatcher type blades that pop out from the side. Those kinds of things help differentiate the franchise. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Leviathan - it didn’t ship in the demo - but it’s basically a large mobile fortress that carries five people. I call it the “bang bus.” If you hit alternate fire when you’re still, it will essentially transform into a giant plasma turret, and  then lay waste to everything in its way. What we’ve done is taken the whole concept of the “super weapon” like the BGF or the Redeemer and applied it to a vehicle and that’s kind of the thinking behind the Unreal franchise.

GIO: What made you guys decide to bring vehicles into the Unreal universe?

CB: I think gamers expect it out of this genre now. I think that they started off walking around and shooting, and finding keys and doors, and then they experienced good AI, and a variety of experiences.  Then the game that seemed to introduce players to a majority of vehicles was, of course, Halo.

By introducing vehicles into it, there’s a whole host of issues and problems that come up design-wise that you have to deal with.  Who gets a vehicle? What kinds of vehicles are there?  Do you fly in this level?  What if this vehicle goes over water?  Can you flip the vehicle?  What happens if the vehicle flips over - does it blow up or do you just flip it back?  Vehicles add so much to the variety of gameplay.  It’s something that in this day and age that allows you to interact with your environment, and by modifying your mobility and your attack ability, we feel that it expands on what we want to do and makes it even more interesting and more fun besides the new weapons and standard Deathmatch that everyone is used to.

GIO: What were some of the design challenges you faced because you introduced vehicles into the Unreal universe?

CB: One of the things we wanted to avoid when introducing vehicles was having the concept of, “OK, we’ve taken this base and now the enemy can come over and grab an unmanned tank that my team spawned and turn it against us.” So we introduced this concept of vehicles being locked when they initially spawn. You get out of your car, what do you do? You lock it, right? So if you don’t get into a vehicle that hasn’t spawned yet, your enemies can get into it. They can just fly over to your base and get into your tank. What happens is you have to actually enter the vehicle once and then exit before anyone can steal it from you, and then the car alarm sounds, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s just one of the many little things that we had to keep in mind when introducing vehicles.

You’ll notice that by playing the game it’s actually pretty tough to flip certain types of vehicles. We specifically gave them a very low center of gravity because with some of the crazy terrain and action going on, we didn’t want vehicles flipping over all the time - that’s not necessarily fun. We wanted people to feel that they could use the Scorpion to get over the terrain quickly and only flip it if they really get hit, or really screw up. People claim that they want a game that’s extremely realistic, but what they actually want is augmented reality - a fun version of reality.

GIO: Could you talk about the bonuses that will be included for buying the DVD special edition?

CB: The special edition is going to be shipping with the VTM’s, or virtual training modules. And these are done by the guys at 3dbuzz.com there are hundreds of hours on how to explain the Unreal editor, which we’re shipping with both versions of the game.  What this allows you to do is it turns the game into its own platform, much like Windows is a platform. It opens up this whole world of not only creating your own content, but also sharing it with other people and playing it with other people.

Some people are currently participating in the “Nvidia $1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest”, and people are submitting their own modifications - everything from top-down strategy games to Western shoot-out type games, to full on Call Of Duty quality World War II multiplayer modifications, and racing games - all sort of crazy stuff. And we’re giving out tons of cash and prizes, who we’re partnered with Nvidia for this contest.  If I buy the game  it could potentially open the door to this exciting world and could eventually land yourself a career in the gaming industry. Half of the people who are on staff here at Epic started in the mod community or started by noodling around those kinds of things, and we’ve been able to pick them up, and now they’re working on the franchise that they know and love.

The ultimate grand prize we’re giving away in the contest is an engine license from us. Engine licensing, if you know, is a crucial part of the business that we do here at Epic and games like Splinter Cell, Deus Ex, Thief, and whatnot utilize our engine technology, and that’s around the $350,000 neighborhood and whoever wins the contest for best overall mod will have that chance. We did the same thing a couple of years ago, and I don’t know if you’re familiar with Tactical Ops -  it’s an Atari released game - but that started off as a mod,  and winning the contest landed a retail deal. You don’t see this kind of organic cycle anywhere else in the entertainment field and I think it’s very exciting.

GIO: As far as the 2004 version, did you guys change or tweak anything with the Unreal editor?

CB:  The editor? It’s just been a general list of the modifications and improvements. The editor you’re getting, in form and function, is the same as the 2003 editor, just that it’s going to crash a lot less and run a lot better.

GIO: And you’ll be able to add vehicles and create vehicles?

CB: Absolutely. You’ll be able to basically do everything that you see in the game and you’ll be able to create your own characters, vehicles, and turrets. The Unreal script is shipping with it, so you’ll be able to do some high level programming. The opportunity is there for people to get off their butts and make environments and anything they want and people are doing really exciting things: first person, third person, side-scrollers, everything.

GIO: Are there any new weapons in Unreal Tournament 2004?

CB: Oh yeah. After we had introduced the vehicles we learned that vehicles by themselves can sometimes be overly powerful so weapons that were introduced were things like the anti-vehicle rocket launcher. That’s otherwise known as the AVRil. That fires off a very slow rocket that moves quickly and locks on to any vehicle and can destroy the smaller vehicles in one to two shots, and larger ones in three to four. So a couple guys ganging up on someone can be effective with those. We’ve also introduced a new assault rifle. We introduced spider mines, which are these parasitic little spiders that run around and blow themselves up once they get close to a person or vehicle. You can also direct them using the alternate fire, which is a laser and then send a whole horde of them after an enemy. We also introduced sticky mines, that you can throw out and stick them on a vehicle and wait for some fool to get in and then blow them up, which is always highly amusing. People are doing all sorts of crazy stuff with it, too. They’re putting spider mines on the wings of vehicles and sticking sticky mines on the spider minds and then flying them into an enemy base. It’s awesome.

GIO: What’s your favorite new weapon in the game?

CB: To be honest, it’s kind of a toss up. I like the spider mines, I call them weapons of mass distraction. What winds up happening is someone is chasing after you and you throw a bunch of them out, and they’ll have to deal with these mines that are chasing after them, and trying to blow them up while your friend comes over and just runs the guy over. So, you’re not killing the guy, but just keeping him occupied while you’re doing something else.

GIO: What would be one of your new modes that you’re introducing in the game?

CB: I’m really big on Onslaught. I think a lot of people are going to be re-evaluating it if they’re making an FPS. I think the link system is a much better way to go about making a game like this.

GIO: Do you think standard Deathmatch is dying, or already dead?

CB: I don’t now. It’s one of those things that unless you invented it, it’s a “been there, done that” kind of a game. I think that a game that can be successful with just a basic Deathmatch nowadays would need to reinvent how you move around the environments. To use Doom III as an example, a lot of gamers were like “they’re doing 4 player Deathmatch, that’s so ten years ago.”  But I have a feeling that when you fire up the game, the lighting will be a significant factor in how you play Deathmatch, and that the weapons are fun and there are some unique twists in there. I think for a lot of people that will be enough. Deathmatch by itself and using weapons that everyone is used to with the same kind of level of technology - sure that’s getting old.  But, I think there are ways of continuing to reinvent these kinds of gaming experiences.  Dave Jones did a talk at DICE last year where he was talking about Grand Theft Auto and said that it’s basically Pac-Man.  Whereas you’re Pac-Man, the cops are the ghosts, and you’re going through the maze, and the power pills around the area are the people. I think you can take what’s been done before, learn from it, and reinvent it.  I think that there are going to be elements that you can work with. If you look at Counter-Strike, the most popular online game of all time, it’s basically Team Deathmatch.

GIO: How do you feel about the 2004 demo being the most popular demo of all time?

CB: We're really, really excited about it. We hope that we’re able to carry that momentum through to the full game. If pre-orders are any indication, people are really going to be latching onto this game, and we’re going to have another success on our hands. When Unreal Tournament 2003 came out, it was good and everyone thought “oh, that was cool” but we’re not sure if it really hit that critical mass that we wanted it to. That was one of the reason we went back in 2004 and hit on a lot of the elements that we had hoped to address in 2003.

GIO: Are you guys planning on having Unreal Tournament  2005?

CG: Our mantra has been only if we have a product that we feel is worth gamers’ $0 or $50. And, we have no aversion to skipping a year. We’re not just going to throw something out there just to have something on store shelves. We’re not going to just update the roster.

GIO: If you could make a game that wasn’t an FPS, what genre would you go towards?

CB: Survival/horror.

GIO: Really?

CB: I’m a huge Silent Hill fan. And recently I played a lot of Fatal Frame II and I think that the genre in itself is full of so many things that they do right, and that they do wrong.  I think that a Western developer could take a really good stab at something like that and do a really good job.

GIO: What are your thoughts on Pariah? Are you doing anything with that? Does that have anything to do with your company?

CB: No, that game is being developed by Digital Extremes. They were our partners on the majority of Unreal games. They’ve been working on that for awhile and I just saw the shots and they look cool and I’m sure it will be kick ass.

GIO: What other games are you playing right now?

CB: We’re recently beating around Ninja Gaiden which seems to be really tough and has a lot of key/door crap in it, but other than that it’s really bad ass. The thing that really impresses me about the recent batch of games, especially Prince Of Persia and Splinter Cell, is the integration of game design and level design and animation, as far as specifically designed areas for things like wall running, hanging on ledges, or crouching under things. Everything just feels tight and like it has a purpose for that kind of stuff. I’ve been meaning to play through some of The Suffering and the new James Bond game as soon as I have time. There are elements of games out now that are boring or “been there, done that” and a lot of the old school game designers think that there’s no innovation. But, I think that there’s innovation. Go back and play some of the really old games - they suck.

GIO: Any thought on bringing Unreal Tournament 2004 to consoles?

CB: It’s unlikely that you’ll see 2004 on consoles anytime soon. But moving forward as a studio we’d be foolish if we ignored next generation consoles and only focused on PC’s. I think that any intelligent developer or publisher diversifying their portfolio is a smart venture. You look at EA and they have PC offerings, Xbox, and PS2, and what not, and we’d be foolish if we ignored that market, that’s all I’m saying.

GIO: There have been very few really solid FPS titles on consoles. Do you think consoles will ever catch up to how well FPS games are on PCs?

CB: Yeah, I’m sure it will happen. It’s happening now. Games like Halo prove it. My philosophy on this has always been that if you look at a driving game, what’s the preferred way to play the game? You want to play it with a wheel, right? If you look at a fighting game, what’s the preferred way to play those games? With a big joystick and the big buttons, right?  FPS, what’s the preferred way to play those? Keyboard and mouse. But, what we all have to settle for in some instances is the crappy little controller. Literally, if you build it they will copy it. Halo sold something like 4.5 million units on Xbox. That’s only five million gamers or so who are very comfortable playing a game, FPS mind you, with a controller. And, there’s only going to be more and more of them. It’s one of those things where the formula will continue to be refined, and it’s just going to be just a more viable genre on next generation consoles.

GIO: What inspires you to make the kinds of game that you make?

CB: I’d say having a severe case of Peter Pan syndrome. And from that I mean wanting to make and recapture elements of my childhood. If you look at the Mario games, for example, and you look at what Mario’s doing: he’s shooting a water gun, he’s having snowball fights, he’s sledding downhill, he’s doing all this stuff that anyone who’s had a good and happy childhood does. If you look at Unreal Tournament, you’re playing capture the flag, that sound familiar? What’s Team Deathmatch, it’s dodgeball with guns. What’s the vehicular base-building? It’s building a fort and having a go-kart. With the kinds of game we’re going for, and how we’re all jaded adults now, I think you lose that kind of sense of discovery that you have when you’re a kid, as far as being able to look at a building and now being able to comprehend how it was built and things like that. I think we’re extrapolating as a motivating factor, the kinds of inspirations that we have and as children as adults.

GIO: So now that 2004 is in the can, what’s next?

CB: More games (laughs). We’re actually making an announcement in about a week. There’s a lot of rumblings going on and you’re going to be hearing some big announcements from us in the coming months. So rest assured, there’s still people working on more video games.