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Cold Winter
Cold Winter Interview by Gareth Von Kallenbach

Recently I had the chance to speak with Ian Stevens, Producer on the new action Shooter Cold Winter. Ian was kind enough to take time away from his busy schedule to answer several questions related to the game.

GVK: What is the background and setting of the game?

The game is set in the modern world - in the year 2002. As the player, you step into the role of Andrew Sterling – an MI6 agent that’s been captured on a mission in China and thrown into a political prison (as well as disavowed by the British Government) where you’re left to die. But some friends in high power aren’t going to let you rot, and rescue you from execution so you can help them defuse a plot of epic proportion. The rest… we’ll let you discover when you get your hands on it!

GVK: What are some of the locations that players will visit in the game?

The game is set throughout various parts of the world. You’ll visit locations in China and North Africa – all in context with the story and events that are unfolding, as you fight intensely toward your goal. You may even visit a few locations no one wants anyone to know about :o)

GVK: How are the NPC characters in the game handled in terms of their interaction with the player? I.E. will they accompany players through levels and will the game offer a Co-Op mode?

NPCs are meant to be blown to pieces in Cold Winter. There are the occasional “friendlies” that will give you information you need or that play into the story. But in most cases your presence is not wanted, and if you don’t kill everything you see – everything you see is going to kill you.

But we offer a unique twist in that you can search these fallen bodies for items that you can use to create ad-hoc weaponry. We call these “Combined Items”. For example, if you took a bunch of rags off of a dead guard, and then were able to find an empty bottle and some petrol, you can combine those to create a Molotov Cocktail.

This adds a lot of depth to the characters and the combat in the game. They’re much more than targets – they have strategic usefulness.

GVK: Going into the game, what are some of the goals that were set in creating the game and what are some things you wished to include but were not able to?

Fundamentally, we wanted to create a game that was easy to pick up – immediately enjoyable – and very gritty.

At the same time, we’re all in love with the FPS genre and there were aspects of those games that are common for PC shooters that we wanted to try to bring to consoles with Cold Winter.

The precision of PC shooters – the feedback – the control – aspects like these that are really difficult to translate to consoles and the limitations of a controller.

So we focused on creating a game that feels amazing to play and very familiar to what’s made the genre great on PC, as well as making the game really easy to get into and effortlessly enjoyable from the very start.

We believe we’ve done a pretty good job so far, but ultimately the public has the final vote – we just hope they like it :o)

And I’m not sure there’s anything we would have liked to have done that we couldn’t, or didn’t get a chance to. All along the way we’ve been making the best product we could and we took a lot of time to meet these fundamental goals. There are certainly places we can go from here, but we’re very happy with what we’ve created with this game.

GVK: Will players be able to operate vehicles and if so, what sort of vehicles will the game feature?

No – vehicles didn’t really fit Cold Winter in any way. It was certainly an idea that we talked about and even spent some time prototyping, but we could see very early on that it wasn’t right for the game and that we’d get a better experience by moving on and focusing on elements that would really fit our design.

And really – we wanted to avoid throwing popular features into the game just for the sake of doing so. Nobody likes it when you stack your game full of popular features that don’t fit in the grand scheme – it just makes those games feel half-baked.

GVK: What weapons will players be able to select from and are their secondary fire modes?

Players are offered more than 30 unique weapons – everything from pistols to sub-machine guns to assault rifles to sniper rifles to shotguns to grenades to rocket launchers to timed explosives to grenade launchers to combined items… the list goes on and on.

And what’s truly impressive about the number of weapons in Cold Winter is just how different each of them are and how much they vary gameplay. Clearly we’ve included some traditional FPS armory, but we’ve also doubled up on the typical 7-8 weapons and brought a large amount of options to each weapon category.

Under the category of assault rifles alone we have six different weapons – the P90 SMG, the G11, the PK-S, the STUR ARG, the AKS47, and the M4A1.

Anyone who’s played Counter-Strike can expect the same level of diversity from Cold Winter’s weapons – the same sort of attention to each weapon’s detail - varying rates of fire, kick, weight (which slows you down when carrying them), ammo capacity, etc.

And some weapons will have a secondary fire.

This unique range of weapons and balance has been brought beautifully to PS2 through a lot of hard work, and we can’t wait to hear what people say – the way this game feels and the way this game plays (in large part due to the weapons) is truly the most unique aspect of the game. It’s unlike any PS2 shooter you’ve ever played, and you’ll “feel” that difference within the first 5 minutes of play.

GVK: How is the A.I. for the game setup in terms of challenges that it will offer players.

The AI is largely independent and functions on its own without any scripting. We’ve built several moments here-and-there where the player will experience a really cinematic and theatrical battle scenario based on some scripting. But the AI has been coded to stand alone and the majority of the game is based on that.

The AI is incredibly aware of what’s around it. You’ll find enemies taking cover – creating cover – acting in concert and changing tactics based on how the player handles the fight – maybe even surrendering if they don’t feel they can win the fight.

Fundamentally, AI is one of the hardest things to get right – and we’ve had people working on it from day-one to ensure it’s a consistent, intuitive, and entertaining piece of Cold Winter.

They’re some smart baddies!

GVK: What sort of graphic engine is the game using and what features does it allow you to include in the release

Cold Winter uses Renderware as a graphics engine. But everyone looking at the game is typically surprised to hear that. People ask us all the time if it’s our own technology, because it doesn’t look like ready middleware – we’ve put a lot of work into the engine itself and our use of Renderware, and we’ve got an amazingly gorgeous PS2 game to show for it.

The sheer level of effects, environmental physics, animation, audio, music, and level size – are all things that we engineered into our use of the engine, and something very much unique to Cold Winter.

There’s definitely a lot there - we believe people will be very pleased.

GVK: What forms of multiplay will be available?

Cold Winter supports up to 8 players on-line (Broadband only) using Gamespy, and offers several different game modes to chose from (Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, even the old-school Headmatch, and more).

There are 12 different maps available, headset support, and more than 30 different player skins to choose from.

All game modes also have team options.

The really cool thing about Cold Winter’s multiplayer is just how flexible it is. If you want a Rocket-Arena style game, you can have one simply by tailoring the options that way – setting damage to 50% (a Quake style setting), loading the match with different types of rocket launchers or heavy weapons – and then enjoy :o)

You can also plot Counter-Strike style games. Set damage to “Realistic”, add varied small arms and assault rifles, then set it as a team-game. And presto! Instant CS style play.

Cold Winter’s multiplayer is really whatever kind of multiplayer game you want to make it – and above all – it’s very easy to get into. From setup to play, it takes all of one minute.

We think it’ll be a fresh change of pace for gamers interested in a little bit of old-school, mixed in with the ability to change things up wherever they want to.

Thank you,

Gareth Von Kallenbach

FREE Video Game Rentals by GPlay.com

gareth@nwlink.com

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