Archive: 7 posts

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A great, big long interview for everyone to check out... http://ps3.ign.com/articles/939/939996p1.html?RSSwhen2008-12-19_062000&RSSid=939996 UK, December 19, 2008 - With the Metal Gear Solid pack due for release across Europe next week on December 23, priced 4.79 GBP in the UK and 5.99 Euros elsewhere, we caught up with the game's art director Kareem Ettourney to find out how the unlikely pairing of Solid Snake and Sack Boy came about, plus what else the game has in store for next year. IGN: Where did the idea of doing a Metal Gear pack for LittleBigPlanet come from? Kareem Ettouney: When we released LittleBigPlanet it was with several themes inspired by different cultures of the world, and different pop cultures. One of the things that we realised when we did LittleBigPlanet was that it's really a platform for celebrating all these, and a huge part of pop culture is games. One of the first things once the first seed of our universe was out there was to start collaborating with other very exciting IPs that wanted to put some of their DNA inside that world. We were very excited to know that there were so many other games companies and movie IPs that wanted to be involved. The creative challenge on that is how to maintain the brand and respect the collaborator as well ? everybody has their own feel and look that needs to be maintained. The beauty of LittleBigPlanet is that it encapsulates all that. The vocabulary of the game ranges from 3D objects to costumes, backgrounds and stickers ? we've got a big family of visuals that we can use. The whole idea of LittleBIgPlanet is the recreation; if you want an authentic MGS experience you get the MGS product. The beauty of LBP is you're seeing it all recreated through imagination and that's the high level concept. Not only that, but you see it mixed and matched with everything else. Traditionally you'd think that IP holders would be precious about their brand, but we've found that everyone's more excited about the medley rather than about the rigid ways of the past. One of the things we started with was deciding which costumes to use with Sackboy. We've got a set of rules we follow to respect the proportions and shape of Sackboy, and recreate everything out of cloth and fabric. So just by doing the technical and practical you end up respecting the two brands. IGN: The two properties couldn't be further removed, with Metal Gear's world of grey steel and LittleBigPlanet's cotton aesthetic. Was it difficult to blend the two together? Kareem Ettouney: In LittleBigPlanet we've got fabrics that range from cotton and textile, and there's a range of metals and stones as well. Although the first view of LittleBigPlanet is that it's a cutesy kind of world, from seeing some of the user-generated levels you can create something that's very moody. If you create a whole level backlit and made of metals you can create sharp, dark environments. If you imagine it you can do it. Metal Gear fitted in with a lot of our more mature visual collections ? we've got metals we can expand upon, we've got the mech creation. One of our environments was the Russian theme and that already had a military flavour to it, so we expanded on that family and had more high tech decorations where you can create your own robots and vehicles. We wanted to add a gun but a gun's not very LittleBigPlanet, so we made it a paint gun. The programmers created some very exciting things you can do with it. We want to always make sure we're expanding what you can do with LittleBigPlanet ? we want to also celebrate and respect the brand that's added to the DNA. It gives people a flavour of what they're going to get and keep on getting. IGN: You must be quite excited to see what the community's going to make of the additions. It surely won't be long until someone's recreated the entire Metal Gear series... Kareem Ettouney: You'll get very hardcore fans who will be busy creating their own versions of their favourite Metal Gear things, then you'll get other people mixing and matching with other things. There could be a huge Metal Gear mech pi?ata mixed with the Day of the Dead festival themes. That's the beauty of the imagination of people ? they've been creating stuff that is very unpredictable. Some people take it in a gaming direction, some people take it in a cinematic direction, but definitely we expect a lot of exciting levels. IGN: Now you've done Metal Gear so successfully, what about the prospect of working with other gaming properties? Kareem Ettouney: There is a lot of DLC coming, celebrating the IPs and using other brands. Whether it's a mini one that's limited to costumes or a complete pack with stickers and levels and new functionalities ? we've got the whole range. A major criterion is that we're always thinking of expanding the LBP universe. Whether we're working with another IP or doing original treatments, it's always thinking about the community and what they don't have and what we can add to their palette. IGN: From the same leak as the original Metal Gear/LittleBigPlanet screens there was a Sepiroth costume as well. Is that going to be tied into a Final Fantasy pack? Kareem Ettouney: I think that's part of a smaller family of costumes. IGN: This is the first major update to LittleBigPlanet and it's coming soon after the game's release. Can we expect updates to be fairly regular and are there a lot of them lined up already? Kareem Ettouney: We're thinking in the way that LEGO evolved ? we've established our major building blocks and our most important visual vocabulary and then you get the engines and the cars and so on. The thing is, you don't reinvent the wheel every time, you build on top of what you have. We have a wealth of things we want to do but we are a small team. We wanted to release twice as much as what we did with [the retail version of] LittleBigPlanet, and we didn't have the manpower to do that. We had to fight our battles and release the nucleus, and each and every one of these packs expands and takes on some of the ideas that we wanted to give the community. It's an ever-growing universe and the IPs and different costumes are just one dimension of all the other things. We've got a lot of creative tools coming, enhancements, improving the online facilities, the searching and so on. IGN: The addition of the gun is something that completely changes the game ? are there similar significant additions planned? Kareem Ettouney: Yes ? it's very challenging to do that, as everything we do has to be backwards compatible so it doesn't break anything that's been done in the past. I'd be lying to you if I said that when we were starting we knew everything that we had in mind for the future. There are new things that are emerging now and the challenge when we add anything is to make it work and make sense with what we've done in the past. The gun we designed was a paint gun because it fits in with our creative world - it can affect the environment and you can use it as a puzzle tool or just have a laugh. It's something that's not just decoration. IGN: Media Molecule doesn't seem like the kind of team to do sequels. How long are you going to be supporting LBP before you move onto your next project? Kareem Ettouney: We are thinking about LittleBigPlanet as a new breed of games. We think about it as a platform and when you have a community that you build, serve, react to and feed, you want to stay in that place and not create another project and start from scratch. Within the LBP universe we wanted to be that one universe, with all its iterations ? even if you had something really radical like a new engine, with a completely 3D world, you'd still access it from the same platform. This is all very high level at the moment but the criteria is that inside this world the sequels exist. Sequels in their new iteration will exist, but in a new way. When you talk online you never say the new YouTube, you just go in and it's happening all the time. And then suddenly you feel 'that's really different from what it was three years ago'. That is your sequel. IGN: It might have been tongue in cheek, but there was talk of a first-person LBP... Kareem Ettouney: Why not? We keep an open mind and if a variation of the engine works and could be added, I don't see any reason why not. We want to always stay with the ethos of creativity and increasing the possibilities of what people can do with something. We don't want to give people a tool that is very limited to one application. The other day I saw a level that knocked me out. A guy had built a piano and using pistons had created lots of hammers, and timed it all so that it played Beethoven. I was amazed. I think we're in a new era of hybrid talent ? how can you describe that person? Is he musical, is he technical, is he a bit of a Leonardo da Vinci? IGN: When you see something that impressive, do you want to track them down and get them on the team? Kareem Ettouney: If we employed every cool one that we've seen, we'd have employed 20,000 people. The idea of LBP is to show these people to the world. IGN: Are machinima packs being considered? Kareem Ettouney: It's part of the future and it's an inevitable thing that we have to think about. Whenever you have a creative tool you can have the interactive experience or the recorded experience. The recorded experience is a completely different way of looking at things. We have more ideas than there is time and it's a case of prioritising. The IP alone ? the other IPs that are interested to get in ? would take two years to get developed. There are heaps of tools and features that we want to add, we want to improve the online so it's really easy to find stuff and is much friendlier. Enhancing everything and also reacting to what the community asks for is another part of our mission. Had your fill of LittleBigPlanet and Media Molecule? We hope not, as next week we'll be bringing you an in-depth interview with Alex Evans, David Smith and Kareem Ettouney, discussing some of the controversy that's surrounded the game as well as taking a look at the future for Sack boy.

2008-12-19 16:00:00 Author: supersickie Posts: 1366

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Nice interview- I must say though, as has been expressed so often before, it REALLY drags my hopes hope for LBP. I just can't wait to see what will come next... and which movie and game companies are interested. Maybe we'll see a star Wars pack? (Well, George Lucas HAS been whoring Star Wars out... wouldn't suprise me for him to be interested in this).

2008-12-19 16:05:00 Author: RockSauron Posts: 10882

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Nice interview- I must say though, as has been expressed so often before, it REALLY drags my hopes hope for LBP. I just can't wait to see what will come next... and which movie and game companies are interested. Maybe we'll see a star Wars pack? (Well, George Lucas HAS been whoring Star Wars out... wouldn't suprise me for him to be interested in this). maybe when the new indiana jones games comes out there will be indiana jones dlc in lbp! i'd take anything that is remotely related to indiana jones!

2008-12-19 16:22:00 Author: muttjones Posts: 843

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Nice interview- I must say though, as has been expressed so often before, it REALLY drags my hopes hope for LBP. I just can't wait to see what will come next... and which movie and game companies are interested. Maybe we'll see a star Wars pack? (Well, George Lucas HAS been whoring Star Wars out... wouldn't suprise me for him to be interested in this). The first thing I thought of when they said movies was Star Wars. I would love to have a Darth Vader sackboy. But would they include light savers and laser guns if guns are not very Little Big Planet as he says

2008-12-19 21:31:00 Author: BurlapSackBoy Posts: 310

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The first thing I thought of when they said movies was Star Wars. I would love to have a Darth Vader sackboy. But would they include light savers and laser guns if guns are not very Little Big Planet as he says Well, we'll have guns with this update... but would we have swords with that update (lightsabers). Or would the lightsabres just be new things to slap with like the frying pan...

2008-12-19 21:33:00 Author: RockSauron Posts: 10882

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BTW... http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/939/939996/littlebigplanet-20081219061330924.jpg How was this not mentioned?

2008-12-19 21:39:00 Author: Voltiare Posts: 646

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Well, we'll have guns with this update... but would we have swords with that update (lightsabers). Or would the lightsabres just be new things to slap with like the frying pan... I was undecided if it was light savers or lightsabers? Thanks for answering that for me. :blush: Yeah I guess he's talking about killing each other with the guns even though you can die in LBP now. Paint guns are more of a comic approach to shooting each other. Just being able to carry around a lightsaber or laser gun would be cool. But I would hope it had a purpose like the paint guns do in this pack. Voltiare I saw that too in the video. I'm not sure what that was. Also I was curious in this screen if we are getting neon lights or if this is a material of some kind? We have green, red and blue green in this picture. http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/littlebiggallery/images/164/medium/1_littlebigplanet-neon.jpg (http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/littlebiggallery/index.php?n=508)

2008-12-19 21:44:00 Author: BurlapSackBoy Posts: 310

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