Nick - Storywise, how does the story progress? Cutscenes? NPCs?
Denis - Both. Some of the cutscenes are interactive as well. We won't say every cutscene is interactive, because that's not true, but we are certainly playing with the interactively in the in game cinemas. We are taking baby steps. What we are trying to do is create a really cinematic experience and immerse the player in the game.
Nick - All cutscenes done by the game engine?
Denis - Yes. All real-time. Whatever you augment yourself with, it's one thing we are really happy with - the amount of cybernetics and armor and weapons is insane - and when you deck yourself out, every cinema looks totally different. Some people just want to watch the cinemas to see themselves in their armor set.
Nick - So you think you finally got the camera system nailed down?
Denis - I think so. It'll be interesting to see the reaction of, it's really hard to tell when you are watching the videos that the gamer isn't controlling the camera because it does such a good job. What's been very interesting watching the forums, some people are claiming that the screenshots, none have been bullshots - all from the frame buffer, and people have said "oh clearly, if you look at the angle of the screen it's not gameplay". That's actually the intelligent camera doing a really cool shot. So there's a lot of things that the camera does given an upshot and a downshot on the fly in combat. We think people will really come to appreciate it. I love it and never want to go back for any of our games. We'll see what the consensus is.
Nick - With it being a trilogy, are there any plans to do anything between games? Tie-ins, comics, DLC?
Denis - There's a possibility. It's not the right time to talk about it, but certainly talking about DLC and various other kinds of things in-between games. We want to make sure that essentially everyone who purchases Too Human and is putting in a large amount of time and really likes the system is in there for the long haul leveling up the character. We are certainly looking at all those options.
Nick - Is the trilogy going to be just on the 360? Or is it going to go to the next platform.
Denis - That is the goal.
Nick - Is there anything specific you'd like to add?
Denis - I wanted to touch on one thing. You didn't ask the question, but I wanted to make sure you are forewarned. At one point we talked about Too Human being 4-player co-op. We have reduced it to 2-player co-op. The reason we did that is we looked at it, and the way the game is really frantic, and when you have a lot of guys zooming around. We weren't sure that would play out the best. There were also all kinds of balancing issues. That's where we are spending the majority of our time now. People say it looks finished, but we are balancing the RPG system. In order to do it right, and make sure co-op is the best it could be, right now we have it at 2 players. We though that was the absolute right thing to do for the game, and from a gamers point of view....have you played it?
Nick - I've only seen it, not actually played it.
Denis - When you play it cooperatively, you are going to see that it's really frantic - like if you pick a Beserker going at a million miles an hour. So if you had several, we thought it would be too much. So what we did was focus on the core gameplay that we knew would be strong and work that. Anyway, long story short, that's the reasoning for 2 player co-op. We know that some people are going to dissappointed, but we really think this is the right decision.
Nick - Thanks Denis.
Denis - Thank You.