You can’t get a cooler, bigger, franchise than Unreal and the team creating the game, Epic Games, is one of the world’s premier developers. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict promises a lot and we bet it achieves all the posturing and bold words from their publisher, Midway, with its high intensity melee combat system, optional third-person perspective and unique character combos. No longer solely bound to the first-person perspective, players can switch to third-person mode for lethal melee attacks and defensive combos; including the devastating reflect move, which sends an incoming attack back to the sender with interest. Derek dela Fuente spoke with the head honcho Dr. Michael Capps, Lead Designer, UC2, President at Epic Games, to find out what the deal is with this hard core shooter.

TVG: What is the deal with Midway to continue and extend the brand?

We’re excited to begin a new chapter for the Unreal franchise with Midway. Our arrangement with Midway is for them to publish three future Unreal games (for both console and PC), including Unreal Championship 2. We’ve already begun preproduction on the next Unreal title, but we can’t say much about that just yet!

TVG: Many gamers are new to the scene, Unreal, and even online. Do you make special allowances for the new gamer and how do you go about this whilst also pleasing the hardcore gamer?

That’s always a big challenge in game development, and I think it’s especially difficult for us. Unreal Tournament and Unreal Championship have a very loyal, hard-core fan-base, and we make sure that our games will make them happy. In UC2, for example, the addition of third person perspective is a major new gameplay element, and one that we know will probably feel a bit strange at first to fans of the Unreal franchise. Most everyone who plays UC2 prefers third person view; that said, we don’t want to alienate our loyal fans, so, we’ve made sure that the game plays just as well from first-person perspective. That means including detailed weapons, animations, adrenaline ability effects, all sorts of work, just for those people who want to play UC2 like they played UT.

I think the biggest improvement we’ve made for the new gamer is the single player campaign. That’s a great way to start slow, with tutorials, melee-focused events, one-on-one botmatches, and so on. The campaign takes you through most of the game, and if you play through all the other character ladders and challenges, you’ll be 100% ready to compete when you go online.

TVG: Would you say that the melee combat system is one of the central features of the game and can you expand on what it offers?

Sure! It’s definitely a central feature – it really changes the way you play a shooter. When firing on an enemy armed with swords, for example, you have to be aware of them lunging towards you or reflecting your shot. And instead of thinking about which gun to use in a situation, you’re now thinking about whether to pull out your melee staff and jump-attack across the map to get a power-up. It’s added a nice layer of tactical complexity.

The melee system is purposefully simple; you have light and heavy attacks, a charged jump attack, and a fast pounce attack. For defense, you have your shield, or you can reflect any projectile, even sniper shots. Each successful melee hit will build up stun on your opponent, and a few hits in a row will freeze them for a few seconds. That’s your window for performing a finishing move, which makes for an instant kill. The finishing move does make you vulnerable for a few precious seconds during the animation, so it’s pretty suicidal to do that in a crowded arena.

TVG: Can you tell us a little about the maps/environments within the game and how the XBOX focus will make it even more exciting?

We’ve really been able to push the Xbox hardware to the limits in the development of UC2. The levels run about 2.5 times the polygonal complexity of the arenas in UC1, and we’re running on the same hardware, so you can imagine we’ve done loads of optimizing work. Unreal has always been known for fantastic environments – underwater, outer-space, industrial, ruins, you name it – and UC2 is no different.

TVG: How all encompassing will it be for the single player who can’t get online?

We’ve generally aimed the UT franchise at multiplayer combat, and UC2 is definitely an arena combat game. But a surprising number of our players never go online, so we’ve been working to increase the focus on offline play. With all the UT/UC games, we’ve delivered really solid AI, so you can have fun just diving into a standalone Instant Action match, but we wanted to do more than that for UC2. We’ve added a cinematic storyline for the main character, Anubis. All the other characters have their own unique ladders as well, and we have a challenge mode full of impossible situations to beat. Of all the UT and UC games we’ve made, this is by far the one with the most effort and focus on the single player experience.

TVG: What do you believe the optional third-person perspective offers?

Tactically, it lets you see the enemies around you as well as in front of you, and that’s even more important when you’re playing a slow character and a fast character is sneaking up on your six. The biggest change is the way it enables mobility, though. Wall-dodge moves, quadruple jumps, and other acrobatics are so much more fluid when you can see the wall you’re kicking off from. I should point out that third-person isn’t entirely optional – you have to play in third person when you pull out your melee weapon. But if you really want to play in traditional UT style, you can stick to guns in first person view, and have a great time.

TVG: Tell us about one character and the move/combo that is one of your favourites?

Lately I’ve been playing a lot with our new character from the Mortal Kombat universe. The combos and everything came across really well, and since that’s our newest character, we’re giving lots of extra testing. Before that I’d say Lauren. She was on Malcolm’s team in Unreal Tournament, and she killed herself when her boyfriend Brock was killed. She’s brought back to life with the Necris process, which leaves her a bit… well, changed. Her melee is awesome; she’s able to control her swords with the nanoblack flowing through her veins, so they do all sorts of great spiral attacks. Her adrenaline moves are vampiric in nature, and she’s also got a new Ethereal ability that makes her slightly displaced in the world so she’s very hard to target. She doesn’t have a lot of health, but she’s fast, and her combos let her get more health easily. She’s a challenging character to play, but one of the most rewarding. She’ll be in the upcoming UC2 demo, so be sure to check her out!

TVG: Can you tell us about some of the really exciting special effects like motion blur, etc?

We’re able to apply a distortion effect to arbitrary geometry in the world, which makes for great explosions, especially for the shock combo. We use a radial blur when you have speed-enhancing combos on, and that gives a great sense of acceleration. Our sniper rifle zoom has loads of effects, including a colour ramp and depth of field with auto-focus. Making games for the Xbox is really fun as a designer, because you know that all of your players have sufficient hardware, and you can make something that looks great for everyone, not just people with high-end graphics cards.

TVG: If you had to pick one innovation or one aspect of the game that you are already really proud of what would it be?

We’re lucky to have a solid, well-known franchise in Unreal. We could have put out a sequel to UC1 with some new maps and a gun or two and called it a day. Instead, we took a real risk, spent two years in development, and came up with a game that plays unlike any other game to date. We’re convinced we’ve got something special here with Unreal Championship 2 and feel strongly that it’s one of, if not, THE best looking game on the Xbox.

I should point out that we’re doing a free Live-enabled demo early next year, so people can try it for themselves before the game ships in March 2005.