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Exclusive: Rogue Ops Interview Feature
Chris Leyton
28/11/2003
We chat to Bits Studios, the UK developer behind the forthcoming multi-format stealth/adventure title...
To the eagle eyed net watcher there could be slight confusion as to when and by whom this game will be released. Rogue Ops, coming from Britsoft team Bits, will be released and distributed early next year by Capcom in a number of selected territories, which include the UK.
In Rogue Ops gamers are exposed to the underground world of anti-terrorist operatives. Rocked from normality by an explosion that claimed her daughter and husband, ex-Green Beret Nikki Connors exploits her new role as leading lady to further her personal quest for vengeance. After receiving two years of intense training for the most covert of assignments, she is unleashed upon her nemesis, Omega 19, the most sinister terrorist organization on the globe and a cancerous threat to the free world.
Although Nikki has an extensive array of weapons at her disposal, Rogue Ops places the emphasis on stealth over direct confrontation and mission success relies heavily on going undetected. Players can hide in the shadows, seek refuge in environmental objects, avoid leaving blood, and peer round corners to avoid being spotted by the numerous sentries and guards. Those players who opt for the gung-ho approach may achieve limited success but with limited ammunition and highly intelligent AI only the sharpest of shooters will survive Rogue Ops gruelling and extensive eight missions.
TVG spoke with Rhys Cadle, Lead Designer at Bits, on this project and he was eager and willing to give us some definitive answers to the questions put.
TVG: Can you tell us what Rogue Ops is all about and a little bit more about Nikki, who the player assumes?
Rogue Ops is about personal vengeance and the search for truth in a world full of fear and lies.
The player takes on the role of Nicola Connors, Nikki, who witnesses the murder of her family by a terrorist car bomb. Using her military contacts, Nikki was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Special Forces unit, the Green Berets; she tries to uncover the reasons why her family were killed. This brings her to the attention of Project Phoenix, the world's most covert anti-terrorist group who guard their anonymity zealously.
From them she learns that her husband was a Phoenix agent and her family were killed by Omega 19, a notorious terrorist network. Phoenix recruits and trains Nikki to become a deadly weapon against terrorism. Their objective is to destroy Omega 19. Nikki's objective is colder and more personal, to take revenge against the killers of her family.
TVG: Rogue Ops is a VERY generic name - Could this not cause a problem? Why the reason for a female lead character?
We don't feel that Rogue Ops as a title will cause a problem. In fact we find it very suitable for the game and feel of the story. Project Phoenix is outside the normal channels of government organisations, they are beyond the law. They use any means necessary to keep society safe from those who seek to destroy it.
The title also reflects Nikki's attitude to her role as a Phoenix operative. She's got her own objective that causes her to sometimes clash with her superiors. Nikki Connors is a rouge operative.
Secondly, a female works really well with the story line we've created. She's not just some macho guy simply doing what they're told, Nikki has a real motive - revenge. She's driven by the death of her husband and daughter. This gives her a believable hard edge as a character.
TVG: What has inspired this game and whatâs innovative in terms of the genre do you believe you are creating?
We were inspired to make a challenging, innovative game with fun and rewarding game play.
Innovative features include, the close combat system for stealthy kills, the unique devices, boss fights, adding a lot more action to balance the stealth play and allowing the player to use their intelligence to solve problems by providing more than one way to overcome obstacles.
TVG: Eight challenging missions - how varied are these missions in terms of objectives, obstacles and even design? Also are the locations big and is the game fairly open?
The missions, as befits a covert operative, are very varied, offering the player many different challenges and objectives set in locations spread across the globe.
Nikki is tasked with missions that take her from a private villa hidden in the mountains of Spain, to a secret research station in the freezing wastes of Siberia, via missions based in England, Uzbekistan and the States. It was very important for us to provide the player with different locations, not only to create new challenges, but to keep the gaming experience fresh by providing visually different settings. Each mission is, on average, split into three parts making for large environments to play through.
Mission objectives reflect the dirty world that the player has entered when they assume the role of a deadly covert operative, including; assassinations, information retrieval, faking suicides, rescue and stealing to name a few. But it's never simple, one thing we set out to do was to throw the player a curve ball during missions to keep them on their toes. Just as you think you've completed your objective the situation can rapidly change forcing the player to react quickly and face a whole new set of mission tasks. Not only does this create a more believable gaming world where events outside the player's control affect them, but this also allows us to suddenly change the pace of the game, for example from stealth to action, which we feel keeps the player interested and involved.
The Player will be confronted by many obstacles with the main one being enemy NPC's. But there is also a deadly arsenal of lethal hi-tech security devices that they must overcome to complete their missions. We felt strongly that we needed to give the player more than one way to skin a cat when confronted by these obstacles. There are usually multiple ways that the player can approach a problem and attempt to defeat it.
TVG: Rogue Ops can be played either as out and out action or via stealth. There are many ways to accomplish tasks so could you give us one small example of a variation to one event?
On entering an enemy safe house in Budapest, the player's progress forward is blocked by a large room with three enemies guarding it. The player can choose to enter and go in all guns blazing and attempt to kill the guards. Or try the stealthy approach, moving through the shadows to avoid detection. But there is a third way. Looking around the room they are in, the player will see a piano that when approached allows them to interact with it. The player plays a note on the piano and the sound distracts one of the guards who comes to investigate. He can then be taken out stealthily, out of sight of the others, with a close attack and his body hidden. His colleague comes to look where his friend has disappeared to and again he can be killed silently and unobserved. The remaining guard is then an easy kill with the sniper rifle. So that's three ways to play the scenario.
Should any of the guards see the player, a colleague killed, a dead body or even blood on the floor, the alarm will be raised.
TVG: What weapons and gadgets will be used in Rogue Ops and are you trying to have some authenticity and realism in the game or is a real fun romp?
Nikki is armed with a deadly arsenal of weapons with which to aid her on her missions. Silenced pistol, sniper rifle, stealth crossbow, taser and Shuriken for covert kills to frag grenades, proximity and remote mines for when all hell breaks loose and stealth is no longer an option. Another feature is that some weapons kill with blood, like the pistol, whilst others, like the crossbow, don't. This is important as enemies can see bloodstains and will become alerted and follow a blood trail, which may lead them straight to you.
Gadgets, we've called them devices, are an important element of the game and help to give Rogue Ops its unique flavour. Nikki's glasses are in fact a device called VISER (Visual Imaging Sight Electro Radiation) that allows her to see enemy body heat and electrical equipment through walls. It's pretty cool to watch an enemy move around when the VISER is activated as you get an x-ray view, which displays their skeleton. There's also a retina scanner for capturing the retinal imprints of enemies, which can then be used to open retina-scanning locks. The Spy cam is a tiny flying remote surveillance camera that allows you to navigate through an environment in first person P.O.V, Adrenaline Boost that speeds up your reactions making enemies appear to move slowly and Thermal Optical Camouflage that renders you invisible to enemies and surveillance cameras.
As you can see we decided to create devices that are fun and may not be authentic in the real world but are utterly believable and convincing within the world of Rogue Ops.
TVG: The enemy is always the focus and challenge and so have you employed any new methods or techniques and how good is the in game AI?
Even though Rogue Ops has strong stealth elements we've endeavoured to make sure that the player also has plenty of opportunities to let rip with Nikki's deadly arsenal. Therefore we've put a lot of different enemies in Rogue Ops for the player to fight and each level contains unique enemies from ex-special forces mercenaries to terrorists and soldiers all armed with a pretty powerful collection of weapons. As well as human enemies the player fights against robots, machines and frantic boss fights. We've tried hard to ensure that Nikki's opponents behave and react convincingly and aren't just stupid walking gun turrets. Our aim was to give the enemies some personality, even the cannon fodder.
Enemies will react aggressively if they see or hear the player and react to changes within the environment. They can also see and follow blood trails and be distracted from their positions by noises. Enemies are a real challenge for the player not just from a stealth point of view but should firefights break out they are determined and ruthless adversaries.
TVG: What kind of skills and actions does the Nikki possess and is there a gradual learning challenge to the game?
Nikki's actions include analogue movement from a stealthy creep to a full on run. She can move in a crouch, roll, push and pull objects, grapple up and down vertical surfaces, climb ladders and pipes, move with her back to the wall, shoot around corners, aim and throw objects, hang climb along ledges, move through air vents and leap up to hide in ceilings.
She can also interact with the environment through the use of a context sensitive cursor to search objects and dead bodies, pick pocket guards, hide in lockers, carry and hide dead bodies and use environmental objects to create distractions.
Then there is the close combat system that allows her to kill enemies in hand-to-hand combat.
The game features an initial training level where the player is taught these moves. They then get to use them in the missions where we introduce them gradually before stepping up the action and force the player to start combining moves to overcome obstacles.
TVG: What kind of hit/injury/body detection is on offer and is aiming very precise?
Enemies can be hit with projectile weapons in any part of the body causing them to react accordingly. A headshot is always lethal. The danger of not taking out an enemy quickly is that they'll have time to call for backup, turning what could have been a simple kill into a firefight.
Aiming is precise but the player is aided by an interactive aiming cursor that hi-lights when they are on target. This changes dependant on which of the three difficulty levels you choose to play the game.
In addition to aimed ranged combat, Rogue Ops features a unique close combat system that rewards stealthy play with a bloodless and silent kill. If the player can approach an enemy close enough from behind without being detected they can initiate a close combat attack. The player must match the movement control directions displayed on the screen before a timer bar runs out. If they are successful then the enemy is taken out with a close attack that features cool slow motion animations and x-ray views of snapping bones. Dependant on how long the player can remain undetected behind the enemy determines the complexity of the attack and the number of directional moves to be matched.
TVG: How focused is Bits on technology and with the game being developed on three formats does this create any problems or weaker generic code?
Both Rogue Ops and last years Die Hard: Vendetta, were built using Bits' own proprietary engine and level building technology, TWED. Die Hard has now been released across all three platforms and Rogue Ops will also be available on Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube. So, yes, we are focussed on technology and will continue to develop TWED for the future.
Obviously, developing a title for three platforms simultaneously is not as easy as building a game for one console. But I would definitely say that this hasn't led to weaker code. Sure, certain effects have had to be adapted for each platform's capabilities but we've done this working to their strengths.
At the end of the day, gameplay is the vital ingredient and that isn't affected, made weaker or generic to fit the capabilities of each platform.
TVG: Sum up the experience is a sentence!
Challenging, action packed, intelligent, immersive, rewarding and fun!
