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MI6 chatted to Steve Ettinger from "Griptonite" this
week, about miniaturizing Bond and his Aston Martin
for "Everything or
Nothing" - the latest
Bond outing on GameBoy Advanced...
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Interview - Steve Ettinger (Part 1)
7th November 2003
MI6 chatted to Steve Ettinger from "Griptonite" this
week, about miniaturizing Bond and his Aston Martin for "Everything
or Nothing" - the latest Bond outing on GameBoy Advanced...
Miniaturizing Bond..
Above: GBA SP |
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What were the most difficult aspects/technical challenges
developing a Bond game for the hand held platform?
First and foremost you have the iconic character of James
Bond, the world's greatest secret agent. Making a good shooter,
making a good adventure game, making a good stealth game,
these are each big challenges individually for the GBA.
This game had to incorporate all of the above, and do it
with style. Add that little special something that makes
Bond who he is.
Technically, getting the world to look as deep as we wanted
it to be was an interesting challenge. Fitting stealth in
a 2D world was also really hard, but really rewarding in
the end. There's a lot of game-play there for someone who
wants to try to go and stealth his way through the whole
game.
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How were you approached to create the GBA version of "Everything
or Nothing"? How eager were you to be involved in a project
that was related to such a famous and world recognized series?
We were initially approached by our friends at EA to consider
working on James Bond for the GBA - a title that we were honoured
to work on. Who wouldn't be?!? Our initial design meetings were
some of the most intense and fun that we've had. It was clear
that this was a character that was evocative to a lot of people,
but when we all got together and started putting ideas onto paper,
it was clear that we all wanted to achieve the same things from
the game.
Originality..
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Were the scripts or pre-visualization aspects already
produced by Electronic Arts? How much creative license were
you given to mould the game into it's own unique version?
EA couldn't have been more supportive, and they had a TON
of pre-visualization assets as well as in-game assets from
the advanced console team. We feel that we have a very positive
and productive relationship with EA, and that we were given
as much freedom as we needed. If we were ever in a situation
like, 'Hey do you guys have any idea what a Russian Tank
made completely of platinum would look like?', we'd immediately
get concept art, and even models. That was really nice,
and all of the people at EA were fantastic to work with!
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Above: Aston Martin Vanquish |
Do you think the originality and depth of the storyline in
"Everything or Nothing" is a way forward in making future
games increasingly like movies?
Handheld games can be somewhat difficult to create where the goal
is to look as much as possible like their movie counterparts,
given the graphical capabilities of the GBA. One of our goals
in "Everything or Nothing" was to follow the lead of
the advanced console team wherever applicable, and in fact we
'inherited' many characters, animations, and other visuals that
helped us to maintain a consistent look and feel. Likewise, there
were story elements of the advanced console version that we paid
attention to, and at times found that a neat 'niche' for our story
was in some cases to 'fill in the gaps'.
Keep an eye out for the final part of the interview where we
continue to chat about "Everything or Nothing" on the
GBA.
Many thanks to Steve Ettinger. "Everything
or Nothing" for GBA will go on sale in the USA on Friday
21st November 2003.
Images courtesy EA and Amazon Associates.
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