Resistance 2 Q&A
We talk to Insomniac Games president and CEO Ted Price.
GameSpot: Where are you currently in development? What's done? What's left?
Ted Price: The game is just about finished as I write this. Yet the three to four weeks before we deliver a final disc to the factory are always the most difficult. This is when we're fixing bugs, adding tons of polish, making tuning tweaks, and trying to keep our builds stable for the testing team. What's great is that all of our features are in, and the game is looking, sounding, and playing fantastic. Resistance 2 has become everything we hoped it would be.
GS: Tell us a little bit about the splicer, which was revealed at Leipzig? When would players possibly want to use it?
TP: The splicer is an SPRA (Special Projects Research Administration) weapon. Like many of the SRPA weapons in the game, it was created using repurposed tech.
For the splicer specifically, SPRA began experimenting with the portable saws used in conversion camp rescue ops. The splicer uses electromagnets to accelerate the blades and then releases them with devastating consequences. When one of these blades hits an enemy, it will hit, bounce off, and return to the enemy, doing even more damage. Sometimes, particularly when used against "grims," the blades will remove heads and limbs.
Like all weapons in Resistance 2, the splicer has a couple of very different applications. While the primary fire is great for dealing with hordes, the secondary fire charges up a blade until it glows red-hot and then launches it. When it strikes an enemy, the blade lodges in the enemy's hide and continues to spin--spewing out pieces of flesh. This secondary ability is great for use against larger enemies. For example, taking down a titan is far easier when you can have several saw blades stuck into his body, churning away and doing damage over time.
GS: What have been the biggest challenges in developing this game? In addition to the MP and the SP campaigns, what were some of the challenges in developing a separate co-op campaign with a parallel storyline to the single-player campaign?
TP: Because Resistance 2 is really three games in one (single-player campaign, co-op campaign, and multiplayer competitive modes), the biggest challenge has been simply getting the game done. We take a lot of pride in our finished products, so we've been loath to cut any corners during development. Another way of putting this is that we value our fans' satisfaction above everything else, so we've killed ourselves to deliver a huge game where every component is super high quality.
Creating an online co-op mode that features eights players, multiple character classes with progression, and a separate story, in addition to what we had already planned for single-player and multiplayer competitive, was a challenge in many ways. First, we had to make sure that all three production teams were constantly communicating. There is a lot of crossover between all three modes since they share weapon behavior, camera/movement code, UI code, and much more. For example, if the single-player team changed the functionality for our HE 44 Magnum, it would immediately affect both the co-op and competitive teams.
Another challenge we faced was in creating co-op levels that could support extremely large numbers of characters. For a first-person shooter to be fun with eight players, you need a lot of stuff to shoot. As a result, we've got hordes of enemies to face down during co-op. But this means that our spaces are laid out very differently than in the single-player game. Not only do the enemies have to maneuver easily, we have to prevent players from getting too bunched up in any area, and this requires a different design approach.
We also had to develop much faster AI and navigation routines to support lots and lots of enemies in complex environments. And these had to be enemies who weren't just standing there and firing. The enemies communicate with each other, they react to the players' actions, and they can handle making their way through often cluttered environments without getting stuck. As a result, the routines they use are sophisticated but expensive in terms of processor time. These routines have to be heavily optimized and rewritten to run on the PlayStation 3's SPUs. This optimization opens up many, many options for us in terms of designing very big and dynamic battles.
And, of course, creating a story that supports a co-op game that isn't necessarily linear was a big challenge. Co-op has a branching structure where players can choose to move through the game in different ways. This ensures that there is tremendous replay value for the co-op mode. Yet, it made creating the story a nightmare. Fortunately, thanks to a lot of teamwork between our co-op designers and our writing crew, we were able to craft a story that works for a nonlinear game and one that complements the single-player story. The story isn't told with cinematics (like our single-player campaign), but there's still a ton of content that provides context for your co-op missions. And if you're interested in Resistance lore, you should definitely play through co-op--there's a lot in the story that helps flesh out the Resistance world even further.
GS: More playable coming soon? Any hints on additional US locales we may see the Chimera invading?
TP: We'll be showing new levels in the very near future for the campaign, cooperative, and competitive modes. We've already revealed San Francisco, CA; Orick, CA; Twin Falls, ID; Chicago, IL; and Iceland.
GS: How is the multiplayer beta going? What can we expect from the upcoming public one?
TP: The private beta has been a great success for us. We invited a very small group of community members from myresistance.net, as well as a few European players. The feedback has been incredibly constructive, and we've addressed many of the issues players had. Despite the fact that we're using very early and relatively unpolished code, we've been extremely happy with the response.
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bombillay posted Sep 17, 2008 9:30 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)