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A L S O_ T O D A Y
The 21st Challenge No. 19 Results - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K
What's the dream operating system for cruising the Internet? It's another Mac vs. Windows go-round in the 21st area of Table Talk
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"WING COMMANDER" CREATOR TAKES THE DIRECTOR'S CHAIR | PAGE 1, 2
Did you originally conceive the Wing Commander game as a movie-style experience first, with game play as a secondary concern? I deliberately set out to make a game that felt movielike. I love classic World War II films and things like "Star Wars." I never had that [cinematic] experience playing a game. It was all very cut-and-dried to me: You weren't "in" the experience -- it was high score-based. So I wanted to make a game that made you feel like you were Luke Skywalker. Multimedia gaming, with its promise of mixing up movie drama and game excitement, was all the rage in the early '90s. Then it went bust. The success of Wing Commander aside, why did multimedia gaming fail to attract people? A lot of the production values sucked, the acting sucked and it wasn't very engrossing. Luckily, at the point when CD-ROM [technology] came along for [the third installment of] Wing Commander, Electronic Arts [Origin's parent company] was willing to give me enough money that I could avoid those pitfalls and do decent production values. Do good movies and good contemporary video games share anything in common -- a good story? It depends. In the case of something like Wing Commander, yeah, I would say it's the story, the emotion people feel. On some video games, the story is not relevant as far as the game play is concerned. What are some of the creative influences for the "Wing Commander" movie? "Das Boot" heavily influenced the film in terms of its look. Films like "Tora! Tora! Tora!" [and] "Midway" -- I tried to make my film in a sort of old-fashioned World War II sense. You're a movie director now, so why continue making games? Because making games is fun, too. I like both because they have slightly different goals: When you're making a game, what you're trying to do is build a compelling environment in which people want to get lost for a long period of time. So it's more about the world-building than the storytelling. The cool thing about film is that you tell a very focused story in two hours and the big bonus is that everyone doesn't have to have a Pentium on their desk to play it. I respond to the escapism that both provide. But isn't "going Hollywood" more alluring? I've been involved in that scene for a while now. I have a place out in L.A., but I live here in Austin. There's a certain amount of Hollywood that I don't like. It's pretty narcissistic, and it doesn't seem to be very focused on telling good stories. It's difficult for me to describe: I love the thrill of making a movie. But it's incredibly intense, and it's a lot more stressful than [making] a game. A film is a huge amount of pressure, but it's also very rewarding. A lot of times a director will make a film and then "detox" for six months or a year because he's burned out from being so stressed out on the film. For me, detox is working on a game, I guess. Besides "Wing Commander" sequels, are there other movies you'd like to direct? Definitely. I don't think anyone's done a great fantasy film yet. I hope "Lord of the Rings" turns out really well -- I'm actually quite jealous of ["Rings" director] Peter Jackson. I love swashbuckling and sword fighting, like "Zorro," and I love World War II. [Directing] a "Saving Private Ryan" kind of thing would be cool. I'd like to not get pigeonholed as the guy who does science-fiction stuff. What do you think about the current state of video games? I have to say I'm very disappointed on the computer gaming side. I don't feel there's been a lot of innovation recently. It doesn't feel as exciting to me as it used to. It's like the video-game business is "going Hollywood," where everyone is recycling the same ideas and not taking a lot of chances. It's like [there are] 800 first-person shooters or 800 real-time strategy games. I used to think computer games were edgier compared to [console] video games. But right now some of the best design in terms of gaming is happening on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. What does Digital Anvil hope to offer in the video-game industry to set it apart from other developers? Anything similar to Wing Commander in terms of using live-action footage? We are working on a game that's similar to Wing Commander, but at this point we're not doing any live action in any of our games. Real-time 3-D with characters has become advanced enough that we can do the storytelling inside the game engine. A good example is Metal Gear Solid [by developer Konami] on the PlayStation. I'm working on a game called Freelancer, a first-person 3-D game where you go planet to planet. You can be a pirate; you can be a bounty hunter. And it's set in a really intricate world where all the storytelling and characters are [in] real-time 3-D. Hopefully, when we get the full multiplayer version up and running, a thousand people can wander around in the same universe, fighting other people, trading with other people. You described the stress involved in making a movie. So is making a video game an easier thing to do? I think a movie is easier. It's a lot more work, but you can schedule [its production] and you know what you're doing. The problem with games is that a lot of times the game relies on technology or code that no one has written. And you kind of make guesses that you can do it, and it's very unpredictable. It's a joke in the industry that anyone knows how to schedule a game. That's immensely frustrating. The only thing that makes it less stressful than a film is that it's a slower process. OK, you screw up and you're six months late, but you got these 10 guys working for six months. Instead, on a big-budget movie, you've got 200 people working. The thing that's stressful with a film is the scale. The good thing is you pretty much know how long it's going to take [to make]. In terms of a process, films are much easier. Which is more fun to make? I would say right now I enjoy the moviemaking process. Games take a lot longer to get to where you want them to be. With film, you get there closer and quicker. I also enjoy it because it's new for me. How are the two fields most alike? You need to keep a pretty clear vision of where you're going. You have to be able to communicate that with the people working on the project. Even on a game, where you don't have 200 people working, you still have to communicate that vision to make sure that they're going to work towards it. That was the one thing that helped me when I started to direct. Are you currently considering taking on another movie project? I would like to be in preproduction on another film by the end of the year. It probably won't be based on a game. There's more than one option at the moment. What piece of unsubstantiated, made-up gossip about you as a movie director would you not mind people spreading on the Net? George Lucas offered me the directing assignment on Episode Two. I had a feeling you'd say that. I like to develop my own material. But, yeah, that's pretty much every
sci-fi geek's dream: To get to direct a "Star Wars" film. Howard Wen writes frequently for Salon. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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