PALGN’s hunger for more Worms destruction has risen to a feverish pitch and we couldn’t let Team 17 off the hook without getting them to spill some juicy details on their upcoming project. Luckily we were able to get a hold of studio director Martyn Brown to give us an insight into their next Worms title.
PALGN: Could you shortly introduce yourself, company and position to our readers?
Martyn Brown: Hi, I'm Martyn Brown, Studio Director at Team17. My company, Team 17, is in it's 15th year developing video games - we're best known for a spate of top quality Amiga titles in our early history and the Worms franchise from the mid 90's onwards.
PALGN: What will separate Worms 4: Mayhem from the previous games in the series?
Martyn Brown: We've gone customisation crazy. This time you can totally personalise the look of your worms, from voices, to hats, glasses, hands, gravestones, flags and such. Not only that but you can now tailor your own special weapons. These two core elements are the most requested features from fans of the Worms series. Of course there's a lot more cool stuff going on too...
PALGN: Could you give us an overview of the new mode where gamers will be able to customisation their own weapons and characters? What sort of wacky weapons can gamers expect to make in the Weapons Factory?
Martyn Brown: Essentially you can dress the worms up how you want, it's very simple. In terms of weapons you can choose how it's deployed (launched, thrown or dropped from a chopper) and what kind of payload it is, how it behaves (homing, cluster, poison) etc etc. So you can very easily combine payloads to make ridiculous strikes, homing penguins, all kinds of stuff. Of course the features are weighted so you can't just have everything on in terms of mega-power!
PALGN: Can you tell us a bit more about the new firepower of some of the new weapons introduced to Worms 4, such as these 'Darkside' tools? Also a brief overview of the new weapons already mentioned, in particular the Sentry Gun and the Bovine Blitz.
Martyn Brown: We can't say too much at the moment but there are 3 new darkside weapons in the game, the Sentry gun being one of them - which is especially powerful when combined with one of the others. The Bovine Blitz is an airstrike where you control the bomb (bovine) deployment and we have cool new stuff like the sniper rifle in there.
PALGN: How has the development of the levels in the game changed? Can gamers expect to see larger levels full of all sorts of crazy and destroyable scenery again?
Martyn Brown: Improvement to the technology has meant that we have been able to expand the levels and more importantly, add a deformable "beach" material to the levels which radically improves gameplay. In Worms 3D, alot of the time worms would have water-deaths whereas this time, they tend to end up on the beach and it plays far more akin to the 2d game.
PALGN: Team 17 has had a mix bag of publishers in the past, and it seems there's another new publisher for the franchise, Codemasters. How has the cooperation been between Team 17 & Codemasters?
Martyn Brown: Pretty good to be honest, it's always nice to work with a publisher that has a lot of enthusiasm for the game and is getting right behind it.
PALGN: Multiplayer has always been a strong factor in the Worms' franchise, and Worms 4 seems to excel on that experience a lot more with the inclusion of online being included in the Xbox and PC versions of the game. What sort of modes can we expect to see enabled with online?
Martyn Brown: Theres a whole bunch of new multiplayer modes - and in particular we've added some fantastic elements to the tech that generates levels, so that you'll see unique style of levels created.
PALGN: It was mentioned that Team 17 are aiming to return the series to it's 'roots' this time round. In addition, what else can gamers expect to see for the celebration of the franchisers' 10th anniversary?
Martyn Brown: Basically it's not called "mayhem" for nothing. There's tons more bangs per buck, more mines and some really cheeky little additions (We'll let you find those for yourself). There's so much in the game in terms of replayability, options and customisation that it really does tend to celebrate the series big time.
PALGN: What are your favourite games at the moment and can you tell us briefly what games have influenced you in becoming apart of the video game industry?
Martyn Brown: I'm still a sucker for Football Manager (what was Championship Manager) and tend to play a lot of games with my kids these days; usually stuff like Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart etc. In terms of what influenced me, I have to say the stuff in the mid to late 70's, I was really bitten by the bug and I could only ever do one thing after playing Pong for the first time. Sad, really!
PALGN: Finally, what's your view on the upcoming handheld consoles, the PSP and the NDS? Is there a possibility that we might see the Worms franchise on either of these consoles in the future? A touch screen and WiFi enabled Worms game does sound pretty awesome you must admit!
Martyn Brown: I think both handhelds are fantastic for widely differing reasons. I think the DS is very refreshing and brings great opportunities for new styles of games - and I think the PSP is a very sexy bit of kit in style and technology - I think both will appeal to different markets. I don't think you'll be surprised to hear that we intend to bring Worms to both formats.
PALGN: Thanks for your time. Is there anything you would like to tell our readers?
Martyn Brown: Hi to everyone down there - I hope you really enjoy Worms 4: Mayhem! There's a demo planned in March and an online demo planned before release - please try it!
We'd like to thank Martyn and Team 17 for taking the time to answer our questions. Worms 4: Mayhem is scheduled to be unleashed on the PS2, Xbox and PC, and should be available in the second half of this year. For more of Team 17’s projects and updates, be sure to check out their website at http://www.team17.com/.
)
Loading...
