While at Comdex Luckee spoke with the developer, Choco Sunny from Savage, about the new first person shooter game, Battlesuit MK1.

Luckee: What all do you do for Savage?

Choco: I am Chief Financial Officer, Project Lead and I also do art on the games.

Luckee: Where did you come up with the idea for this exciting new first person shooter game?

Choco: All of our backgrounds were out of Activision where we had worked on Mech 2. After that we worked on Heavy Gear and Heavy Gear 2, so what we wanted to do was take that giant robot combat experience and marry it with a little bit more of an action shooter type sensibility. So what you have here is our take on that with the battlesuits and two major modifications to giant robot gameplay; the ability to get in and out of your battlesuit and a sort of a Tribes-like experience with capture the flag gameplay and fixed-in-place stuff that you can get into and out of with a lot more strategic gameplay.

Luckee: So this is a mix between the awesome diehard Mech fan and a first person shooter with a little RPG too?

Choco: Absolutely, well to some degree anyway. There is the element of player development in terms of the types of weapons you can get and how you can outfit your battlesuit. But we are focusing largely on the action gameplay and what it is like to be a pilot of one of these gigantic robots.

Luckee: What is the objective of the game?

Choco: To capture the enemy’s flag. The way we have set it up is largely a multi- player only experience. Much like Tribes there will be five or six single missions that will serve as a training experience and then there will be multi-player arenas where you’ll be able to go in. There will be a fortress where your flags are stored, and you’ll be able to play as this pilot running around getting into other people’s robots and getting into your own robot. With that there is the element of first person shooter gameplay but it is essentially a giant robot combat game because that is really where our experience lies.

Luckee: As far as sound and graphics, what cards should I use to fully take advantage of the game?

Choco: Right now it is running on Geforce 2 and we are fully DirectX 8 compliant. We just converted our code bases for all of the new stuff that is in there including pixel shaders. We made some optimizations for Pentium IV, which we are not allowed to talk about because Pentium IV hasn’t been officially announced yet. We are trying to take advantage of all the available hardware. As far as the minimum requirement, we are looking at Pentium II range, clock speed I’m unsure about because that depends on the publisher.

Luckee: Your engine is not a mirror, it is your own?

Choco: Yes. We wrote our own and named it the Saber tooth Engine, which we optimized for certain things that we are doing. One of the things we really like about our engine versus other engines that are out there is really the combination of the vast scrawling outdoor expanses that you’ll remember from Mech 2 and Heavy Gear, and the combination of the indoor spaces. You can get out and run around first person. You can see that we really wanted to give you the sense that there is this installation somewhere that you can go around in, a big base with just human-sized areas so you can’t bring your battlesuit in which makes for a very interesting strategic gameplay.

Luckee: It seems like it is kind of like a game from a couple of years ago, Shogo?

Choco: Yes it is, and actually we played that a lot in the office.

Luckee: So this has that influence?

Choco: Yes, but there is one thing that we like about this that is different than Shogo. In Shogo, if I remember correctly, when you are switching from inside the robot to outside you had to wait until you were between levels. There wasn’t a lot of ability to switch in and out of the robot, so there wasn’t a lot of dynamic gameplay. The gameplay here, in terms of getting in and out of your battlesuit, is really focused on taking advantage of being a pilot in this world where there are these gigantic robots with really powerful weapons. Two of them are that you are smaller and harder to shoot and you don’t show up on radar. Only your battlesuits will show up on radar so you can infiltrate more easily as a pilot. That is sort of the gameplay we are focusing on for the multi-player.

Luckee: What is the price range and when do you expect it to be released?

Choco: The price range is to be determined by the publisher, we do not know what or who that will be at this point, but we are certainly interested in whoever wants to look at it. In terms of time remaining on the game, there are probably another four to five months of development time remaining. So it probably won’t be ready until next year.

Luckee: Thank you very much for your time.