KUDO: Like most video game developers, I never really had any “formal” video game training besides playing a ton of games. I took the $50,000 dollars my parents spent on my college education, and instead of using it to actually attend classes, spent the entire four years of my college education playing video games with my friends. At the time, my parents did not fully understand the value of blowing off classes to play games. In fact, I can remember several caustic conversations where they tried to get me to do things like go to class, study, and pass tests. How silly!!!

After college, I took all my valuable video game skills and got a job polishing pool balls in a pool hall. During my spare time, I played video games on the bar big screen TV. One of the guys who came into the pool hall regularly saw me crash a shipped game twice in an hour and offered me a job as a tester. From there, I worked myself up through the ranks to Director. After interviewing at 3DO, and seeing the high level of talent at this company, coming here was a no brainer.

KUDO: We are working on 3 other kick ass Playstation2 games right now. WDL: WarJetz which is aerial based gladiatorial combat in a futuristic TV show tournament format. Dragon Wars of Might and Magic allows you to play as a giant fire-breathing dragon in a medieval universe. The game is very action-based with the focus being on Dragon Flight and cool dragon attacks. We are also working on a new school, trick based skiing game starring Olympic Gold medallist and freeskiing icon Jonny Moseley. Unlike previous skiing games, the Moseley game will be all new school hucking and jibbing. Very sweet.

KUDO: Fortunately, the Army Men universe and Air Attack gameplay are both extremely fun and very diverse. There are many features of Air Attack gameplay that we have only scratched the surface of developing. The Air Attack team has such great designers that we never run out of ideas. So many of the gameplay mechanics in Air Attack are developed from things you did as a kid playing with Army Men (dropping cherry bombs in ant hills, melting soldiers with magnifying glasses) that you can call on these great memories to come up with new gameplay elements. The problem is never trying to keep the game fresh and innovative. The big problem is trying to be fresh and innovative without ruining any of the fun gameplay we have developed in the Air Attack series so far. Our team (Team Fusion) makes it a rule not to produce sequels of games that do not deliver substantial upgrades in gameplay and new gameplay features. You always want to make sure you are adding to the previous game without taking away anything that worked well.

KUDO: My current title is Executive Director. The function of this job is different from project to project. On Air Attack 2, my job was to work with the designers to create a finished design doc, and then from that design doc make day to day plans for all 22 people on the team to complete the project. This is an enormous task. Once the project plans are made, I make sure that all the different features and art work are being implemented, give feedback on anything that could be changed to improve the game, and play the designers' levels a lot. I also work with the other parts of the company (marketing, sales, PR) to make sure all of their work is representing the game accurately. Besides the game work, I also make sure that anything we don't have somebody hired to do, still gets done. This involves anything from buying lunches to getting people light bulbs. Oh yeah, and I go to meetings a lot. Despite what people believe, making video games is not all fame, fortune, and beautiful groupies. :)

KUDO: Like I said earlier, one of the things I really like about working on this team is that we do not put out a sequel without some significant gameplay improvements and new features. From the very beginning, we identified exactly what we wanted to improve and made sure they got into the game. The improvements really break down into two categories: gameplay and character development.

For gameplay improvements, we improved the power and capabilities of the winch mechanic (the cable that dangles below your helicopter and picks up objects), added landing to the helicopter capabilities, simplified the helicopter weapons scheme, and added more Green and Tan toys for you to battle with. While all of these are really cool additions, I am especially excited about the new winch capabilities. Like in AMAA1, you can pick up any object in the world with your winch. But instead of just being able to drop the objects to destroy enemies, you can throw objects like a giant bowling ball to crush them, or swing objects around your helicopter like a wrecking ball, or use the objects as a giant shield.

Since Army Men is such a character based franchise, we also wanted to increase the amount of character development we did in the game. We have a great main character (Captain Blade) and four unique copilots (Woodstock, Bombshell, Hardcore, and Hooligan). Since the main character is a helicopter, this can be tough. So we developed a picture in picture movie player that plays a pre-rendered movie of each character talking, in a small box on screen for all radio communications. This cool radio communication tool also allows us to give mission status updates and change mission objectives dynamically. Army Men Air Attack 2 also features 12 minutes of film quality cinematics to carefully tie in the game's storyline and in game mission objectives.

KUDO: Thanks for the great compliment about the graphics!!! Despite the fact that Air Attack 2 was the greatest helicopter game on the PlayStation of all time with little are no flaws, :) one thing we wanted to improve gameplay wise was the camera view. While the camera view on the PlayStation worked well gameplay wise, it was a lot more top down then the PlayStation2 game. The PlayStation2 camera is more behind the player, allowing them to really see more of the gameplay area. This also immerses the player more in the beautiful, lush environments.

KUDO: First off, let me say that this was not a port of the PlayStation game. While many games just port existing technology from PlayStation engines, our team was given the opportunity to really R&D the PlayStation2 development environment and build a great engine from the ground up. Especially when moving on to the next generation console, it is important to take the time and build your engine around the strengths of the new machine. This also helps eliminate a lot of the problems that other teams face when trying to port existing code to a new platform.

The biggest obstacles were really figuring out the strengths and limitations of a new platform. Fortunately, we had some incredibly bright programmers studying and experimenting with the new technology. All of the designing and artwork you create has to be done with an understanding of where the technology excels. Working on a first generation title definitely means artists and designers have to redo lots of work to make sure it is the best it can be. But all of the things we have learned on AMAA2 will help us on future games. I am happy that 3DO gave us the time necessary to make sure the game really came out great.

KUDO: Not too much of it was familiar territory. We really wanted to learn as much as we could about the new machine and figure out how to push the hardware. Besides the technology shift, one of the things that dramatically changed developing for PlayStation2 was the amount of game content that needs to be created. With the expanded capabilities of PlayStation2, the amount of artwork and design assets it takes to make a game increased significantly. We have a lot more artists and designers working on our PlayStation2 teams than on PS1 teams.

KUDO: Again, the Air Attack PlayStation2 is not just a port of the PlayStation version. We did get to build an engine specifically for the PlayStation2 hardware. Typically, the main difference between the development cycles of ports and new games is the difference in design time needed. For a new game, you have to take time to develop a gameplay design, art direction and technology plan. For a port, you are emulating a game that exists and using a lot of that game's technology. This really cuts down on the design period.

KUDO: There are so many great moments, it is hard to choose one. Funny enough, I think my favorite moment from playing the game involves me losing a level. There is one mission late in the game where you need to collect a bunch of helicopter parts to build yourself a new helicopter. One of the pieces is behind a giant dump truck. In order to fly past the dump truck, you have to land and have your copilot run out and lower the back of the truck. Since this is towards the end of the level, you usually felt pretty good about your chances of winning if you made it this far.

So for months I am playing this designer's (Amy) level. For months, if I knew if I made it to this landing pad and dropped my copilot off, I would be safe. Without telling me, Amy put in these RC Cars that drive back and forth across the road and try to crush the copilot. The copilot needs to run across the road, Frogger style, avoiding the cars. Well, I had no idea the cars were coming. I landed on the landing pad like I always did and watched my copilot start running across the road. Out of nowhere, a giant RC Car came cruising by and just squished my copilot, ending the level. I was shocked. Amy just laughed at me. I had fallen right into her gameplay trap. It is cool to have designers putting in little gameplay surprises like that for people like myself to fall into. Plus, despite the fact that I lost the level, I laughed my ass off at the sight of one of these cars just cruising by squishing my copilot.

KUDO: We really only want to produce Air Attack games on the systems that really make sense for the game. The quality of the games is the top priority. Right now, we only have plans for continuing the series on PlayStation2. I have been extremely happy with the PlayStation2 hardware and Sony as a company. I love making games for their systems. But Air Attack might end up on other next gen consoles. You never know.

KUDO: As with many things, game making is a tough balance between getting a lot of good ideas from a lot of people and not designing by consensus. Not having an outside publisher means we have a lot more control over making sure the game content is top quality and consistent throughout the game. But the real benefit to not having a separate publisher is that you are not being pushed to ship the games before they are ready just because some company that is not yours wants to make a buck this fiscal quarter. While this is not true with every publisher, 3DO has been really great about not releasing the games until they are top quality. This really is the biggest benefit, at least here at 3DO.

KUDO: That is one of the really cool things about the Army Men universe: these are just play toys. There are no real people. It is not real life. There really is no “violence” in the games. Sure, maybe Army Men games have lead to some senseless insect destruction, but we have never had any problems or issues with Army Men games and violence. Heck, we are just playing with toys.

KUDO: I think the biggest challenge will be sustaining small independent development houses that are making quality software. It is so hard to keep a small development company like that up and running for a long period of time. It just takes so much money to keep a company running that if you have just one or two games that don't sell well, the company can go under. It is a shame to lose all the cutting edge small developers. It just seems that the market does not always reward these types of game makers. Stuff I am most excited about seeing is if the industry, as a whole, can really sustain 3 different consoles at once. The more good games available, the better. Plus, the more consoles there are to make games for, the more jobs there are for people like me! :)

KUDO: Of course! I had a ton of 'em. That was one of the reasons I was so excited to be working on Air Attack. You really can add a lot of your own experiences playing with Army Men to the game design. My favorite was the paratroopers. They were the little guys you could throw up in the air and their parachute would open. As a kid, we used to strap firecrackers on the parachuter's backs and drop them off the roof of our school. I am glad to say that these paratroopers are now part of the game. In the game, they parachute in with an M80 strapped on their backs and kamikaze the nearest enemy units. Sweeeet!!!

KUDO: Well, since the company has not yet announced an Air Attack 3, I cannot really comment on the game. But if we were working on another installment, I would imagine the gameplay would involve some cool new winch attachments (like a bug zapper or yo-yo), more indoor environments, a new first person camera for gunner missions, stackable models for more in-depth winch puzzles, and a lot more carrying and deploying of troops. Again, you can count on a significant upgrade in both gameplay and technology for the next version. If we were working on one. :)