Martin Kenwright shares his WRC3 pacenotes
The charismatic Evolution Studios supremo recently revealed WRC3 to the press at the Rallye de France in Corsica. We were there for the ride.
Martin Kenwright has been involved in the UK games industry for well over a decade; first at the now defunct Digital Image Design, where he worked on flight sims such as Ocean's F29 Infiltrator, and the brilliantly named Wargasm (we like our puns here at PlayStation.com), and more recently heading up Evolution Studios, the creators of the hugely successful WRC series on PS2. Not only that, but he once let an uninsured buddy try out his Ferrari, which was promptly totalled. What a legend.
Evolution's garage of busy coding mechanics is twiddling the final nuts and bolts on WRC3, ready for the game's launch in November 2003. Sounds like a good excuse to fly out to Corsica and watch the real thing, then, as well as witness the final of the WRCII Extreme Challenge (more of that on PlayStation.com soon). Topping the whole thing off with a presentation of the new game - which is looking extraordinary - it's been a busy few days for Kenwright. But that didn't stop us cornering him for a quick chat about the new game...
How do you feel the day has gone?
I can't complain, can I? I think it's gone really well. People are getting really interested in the rally itself, it's so close... everyone's had a really good time, and the game has been really well received. You always want to be confident, but we're never conceited enough to take things for granted. But I think people appreciate what we've attempted to do. 95 percent of it is the execution, but it's the remaining little touches that others might not have thought of that people really admire.
We are trying to be different, it's so easy to be like everybody else and, you know, worry about the business model and use this bit of technology and that. But we just decide... what game are we making, how are we going to build it... right, let's go for it.
That's a nice position to be in, to be able to do that.
Well, it's not really, 'cos it causes havoc for the publisher, because there's nothing to see during development. We're rewriting renderers every year, just because we know what's left in the PS2. I mean, there's loads left to go in it. And because we're writing exclusively for PlayStation 2, we're not encumbered with the problems of conversion and optimisation [for different formats]. We can... well, I'll be really candid, we can blow everyone out the water in terms of rendering performance.
I'm amazed, I mean we draw 120,000 trees in the world at any one time. 120,000 objects rather, whether they're trees or not... the technology allows us to fulfil our dream, our vision, and it's that coming together in WRC3.
Is that why you build the worlds in the way you do, massive areas with the track carved across them?
Well, we use real terrain data and build tracks through it. But the footprint is tiny, it only uses about a tenth or twentieth of the memory of a normal game for the same sort of terrain. The objects in it use more memory, but make it look more photorealistic. We also have 32 bit colour, which gives us this photographic look in places, loads of depth. So we've got a proper convergence of loads of technology.
It's the only rally game with the official WRC licence. What's the advantage of that aside from the logo?
Well, it can swing both ways. There's things where we have a moral responsibility of what we can't do with the game. You know, if we didn't have the license we could kill loads of spectators! But, it does bring us a load of valuable expertise and knowledge, and it allows us to give it that level of officialdom, because at the end of the day we're emulating the World Rally Championship, we don't want to try and create some fictitious event. So we just copied the rally, and the FIA [the sport's governing body] are great, we can have all the official cars, drivers, locations... all the authenticity. People love that.
People also want a great playing game, so we take no chances. They want a great looking game, so we take no chances and do all three. Each year, you know... blah blah blah! [laughs]
Last year, you told us that the first WRC "was a shakedown, the second is assertion, and the third one will be a showcase". So, a year on, how do you feel you've done?
You know, we always think we can make our games better, we beat ourselves up pretty badly, probably more than we should. This third one, we've showed what we're capable of. We want to technically leave everything else behind now, in terms of technology, in terms of scope, scale and size. And the outlook is incredibly optimistic. People might not be worrying about this game really redefining the bar, I think it's what's coming that's going to really surprise the hell out of people.
Do you mean on this generation of hardware, or PS3?
This generation. You know, people ask what's the most difficult thing to do. The technology's quantifiable, it's our wishlist that's the most difficult thing to do, and the amount of time we have to do it in. We always overcommit, we always try and put more in than we should. Which makes SCEE [WRC's publisher] nervous!
We always leave the marketing late because there's nothing to see until the last minute, because we're rewriting the game. We think the market demands it. We think the market takes a dim view of paying £40 for something with just a few extra tracks and the same bit of technology all over again.
One of the changes you've made to WRC3 is the handling, which you say is accessible, yet has more depth. How have you gone about that?
We love the handling now. Rally cars are very much point and shoot, they can slide sideways, and it's all about technique... but we've created a great level of pick up and play that flatters people. What we did last time, we had it a little bit too hard for some people, we'll hold our hands up, there were a few frustrations. But we've listened to people, it's the first thing we addressed, we said "Let's make this handling the business". I struggle with many other handling models out there, there's either too much understeer, or not enough raw excitement.
The evolutions we've made make the handling more challenging and more realistic... I mean, seeing the challenge finalists playing the new game, watching them play... they're turning around and going, "****ing 'ell!" We live up in Runcorn, so we don't really get out much [laughs], so it's good to have people from around the world have a proper look, and even have Citroen coming up and saying "****ing 'ell!"
Where do you think the future of WRC games lies? Using technology to make it a more realistic visual representation, or are there other areas you want to explore?
Well, I think it's about realistic representation but it's also about what constitutes a rally game. You can follow the tried and tested, worn formula, but now it's time to try something different.
What's that?
I can't tell you. Because we're planning it as we speak. And that's not the rhetoric, or the bull, it really is... we're onto something big here, and we want to continue this momentum (from WRC3). But I don't want to detract anything from WRC3, because we're proud of it... I'm waiting for the letters about who's going to get divorced from their wives, kids who skip school, and blame it all on us!
