Inside the Developers Studio: Dylan Jobe

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1. What game do you have at E3 this year?
Warhawk, baby!

2. Tell us more about your game. What’s the story?
Warhawk isn’t about a story – plain and simple. Warhawk is about fast, fun, full spectrum warfare with the stuff that players should expect to see in a war game. While there are numerous clever elements in Warhawk that we’re very proud of, we actively tried to adhere to proven conventions that players are already familiar with.

I’m not about to write a bunch of marketing and PR spew here…if you’re interested in learning more about Warhawk, check-out Warhawk.com.

3. Describe it (your game) in five words or less.
OPTION#1 = The love child of Unreal Tournament and Battlefield.
OPTION#2 = The fastest war-game you’ve ever played!
OPTION#3 = One of our Public BETA testers referred to Warhawk as a “Super Hot, psycho, girlfriend”. This description works pretty well.

4. What did you do on this game that you couldn’t do on another platform?
It’s hard to answer this and not sound like a gratuitous SONY sales pitch :)

Although I would say it’s the sum-total of all of our natural phenomenon in the game. Our clouds, procedural water, atmospheric scattering, terrain, etc. All of this stuff runs in parallel on all 7 SPUs simultaneously every frame – I’m still not sure if the game community is giving enough credit to just how fast the SPUs really are.

5. What do you think is the coolest aspect of this game?
I’m really proud of our Quick-Split technology. It’s something that once people see how easy and fast our split-screen works, they are often left wondering why it isn’t done like that in other games.

Players might remember back to the last game I produced, War of the Monsters; we had a cool split-screen to single screen transition in that game. Split-screen is really important to me as a developer and I’m a firm believer in “couch-appeal”. Games that are not only fun to play, but fun to *watch* being played.

“Couch-appeal” is a common denominator among most successful titles. I kinda got of topic there for a second :)

6. If you could sit one person in front of your game for an hour, who would it be?
Jade Raymond (Assassins Creed) – I have a purely innocent, *professional* crush on her :)

7. What game do you most want an hour to sit in front of yourself (besides your own)?
Hmmm, probably Starcraft 2 — I’m a Protoss Zealot IRL! Most people don’t know that about me. I have a Pylon in my office. One of the other games that I am dying to play isn’t announced yet – The PR folks will shank me if I say anything about it.

8. How many E3’s does E3 2007 mark for you?
Since ’99 – so this year will be 9…OMG, I feel so old now!

9. Describe the pre-2007 E3 experience in five words or less.
Well last year’s E3 was insane – needless to say my pre-E3 experience last year was not spent refining my SIXAXIS interpretive dance!

10. You are asked to make suggestions for an E3 survival kit — what three items HAVE to be included?
Who knows what the kit should have in it for this new format? Probably a great map or GPS since people are going to be driving all over LA!

The old-school E3 kit would have included earplugs, Excedrin and a small sketch book. It was always great to play so many games and take notes about what they were doing well and what elements didn’t work.

On an unrelated note, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to attend E3 with a high-powered directional mic. It is *truly* staggering how open some people are with confidential information. An acute ear at the cafeteria can yield some really interesting info :)

11. What advice would you have for someone who has never experienced E3?
Wow, not even sure where to begin! It’s like 3 separate high schools having high-budget pep-rallies all in the same gymnasium.

Sadly, people won’t be able to experience the sensory pressure cooker of E3s past – Who knows how this new format will turn out.

11. Describe what you anticipate from 2007’s newly formatted E3 in five words or less.
Not much – I’m skeptical. (that’s actually only 4-and-a-half words so I should get some kind of prize)

12. Most over used phrase or expression during E3 season.
The team and I are soooo sick of devs saying that they are “taking things to the next level!”

I think the press should call shenanigans on any dev who drops a line like this in an interview. “So what we’re trying to do here with Super-Ultra-Tea-Party-Turbo EX-HD is take the first-person, turn-based, MMORPG, Tea and Biscuits simulation genre to the next level!!”

*dylan vomits on floor*

*dylan takes note of stomach’s evacuated contents*

*corn is observed*

13.When is it being released?
Warhawk is coming to the PlayStation Store *and* on Blu-ray at brick-n-mortar Stores nationwide in early Fall.

14.What’s your favorite part about developing games for a living?
This will sound giga-dorky but…I really like the people. This industry pulls together such an eclectic group of people – it keeps work very exciting.

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