Post by flatapex on Sept 4, 2015 22:08:16 GMT
well, you waited and I have something very special for you.
One of the biggest interviews I have done this year was Steve Lycett, from Sumo Digital. Heard of the Sonic All Stars Racing games? Outrun 2006? well you have Steve to thank for his work.
I interviewed Steve in April, and what a cool guy he is, I met him in person in May as well.
Here is my interview with Steve
A: First of all Steve, thank you very much for taking the time out to do this interview with me, would you mind letting the readers know what games you have worked on?
S: Most recently I’ve just finished Forza Horizon 2 present Fast and Furious on Xbox360, if you were quick enough it was available for free for a limited time! Before that I’m probably most associated with the Sonic and SEGA All-Stars series including Transformed and Racing, plus SEGA Superstars Tennis. Big blue sky games I guess!
A: Thats a great list of credits. How did you get started in the games industry?
S: Sort of by accident! I’d worked in games shops since I was at school and by chance I bumped into someone I used to work with one day in the street. He told me that Gremlin were hiring tech support people and as I knew my way around a PC, stick an application in. I did, but instead got interviewed for a games testing job. That was back in 1997 and now years later I’m still doing it!
A: A lot of us know Sumo Digital for Outrun 2006, what was your role on that project?
S: At that time I was associate producer, so it was working with Japan on approvals, looking after elements like the audio, checking the QA was all in order as well as chasing all the localisation. Oh and anything related to video, I built the title screen video for example. It was a close tight knit team so day to day everyone pretty much got involved where needed, so I also helped out with some of the mission design, UI, even small elements like the screens you see in the console dashboards before the game booted too.
A: Speaking of Outrun, when you were asked to work on the arcade sequel, how did that feel? An honour, massive pressure (or both)?
S: Quite a lot of both! I think everyone was pretty excited, plus of course, we’d got a lot of ideas from doing the original OutRun2 conversion that we didn’t quite get to do. As that was so well received, we also wanted to improve. Plus squeezing it into both the PS2 and PSP would give us a chance to show our technical skills too, there were doubts it was even possible at SEGA Japan so it was nice to allay those fears (eventually!).
A: You also worked on Toca Race Driver 2 and 3 for the PSP, I personally owe you a pint for your involvement in two fantastic games. It must have been a vastly different project to work on a career based simulator rather than the arcade style of Outrun, how were they different to work on?
S: I’ll never turn down a free pint!
We actually did three Race Driver games on PSP, everyone forgets about Race Driver 2006 ☺
The main challenge was trying to get it as close to the PS2 version as possible, keeping the level of detail seen whilst also running at a decent lick! It came down quite close to wire that one, including a last minute fix on performance by chopping the world up so we only showed the bits you could see.
Making sure the handling still felt good whilst also customising it for the PSP analog controls was the key part, plus figuring out how to get an analog feel from the shoulders so you had fine control over braking and acceleration took up quite a bit of effort. It’s key for a racing game to have good controls and I think we pulled it off really well. Especially for a launch title!
For RD2006 and RD3 I got to flex some design muscles, Codemasters were really supportive in this and were keen for us to let us point out stamp on it. Most of the challenge was going ‘We’ve got this really nice handling, how can we use this in interesting ways’ so that led naturally to challenges that helped you learn to drive well and make you a better racer. Like a school of racing.
Plus we wanted to push the experience so we were the first PSP game to have custom soundtracks, I always like to race to my own music! And 12 player multiplayer, we really packed a lot into that!
A: The obvious question is, which do you prefer out of arcade racing games (like Outrun) and racing simulators (like Toca Race Driver)?
S: I’ve always been more of an arcade gamer so I’d lean more towards OutRun in general. Can’t beat doing huge drifts! Main thing I look for is a driving model with depth. I think it’s important as having that gives you something to get your teeth into where you can improve your driving over time and find new ways to get your lap times down. That’s why I favour having Time Attack in there so you can compare against other players, plus it makes for a better multiplayer experience.
A: Out of all the games you worked on, which was your favourite?
S: Still think Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is my career highlight so far. We were determined to not only top the previous game, but also give Mario Kart a run for its money! As far as games go, it has pretty much everything. A big campaign which you can play four player split-screen, a good range of difficulty, full online and offline multiplayer plus more SEGA references than should be strictly legal. I’d recommend it to anyone, if you don’t like it, you just don’t like fun ☺
A: Do you play any of your old games?
S: I’m a slight anomaly in that I do! A lot of the time when you’ve spent three years working on something you’re keen to see It out and gone. But I still play Transformed, OutRun2/2006 and many of the games I’ve worked on over the years. Sometimes just to see if they’re as good (or bad!) as I remember!
A: Another obvious question, what are your favourite ever games?
S: Tough question! I still love the original Atari 1984 version of Star Wars, it’s just a perfect arcade game that I just don’t ever tire of. I’m a huge fan of SEGA arcade games, the holy trinity being OutRun, Space Harrier and AfterBurner, that’s probably worked out OK for me given the games I’ve worked on. Recently I’ve spent a bunch of time on DriveClub which I think is just astonishing, it’s an incredible time attack experience, especially at night in the middle of a thunderstorm.
A: Our readers will probably be intrigued to know about your love of motorbikes, what do you think of the motorbike based games that have been released? Any favourites?
S:I’m a keen biker, rain or shine. Indeed I’m planning a big European tour this summer since I’ve hit 40 and feel like I should have an adventure whilst I’m still young and daft enough. Dragging my wife and daughter along too, made them get their own bikes so I don’t have panniers full of hairdryers…
With regards to bike games… Not sure I’ve ever really got on with many. The problem is they tend to obsess more about following real world motorsport like Moto GP and the latest bikes but not actually capture the feeling of riding a bike.
Think about Ridge Racer, it’s not really anything like driving a car, but it conveys how you feel when you do.
Plus the obsession with race tracks! Stop it! I love race tracks as much as the next man, but I’d much rather see a game where it’s real roads, traffic, and other bikes and more about the fun it is to actually ride a bike for most bikers. Imagine if every car racing game was based on Formula One. It’s madness!
What’d be wrong with a game where you could take a Harley down Route 66? Where’s that? Well outside of an arcade anyway!
A: Would you ever work on a motorbike based game given the chance?
S: Absolutely, it’d give me chance to combine two of my big passions! I’ve had an idea boiling away in the back of my head for years, it’s just a case of getting someone to let me do it.
A: If money was no object what bikes would you own?
S: I think I’d probably have different bikes for different days. I love my FJR, its ace for big long tours, so I think I’d keep that. A nice big cruiser maybe the new V-Max, or even a Fat Boy. Probably need an off-road bike, although the GS1200 is the obvious choice, I actually fancy the Super Tenere. That just leaves something stupid fast, at six foot four my choices are a bit limited, but I reckon I could squeeze onto a ZZR1400… At least it wouldn’t be a entirely Yamaha garage that way!
A: One of your other famous projects was Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed, I’ll not ask too much about it as I bet you get so many questions about it, a lot of the characters are from Sega games, any favourite Sega games?
S: It’s funny, no-one has ever asked me about putting more characters into All-Stars Transformed…
My favourite Dreamcast game remains Shenmue, although it’s aged a bit now, it’s pretty much as close as you can get to visiting Japan if you’ve no other means. It was the sheer attention to detail as much as the storyline, Yu Suzuki is a genius. Plus it has a motorbike in it, what more could I want?
Two others I want to get in, but we haven’t managed yet are Phantasy Star Online and Rez. There are a lot of fans out there for both games and I’m one of the many!
A: If you could work with any other developer on a game, who would you choose?
S: I’ve been privileged to work with many of the developers who I’ve admired over the years, so my list is only ever getting smaller when people ask me this. I still think a Nintendo VS SEGA mash up would be amazing, if not only for the kids in grew up in the SNES VS Megadrive era!
A: What gives you the most job satisfaction?
S: I love making games and the feeling you get when something suddenly takes shape for a disparate collection of code and art and starts to feel like a game is always a great moment. It’s also great when you go and read forums and you see people getting really excited about what you’re working on and then later really enjoy playing it.
It was always great to do that after character reveals for sure on the All-Star games!
A: Finally, the games for the latest generation of consoles are constantly evolving, what type of games do you hope to work on for this console generation?
S: One of the great things about SUMO is whilst most people might associate us with racing games; we actually have a pretty diverse output so you get to work on all kinds of games. The variety helps keep you sane!
So I’m pretty happy to be working on virtually any type of game so long as we can put our usual magic into it and make something new and exciting. We do like to push the envelope too, so I’m sure we’ll surprise everyone with things we’ve got in the pipeline.
A: Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions for me
S: Not a problem, nice to have a chat about things that aren’t ‘When is character X going to appear in an All-Stars game?’!
One of the biggest interviews I have done this year was Steve Lycett, from Sumo Digital. Heard of the Sonic All Stars Racing games? Outrun 2006? well you have Steve to thank for his work.
I interviewed Steve in April, and what a cool guy he is, I met him in person in May as well.
Here is my interview with Steve
A: First of all Steve, thank you very much for taking the time out to do this interview with me, would you mind letting the readers know what games you have worked on?
S: Most recently I’ve just finished Forza Horizon 2 present Fast and Furious on Xbox360, if you were quick enough it was available for free for a limited time! Before that I’m probably most associated with the Sonic and SEGA All-Stars series including Transformed and Racing, plus SEGA Superstars Tennis. Big blue sky games I guess!
A: Thats a great list of credits. How did you get started in the games industry?
S: Sort of by accident! I’d worked in games shops since I was at school and by chance I bumped into someone I used to work with one day in the street. He told me that Gremlin were hiring tech support people and as I knew my way around a PC, stick an application in. I did, but instead got interviewed for a games testing job. That was back in 1997 and now years later I’m still doing it!
A: A lot of us know Sumo Digital for Outrun 2006, what was your role on that project?
S: At that time I was associate producer, so it was working with Japan on approvals, looking after elements like the audio, checking the QA was all in order as well as chasing all the localisation. Oh and anything related to video, I built the title screen video for example. It was a close tight knit team so day to day everyone pretty much got involved where needed, so I also helped out with some of the mission design, UI, even small elements like the screens you see in the console dashboards before the game booted too.
A: Speaking of Outrun, when you were asked to work on the arcade sequel, how did that feel? An honour, massive pressure (or both)?
S: Quite a lot of both! I think everyone was pretty excited, plus of course, we’d got a lot of ideas from doing the original OutRun2 conversion that we didn’t quite get to do. As that was so well received, we also wanted to improve. Plus squeezing it into both the PS2 and PSP would give us a chance to show our technical skills too, there were doubts it was even possible at SEGA Japan so it was nice to allay those fears (eventually!).
A: You also worked on Toca Race Driver 2 and 3 for the PSP, I personally owe you a pint for your involvement in two fantastic games. It must have been a vastly different project to work on a career based simulator rather than the arcade style of Outrun, how were they different to work on?
S: I’ll never turn down a free pint!
We actually did three Race Driver games on PSP, everyone forgets about Race Driver 2006 ☺
The main challenge was trying to get it as close to the PS2 version as possible, keeping the level of detail seen whilst also running at a decent lick! It came down quite close to wire that one, including a last minute fix on performance by chopping the world up so we only showed the bits you could see.
Making sure the handling still felt good whilst also customising it for the PSP analog controls was the key part, plus figuring out how to get an analog feel from the shoulders so you had fine control over braking and acceleration took up quite a bit of effort. It’s key for a racing game to have good controls and I think we pulled it off really well. Especially for a launch title!
For RD2006 and RD3 I got to flex some design muscles, Codemasters were really supportive in this and were keen for us to let us point out stamp on it. Most of the challenge was going ‘We’ve got this really nice handling, how can we use this in interesting ways’ so that led naturally to challenges that helped you learn to drive well and make you a better racer. Like a school of racing.
Plus we wanted to push the experience so we were the first PSP game to have custom soundtracks, I always like to race to my own music! And 12 player multiplayer, we really packed a lot into that!
A: The obvious question is, which do you prefer out of arcade racing games (like Outrun) and racing simulators (like Toca Race Driver)?
S: I’ve always been more of an arcade gamer so I’d lean more towards OutRun in general. Can’t beat doing huge drifts! Main thing I look for is a driving model with depth. I think it’s important as having that gives you something to get your teeth into where you can improve your driving over time and find new ways to get your lap times down. That’s why I favour having Time Attack in there so you can compare against other players, plus it makes for a better multiplayer experience.
A: Out of all the games you worked on, which was your favourite?
S: Still think Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is my career highlight so far. We were determined to not only top the previous game, but also give Mario Kart a run for its money! As far as games go, it has pretty much everything. A big campaign which you can play four player split-screen, a good range of difficulty, full online and offline multiplayer plus more SEGA references than should be strictly legal. I’d recommend it to anyone, if you don’t like it, you just don’t like fun ☺
A: Do you play any of your old games?
S: I’m a slight anomaly in that I do! A lot of the time when you’ve spent three years working on something you’re keen to see It out and gone. But I still play Transformed, OutRun2/2006 and many of the games I’ve worked on over the years. Sometimes just to see if they’re as good (or bad!) as I remember!
A: Another obvious question, what are your favourite ever games?
S: Tough question! I still love the original Atari 1984 version of Star Wars, it’s just a perfect arcade game that I just don’t ever tire of. I’m a huge fan of SEGA arcade games, the holy trinity being OutRun, Space Harrier and AfterBurner, that’s probably worked out OK for me given the games I’ve worked on. Recently I’ve spent a bunch of time on DriveClub which I think is just astonishing, it’s an incredible time attack experience, especially at night in the middle of a thunderstorm.
A: Our readers will probably be intrigued to know about your love of motorbikes, what do you think of the motorbike based games that have been released? Any favourites?
S:I’m a keen biker, rain or shine. Indeed I’m planning a big European tour this summer since I’ve hit 40 and feel like I should have an adventure whilst I’m still young and daft enough. Dragging my wife and daughter along too, made them get their own bikes so I don’t have panniers full of hairdryers…
With regards to bike games… Not sure I’ve ever really got on with many. The problem is they tend to obsess more about following real world motorsport like Moto GP and the latest bikes but not actually capture the feeling of riding a bike.
Think about Ridge Racer, it’s not really anything like driving a car, but it conveys how you feel when you do.
Plus the obsession with race tracks! Stop it! I love race tracks as much as the next man, but I’d much rather see a game where it’s real roads, traffic, and other bikes and more about the fun it is to actually ride a bike for most bikers. Imagine if every car racing game was based on Formula One. It’s madness!
What’d be wrong with a game where you could take a Harley down Route 66? Where’s that? Well outside of an arcade anyway!
A: Would you ever work on a motorbike based game given the chance?
S: Absolutely, it’d give me chance to combine two of my big passions! I’ve had an idea boiling away in the back of my head for years, it’s just a case of getting someone to let me do it.
A: If money was no object what bikes would you own?
S: I think I’d probably have different bikes for different days. I love my FJR, its ace for big long tours, so I think I’d keep that. A nice big cruiser maybe the new V-Max, or even a Fat Boy. Probably need an off-road bike, although the GS1200 is the obvious choice, I actually fancy the Super Tenere. That just leaves something stupid fast, at six foot four my choices are a bit limited, but I reckon I could squeeze onto a ZZR1400… At least it wouldn’t be a entirely Yamaha garage that way!
A: One of your other famous projects was Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed, I’ll not ask too much about it as I bet you get so many questions about it, a lot of the characters are from Sega games, any favourite Sega games?
S: It’s funny, no-one has ever asked me about putting more characters into All-Stars Transformed…
My favourite Dreamcast game remains Shenmue, although it’s aged a bit now, it’s pretty much as close as you can get to visiting Japan if you’ve no other means. It was the sheer attention to detail as much as the storyline, Yu Suzuki is a genius. Plus it has a motorbike in it, what more could I want?
Two others I want to get in, but we haven’t managed yet are Phantasy Star Online and Rez. There are a lot of fans out there for both games and I’m one of the many!
A: If you could work with any other developer on a game, who would you choose?
S: I’ve been privileged to work with many of the developers who I’ve admired over the years, so my list is only ever getting smaller when people ask me this. I still think a Nintendo VS SEGA mash up would be amazing, if not only for the kids in grew up in the SNES VS Megadrive era!
A: What gives you the most job satisfaction?
S: I love making games and the feeling you get when something suddenly takes shape for a disparate collection of code and art and starts to feel like a game is always a great moment. It’s also great when you go and read forums and you see people getting really excited about what you’re working on and then later really enjoy playing it.
It was always great to do that after character reveals for sure on the All-Star games!
A: Finally, the games for the latest generation of consoles are constantly evolving, what type of games do you hope to work on for this console generation?
S: One of the great things about SUMO is whilst most people might associate us with racing games; we actually have a pretty diverse output so you get to work on all kinds of games. The variety helps keep you sane!
So I’m pretty happy to be working on virtually any type of game so long as we can put our usual magic into it and make something new and exciting. We do like to push the envelope too, so I’m sure we’ll surprise everyone with things we’ve got in the pipeline.
A: Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions for me
S: Not a problem, nice to have a chat about things that aren’t ‘When is character X going to appear in an All-Stars game?’!