Red Steel 2 Interview

VGD: It’s not quite FIFA or Pro Evo, is it?

VandenBerghe: No! It’s a shallow genre. Then again, are those the limiting factors? I don’t know. I’m no genius, I don’t have the final word on the market in these cases. But I think that it is a leap to take the performance of those examples and say ‘ergo, there are no gamers on the Wii’. I’m a gamer and I’m on the Wii, you’re a gamer and you’re on the Wii – you’re here, talking to me, playing my Wii game! I’ve been talking to gamers for months and months and months who are playing on the Wii, who are excited to play this game on the Wii. I don’t think it’s worth getting all fired up about.

QTE sequences break up the action. We're not entirely sold on these.

VGD: Most Wii developers are rather sick of the topic, I imagine.

VandenBerghe: Well, no I don’t get sick of it. If you’re in this business you’d better get used to being asked the same question twice. But I just don’t have any patience for the argument. I don’t have any patience for arguments that create sides in the games industry. I’m not on anybody’s side in the industry. I’m on the side of good quality games. And everyone on every platform can make good quality games.

VGD: What sort of lifespan do you think motion sensitive control has at this point?

VandenBerghe: I think it’s forever, personally, but I don’t know. This is just my opinion. I think it is going to be a permanent installment for games that require you to swing an object you’re holding in your hand.

VGD: That covers quite a lot of genres.

VandenBerghe: Baseball, cricket, golf, swordfighting of any kind, a lot of the Olympic sports, and swordfighting. Did I mention swordfighting? I understand the other point of view – what I’m fond of saying is that motion control is not going to revolutionise the RTS genre, for instance. I don’t believe StarCraft 2 is going to have a motion control interface. Not for an instant. And it never will. Because the mouse will also be faster and more accurate.

VGD: And there’s our headline. “No motion control in StarCraft 2”.

VandenBerghe: Yeah! And everyone will be all bummed out!

VGD: Think of all those dreams you’ve just ruined.

VandenBerghe: The fact is that no-one would care. But otherwise I think it’s one of those examples, like the plastic guitar from Guitar Hero – I mean, go ahead and try to release a guitar game that doesn’t have a plastic guitar now. Why would you? What’s the point? There’s so many out there, and it makes the experience so much better.

Downtown Caldera. Expect imminent assault.

Now that motion control is available, and it’s clearly going to be available on every console, it’s just not something we’ll ever go back from. Any more than I want to go back from the touchscreen on the DS. I like the touchscreen on the DS, you know? I hope it’s not a gimmick, I hope it’s something they stick with.