EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Finally got around to booting up my copy of the Director's Cut, playing through with audio commentary as I'm already very familiar with the game. I've always loved this kind of stuff, like in Valve's games, as a way of giving you insight into the overall design philosophy, development process (what worked, what didn't), as well as giving away little secrets and homages you may not have noticed.
In Human Revolution the implementation is a bit clumsy. Activating is easy. If you're in the right location, or looking at a contextual object, the screen will display a commentary cue and all you have to do is press a button. Issue is there's no pause-play option, meaning some commentary will overrule cutscene dialogue or seem a bit intrusive during in-game sequences (like having guards to deal with). Plus there's no indication if you've listened to commentary cue yet, leading to easy replays.
That being said, the actual content of what they're discussing is truly outstanding. So far the commentary has been made up of Mary DeMarle (lead writer), Jonathan Jacques-Belletête (lead artist), Jean-François Dugas (director), and Steve Szczepkowski (audio director), and each has been honest, upfront, and highly critical of what they created. Each commentary recording is not like a paragraph or something, it's a full conversation between the group on whatever is relevant.
Before finishing the first mission, the one where you have to infiltrate the Sarif Industries manufacturing plant taken over by Purity First rebels, I've learned:
- All CGI cutscenes were supposed to be in-engine, letting you look around. They had a prototype of at least one working (when Jensen is attacked at the end of the prologue), but technical and time issues prevented implementing them.
- The intro was originally conceived as a playable tutorial in which Jensen would play a false break-in on Sarif Industries to test the new security system.
- When it was changed to the walk-and-talk intro they originally wanted to do the Half-Life thing where your fight through Sarif Industries after the terrorists attack would take you through the first areas, but couldn't do it due to many gameplay technicalities (like bounding boxes) not being programmed into the environment.
- Megan's necklace was intended by the writers but missed by the artists, eventually thrown over her finished outfit at the last minute. The team hated her "I need to pea" idle animation at the start of the game, but didn't have time to change it.
- The joke Final Fantasy XXVII poster had to be shown directly to Yoichi Wada, and leading artists on the Final Fantasy team, before it could be improved for in-game use. The team did this as it was drawn up shortly after the Square-Enix acquisition, and didn't want to cause problems.
- Stephen Shellen, who voices David Sarif, came across as charasmatic and friendly but not originally what they intended for the character. They kept him on as they liked his style, and it was early enough in development that they could construct his dialogue and persona to suit the actor.
- Faridah Malik was written as a Muslim American who'd mix Arabic language (like swears) with English, and intended to cast an actress who'd fit this criteria. They didn't, so they cut it. Oh, and her beauty spot isn't a beauty spot. It's a Monroe piercing.
- Detroit was chosen as the epicentre for Sarif Industries to symbolise the city's historic role in the automotive history, particularly economically and the impact it had on America, drawing parallels with the augmentation renascence.
- Scattering yellow paint cans all over the game world was the team's in-joke over the black-and-gold colour theme.
There's just so much stuff to listen to, and if you're into that "behind the scenes" kind of content it delivers in spades.
In Human Revolution the implementation is a bit clumsy. Activating is easy. If you're in the right location, or looking at a contextual object, the screen will display a commentary cue and all you have to do is press a button. Issue is there's no pause-play option, meaning some commentary will overrule cutscene dialogue or seem a bit intrusive during in-game sequences (like having guards to deal with). Plus there's no indication if you've listened to commentary cue yet, leading to easy replays.
That being said, the actual content of what they're discussing is truly outstanding. So far the commentary has been made up of Mary DeMarle (lead writer), Jonathan Jacques-Belletête (lead artist), Jean-François Dugas (director), and Steve Szczepkowski (audio director), and each has been honest, upfront, and highly critical of what they created. Each commentary recording is not like a paragraph or something, it's a full conversation between the group on whatever is relevant.
Before finishing the first mission, the one where you have to infiltrate the Sarif Industries manufacturing plant taken over by Purity First rebels, I've learned:
- All CGI cutscenes were supposed to be in-engine, letting you look around. They had a prototype of at least one working (when Jensen is attacked at the end of the prologue), but technical and time issues prevented implementing them.
- The intro was originally conceived as a playable tutorial in which Jensen would play a false break-in on Sarif Industries to test the new security system.
- When it was changed to the walk-and-talk intro they originally wanted to do the Half-Life thing where your fight through Sarif Industries after the terrorists attack would take you through the first areas, but couldn't do it due to many gameplay technicalities (like bounding boxes) not being programmed into the environment.
- Megan's necklace was intended by the writers but missed by the artists, eventually thrown over her finished outfit at the last minute. The team hated her "I need to pea" idle animation at the start of the game, but didn't have time to change it.
- The joke Final Fantasy XXVII poster had to be shown directly to Yoichi Wada, and leading artists on the Final Fantasy team, before it could be improved for in-game use. The team did this as it was drawn up shortly after the Square-Enix acquisition, and didn't want to cause problems.
- Stephen Shellen, who voices David Sarif, came across as charasmatic and friendly but not originally what they intended for the character. They kept him on as they liked his style, and it was early enough in development that they could construct his dialogue and persona to suit the actor.
- Faridah Malik was written as a Muslim American who'd mix Arabic language (like swears) with English, and intended to cast an actress who'd fit this criteria. They didn't, so they cut it. Oh, and her beauty spot isn't a beauty spot. It's a Monroe piercing.
- Detroit was chosen as the epicentre for Sarif Industries to symbolise the city's historic role in the automotive history, particularly economically and the impact it had on America, drawing parallels with the augmentation renascence.
- Scattering yellow paint cans all over the game world was the team's in-joke over the black-and-gold colour theme.
There's just so much stuff to listen to, and if you're into that "behind the scenes" kind of content it delivers in spades.
