Exclusive: Iron Phoenix
Added 09/20/2004 by Jman
1)For starters, tell the readers a little about yourselves and what your positions are at Sammy Studios.I am Tim Hess, Producer in External Development. I started at Sammy Studios about a year ago. I like to drive fast, eat Dry White Toast, and I’m your Huckleberry…
I am Brian Urquhart, Assistant Producer in External Development. I came to Sammy Studios about a year and a half ago. They say that a car breaks down every fifteen minutes here in Carlsbad; that car is mine.
2)What is Iron Phoenix about?
Iron Phoenix is an Xbox exclusive title that brings a new genre to online multiplayer games as the first-ever 16-player 3D fighting game. The game combines strategic team-oriented strategy with melee weapons combat and offers new multiplayer modes and tactics traditionally found in online shooters. There’s an exciting single-player mission mode, more than ten playable characters and a huge variety of weapon-based combos and attacks. Iron Phoenix creates a new fighting game experience, with 16-player Kung-Fu action, beautiful open arenas and outdoor environments, and premise straight out of a classic martial arts epic.
3)What is the Story behind this game?
Iron Phoenix follows the fate of a set of weapons forged from the shards of a massive meteor. Soon after the weapons are created a legend forms stating that any warrior who masters all of them will have absolute power in battle. This legend gives rise to a massive war, with the years of bloodshed that ensue only increasing the weapons’ potency.
Your character realizes that what were supposed to be just fairy tales are actually histories of these incredibly powerful weapons of the Iron Phoenix. You then become part of a new generation of warriors who embrace the legend and emerge to again fight over the weapons. Over the course of the game, you must face your fears and take on the greatest of weapon masters in an epic fight to the death – only one will survive to unite the weapons of the Iron Phoenix.
4)What kind of weapons will we be able to use in the game?
Throughout the game you will have access to nine different weapons, each of which gives you an arsenal of moves specific to that weapon. In fact, weapons are the real differentiating factor in the game. In Iron Phoenix, it’s not the characters who dictate your moves, abilities and strengths, it’s the weapons. During battles, you will be able to pick up weapons that are either discarded or dropped by players killed in battle. Any character can wield any weapon, and each weapon possesses its own unique fighting style. If you change your current weapon, the various moves and combos at your disposal also change.
Besides the nine main weapons, we have other weapons in the game that we haven’t talked about much, but that are also very effective. For example, you can carry throwing daggers with a variety of disabling effects. You will also be able to explore the environment and find objects such as bombs that can be used against opponents.
5)What are Chi powers all about?
Referred to in ancient China as “dragon's breath,” Chi is understood as something that cannot be seen or measured, but is present in all things. It is both matter and energy. In Iron Phoenix, Chi becomes the measure of your mystic warrior ability, and is built up either by attacking opponents or being attacked.
Chi can be used, at various levels and in various ways (depending on the weapon), to unleash special combo attacks on your opponents. In fact, each of the nine Iron Phoenix weapons has several special combo attacks that require Chi.
Chi is also essential for powering up the relics that can be found by exploring the environment. These relics grant a spectrum of unusual and powerful abilities to players.
6)How will the weapon system work? How many weapons can you hold?
Typically, you wield one Phoenix weapon, but you can hold another in reserve that can quickly be switched to for use. This gives you the ability to rapidly shift tactics on the fly, for example changing over from a fast, light weapon for close quarters combat to a slower, heavy weapon with longer range. There is also a special attack that allows you to throw your secondary weapon while you continue to fight with your current weapon.
7)How can you use the environment around you to better your opponents?
We set out to create unique environments that would reinterpret the world of ancient China, so we have sections of the Great Wall, castles set atop rugged mountains, mystic temple ruins, underground burial shrines, etc. These aren’t just the flat, square arenas you find in many traditional fighting games. We’re allowing the player much more freedom of movement, particularly vertical mobility.
Players can attack or retreat by running along walls, flying from rooftop to rooftop and leaping incredible distances. You have special attacks that you can pull off only from vertical surfaces, as well as ranged weapons and attack techniques that take advantage of the vertical dimension. Imagine being able to move like characters in the movie “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon” and you’ll get an idea of the abilities we have in store for you. And of course, the arenas are massive enough to easily accommodate 16 players fighting at once.
8)What is Stamina used for?
Many of the acrobatic movement techniques in the game require the expenditure of Stamina. You have to be strategic about when and how you use both your Stamina and Chi powers – managing them well is critical to your success.
9)How are you guys using Xbox's powerful hardware to make your game really shine?
We’re attempting to utilize every portion of the Xbox hardware. With the help of InterServ’s proprietary engine, we have been able to create many great special effects including:
• Water effects - water ripples with the character's interaction
• Depth of field - makes the scenery view blur in the far distance but appear clear close-up - much like the out-of-focus view of a film camera.
• Glow effects - gives the edges of models glow and shine
• Particle effects - allows our sparklies to flow dynamically
• Mirror effects - creates water reflections
• Invisible/transparent effects - allows us to have invisible characters
• Shadow volume - Projects an object's shadow in real time
• Volume light - Projects a light source as a visible object
• Volume fog - Projects fog as a visible object
• Pixel shader (image distortion) - gives us 3D image ripples or distortions in real time
• Normal mapping - Gives us beautifully rendered characters by applying details from high polygon count models to models with fewer polygons
• Dynamic lighting - projects real time lighting on 3D objects
• Light mapping - preprocesses real time lighting and shadowing on 3D objects
10)Will Iron Phoenix support 480p and widescreen TVs?
Yes it will support both.
11)What can you tell us about the sound engine in the game? How are you using Xbox's powerful sound processor?
Well, players will be able to enjoy in-game sound in Dolby® Digital 5.1 as long as they hook up their Xbox to a six-channel surround system. One of the most unusual features of the Xbox is its ability to simultaneously encode for two standardized multichannel audio formats: Dolby® Digital and Dolby® Surround. For our cinematic sequences we were able to take advantage of the WavMerge provided with the Xbox development kit and use 6 channel waves to create a six-track soundtrack for 5.1 surround. The Xbox will automatically mix this down to stereo for analog outputs.
12)What multiplayer arrangements will you have in Iron Phoenix? Split Screen? System Link?
We currently plan to have only one player per Xbox, but you can configure the game for multiplayer either with System Link or Xbox Live.
13)Sammy recently finalized a merger with Sega, who is making Spikeout: Battle Street, how will Iron Phoenix be similar and different to it?
There’s no basis to compare the two, and it’s really tough to compare Iron Phoenix to any other game currently out there. We’re the very first game to combine game play and strategies you’d find in a team-based online shooter with the mechanics of a 3D head-to-head fighting game. It’ll be an entirely new experience.
14)Are there any plans to use the new features in Xbox Live 3.0?
As a matter of fact, our efforts from now until we ship the game in the first couple months of 2005 are going to be devoted to implementing and tuning new Tsunami (Xbox Live 3.0) features. Our primary focus in Iron Phoenix has always been on making sure that we offer players a stellar online multiplayer experience and the new capabilities for voice chat, messaging, team tournaments, and content storage are a fantastic match for our title.
15)Is Iron Phoenix an Xbox exclusive? And if so, what was Sammy's reasoning to make it Xbox only?
Yes, Iron Phoenix is currently for Xbox only. A primary reason behind the decision had to do with the existing infrastructure for the online game: given where the code was, it simply would have been more costly and time-consuming for us to move to the PS2 platform. We were confident that, despite our aggressive development schedule, we would be able to deliver a high-quality online gaming experience for Xbox Live.
I would like to thank Tim Hess and Brian Urquhart from Sammy Studios for answering our questions.
