Exclusive: Men of Valor: Vietnam

Added 01/16/2004 by Jman

Talk Xbox: First and foremost, Could you please introduce yourself and explain your duties on the development team of "Men of Valor: Vietnam"?

[John Whitmore] I'm John Whitmore, Director of Development for 2015. I'm responsible for setting goals for our projects and making sure they are met throughout development.


Talk Xbox: Why did you guys decide you wanted to make a game surrounding the Vietnam War?

[John Whitmore] After Medal of Honor, 2015 wanted to continue making historical military first person shooters, but we felt that the market would be tired of playing WW2 over and over again. We wanted to give gamers a different experience and we hit upon Vietnam as an excellent setting, full of atmosphere and dramatic possibilities. We were a little worried about the controversial nature of the war, but after we talked to publishers and found they were enthusiastic about the potential of a Vietnam-themed game, we decided to give it a try. The challenge of creating lushly vegetated outdoor environments, and the unique kind of combat that takes place within them, really attracted the team -- they are the kind or guys who want to try to do things that have never been done before.

Now that a few games have come out about Vietnam, with even more planned, we feel we made a good decision and have become even more inspired to create the definitive Vietnam War game.


Talk Xbox: What kinds of weapons will be available for the players to use? How many weapons will you be able to carry at any given time?

[John Whitmore] MOV includes a wide variety of weapons from both sides of the conflict. Players can use pistols like the M1911 and the TT33; rifles ranging from the M14 and SKS to the archtypical M16 and AK47; sniper rifles like the M21 and PU, as well as submachine guns, RPGs, and the M79 grenade launcher. Each weapon has unique accuracy, rate of fire, and reload characteristics modelled after the actual weapon's performance during the period. We may limit the player to two weapons plus grenades at a time, or we may allow him to carry as many as he wants -- we're playtesting that right now.


Talk Xbox: What enemies will we be seeing in this game?

[John Whitmore] The two main types of enemy encountered in the game are the Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army. Some VC are folk recruited from the countryside, poorly equipped and trained and often industinguihable from simple villagers -- others belong to the Main Force Viet Cong, and are trained and equipped by cadres of the NVA. The Viet Cong are adept at ambushes, booby traps, and hit and run attacks, but the player will eventually learn how to deal with their jungle warfare tactics and defeat them. NVA regulars are better trained and well equipped, and can somtimes be backed by armor or artillery. They fight more conventionally than the Viet Cong and can be very tenacious in both attack and defense, as the player will find out in later missions. VC and NVA forces field a number of specialized soldiers, from riflemen and machinegunners to heavily camoflaged VC snipers and crack NVA Sapper units.


Talk Xbox: How intense will enemy and allied A.I. be?

[John Whitmore] Getting the AI to be able to react correctly in the intense jungle firefights typical of the Vietnam War has been a major challenge, but after a lot of hard work and some personnell changes, we've managed to create some solid AI that really supports the kind of gameplay MOV needs. Troops are able to identify cover and dynamically evaluate where to best position themselves, they lean out from behind trees to find targets, and will sometimes just hold their weapons over a wall and fire blindly to keep the player's head down. Troops react when guns are fired at them even if they are not hit, and will get pinned down and supressed when enough fire is directed their way. Your squadmates will stop to bandage themselves when wounded, and even rush to each other's aid when someone is seriously hurt. These reactions aren't simply scripted but occur dynamically as the firefight evolves.


Talk Xbox: How have you been able to get this game running on an Xbox at 720p? Will "Men of Valor: Vietnam" support Widescreen displays?

[John Whitmore] To be able to depict dense jungles with long sight lines and lots of overlapping foliage, we had to tune the renderer to deal with lots of overdraw. We found that one of the side effects of these optimizations was that running in high definition mode was not significantly slower than in regular 480i. Memory has been the biggest issue for us in terms of HD support -- the frame buffers need to be much larger and with only 64 MB of memory, fitting 720p in has been a major challenge. It does look very good, though. Widescreen formats are definitely supported.


Talk Xbox: How does this game support Xbox's advanced sound processing capabilities? Will it include 5.1 DD?

[John Whitmore] MOV uses the Xact sound system and leverages 3d positional audio features, real time parameter controls, and other techniques to deliver very high quality battlefield sounds. The game supports Dolby 5.1 and of course, sounds best that way.


Talk Xbox: In what ways will "Men of Valor" support Xbox Live? Will we be seeing downloadable content? What other multiplayer modes can we look forward to seeing?

[John Whitmore] MOV allows players to play over live in all of its multiplayer game modes, including the two player co-op campaign mode. Up to sixteen players can be supported (in dedicated server mode), and MOV includes deathmatch and team deathmatch game types as well as special objective based modes that allow two teams to fight out scenarios based on encounters of the actual war. There is also a "recover the documents" game type where each team attempts to find intelligence documents and return them to their base, and a "Search and Destroy" mode where teams scour the map to find pieces of a mortar that they can they construct and use to shell the other side's base and win the match.


Talk Xbox: Finally is there anything else you would like to say about "Men of Valor: Vietnam"?

[John Whitmore] With the emphasis on action and intensity in a game like MOV, it is sometimes too easy to forget that the Vietnam war really happened and profoundly changed the lives of these who fought it, on both sides. We're doing our best to keep that in perspective and to offer a storyline and a dramatic treatment, unfolding through between-mission letters and in-game scripted events, that takes the game beyond the basic shooter experience. We'll be very happy if players receive both a visceral thrill from the gameplay and a new prerspective on a very controversial war.

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