Exclusive Interview: Dave Jaffe And Scott Campbell

Happy Holidays to all! We give you this exclusive interview with Eat Sleep Play's founders, which is guaranteed to be a great read. Scott Campbell, Incognito founder, and Dave Jaffe, ex-Sony designer responsible for the likes of God of War are now in business together, and we wanted to chat. What's up with that new project? How do you view the PS3 and exclusivity? What's your take on innovation suffering in the recession? That and much more is below, and because these two guys have worked together many times - including the first two Twisted Metals back in the PS1 days - it only makes sense that they both decided to go the independent route together.

Check it out!

[- Ghost of Sparta -]

I hate Sony.

When asked about the short God of War 3 trailer shown on Spike TV, David Jaffe responded with this:

"But they showed me this [other] sequence – that’s all I can say about it – and they must’ve put it together only two or three days prior to me showing up. And that’s the stuff that absolutely blew me away; it looked better than Gears 2; it looked like a Renaissance canvas-style painting come to life. Stunningly beautiful. I actually found myself getting nervous and sweaty and I was like, "why am I getting like this?" But it was because I was wondering, "how the fu** are we going to compete? The bar has just been raised again." Our game just doesn’t look that good and it never will, and there are reasons for that. But no, I don't say I want to be part of the project and I wish those guys the best."

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Yeah.

The thing is...Twisted Metal isn't about the graphics. It's about the experience! It's so much fun! It's about 4 guys sitting in a room, talking trash!

I CALL AXEL!!!

[Danja]

I think Sony did the best thing ..by not releasing the footage Jaffe saw cuz if they showed just how great the game really looks then obviously when it comes time to really present the game at press events the wow factor probably wouldn't be as high....

im sure Sony is gonna blow everyone away when the time is right...

[beavis4play]

but the GOW trailer on psn really left me impressed. sure, it was short.....but it looked really good.
and jaffe uses gears as a measuring stick? sorry, but i think he has rocks in his head. you know, jaffe made original GOW......but not a lot since. he needs to.....you know, SHOW a new game he's working on instead of all this talk.

[callahan09]

Gears was an interesting game, graphically. The first level was really boring in design and had some poor quality textures, but as soon as chapter 2 began, I was like "Yeah, this game looks a lot better than the first Gears of War did." That said, the art design throughout the game is really boring. It's good taken individually, but it all just runs together. Somehow they managed to take vast outdoor environments, forests, snowy mountaintops, indoor facilities, and underground caverns and destroyed cities and still make it all run together ... each new level was impressive to start with, but got boring before it ended because there just wasn't much variety in what they presented within the scope of each of the different level environments. I'm not sure I'm explaining it right. The game was pretty, but could have used more time on art design to make it more interesting to look at for the duration of the experience. I feel the exact same way about Fallout 3 (although, admittedly, Gears 2 did a much better job at offering graphical & design variety than Fallout 3... Fallout 3 really had 3 designs that were repeated over and over and over again: interiors, subways, and wasteland).

Anyway, I still think Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best looking console game. It has a better frame-rate and less texture-pop-in and aliasing than Gears 2, and it has just astonishingly clean, crisp, and detailed graphics.

[bviperz]

Can't wait for these guys to release something.

[gameraxis]

i am one that was actually pretty pleased with the GOW trailer...after watching it in 1080 on my HDTV that is...

i just hope its in their schedule to add some shine to the game, like kratos' skin sweaty shine, or wet rocks from the rain shine... stuff like that... I'd HATE it if it looked like a prince of persia in the sense that its sort of dull looking...I'd rather it look more rubbery fake, than painting dull!

Does the canvas painting style Jaffe is referring to look like PoP?
i don't know the terms...or what they entail

[Danja]

more like the Beowolf movie....POP fails into more cel-shading than Canvas style

[thor]

Jaffe clarified this (along with numerous swear words) - he didn't mean it had a "painted" style or anything of the sort. He meant it looked stunning to the point that it looked like a painting. I presume the reason he DIDN'T say photograph is just because you're unlikely to see a photograph of Kratos killing zombies in a graveyard. He simply meant it looked great. The art style is the same as the previous games. "Like a painting" is just an expression. It doesn't mean the game is in an art deco style.

[Nicaragua17]

Twisted Metal for ps3 please!!

[sinncross]

IS the footage Jaffe shown not the new build, What im trying to say is that these trailers for events like the VGA's are done and completed some time before.. not the day before.

[nirun]

Campbell: "I think our forte is in the action genre. I don’t ever see us doing role-playing or anything like that, but it’s possible you’ll see a FPS from us at some point. We’re suited to the action games, but anything is possible. We could do something simple and casual or something larger and fulfilling like what we’re working on now."

+ the warhawk engine from incognito?

does this sound like MAG or what?
ps. i know MAG is made by zipper

[Dark General]

Great interview. I would have liked to read the part about MGS4 and the industry stuff from Scott as well, but that's alright with me.