Interviews// WipEout Pulse Interview with Tony Buckley, Game Director

SPOnG: One of the really cool features that you demo’ed to me earlier was the vehicle customisation in WipEout Pulse – the paintbox style feature – is this something new to PSP?

Tony Buckley: Yeah, you customise your ships in this Flash-based program on your PC that a couple of guys up in Scotland developed for us.


SPOnG: So, Forza-style customisation?

Tony Buckley: Yes, exactly - and full credit to Forza. When that originally came out we all thought, ‘Wow! That’s amazing!’ We have always thought that the ship in WipEout is your character… and previously we have always gone “Here is your Feisar, it’s blue and yellow and it has this logo… Here is your Piranha, it’s red and yellow…” and so on.

I always use the example that I love the Piranha, but it’s red and I hate red – I’m an Evertonian, you know!


SPOnG: [laughs]

Tony Buckley: But the great thing is that I can now make a blue and white Piranha! I can put any sort of livery on it I want. I can put any detail on it I like.

As I say, it’s Flash-based, a very simple paint tool for your PC, but the scope of it is absolutely enormous. Unlike Forza, who are working with huge numbers of polygons in the vehicles, we have 450 polys and 16 colours, but the scope of what you can do is still crazy!


SPOnG: I’m just surprised that it’s not been done before on the PSP.

Tony Buckley: Yeah, well so are we! I mean, when I talk about it, I’m not just saying “look at this, aren’t we ace?!”

We just don’t understand why more people haven’t done it already. The actual tool was built for us by this team of just two fellas who are Flash-wizards up in Scotland from a brief that we gave them.


SPOnG: I kind of suspect that it is something that we are going to see appearing in a lot more PSP games after WipEout Pulse has released…

Tony Buckley: Well I hope so. Even when we spoke to the team that created the tool, they were saying to us, “Do you think anybody else might want to use this?”

These are the features that we’ve tried to put in that add something extra to the game on top of the key WipEout stuff that fans expect.

[Tony then gives me an impromptu demo of the ship-painting tool on his laptop – he is clearly very, very happy with this new feature and I can see why].


SPOnG: It’s just surprising that we’ve not seen it before, which I suppose is what you always say about truly decent, non-gimmicky features in games.

Tony Buckley: I know, I know. Don’t get me wrong – but when did Forza originally do it? Years ago… and you suddenly expected back then to get this glut of vehicle customisation tools but it never happened.

This particular tool for PSP has taken quite a lot of effort for the team that created it to make, so hopefully they’ll be able to sell it on to other developers if they can.

We’re also going to launch this customisation tool on the website before the game launches (in September) so fans can get a good look at all the teams in the game and at how the ships can be customised and personalised.


SPOnG: I wanted to ask, finally, about the music in the game – as WipEout is of course so well known for its music.

Tony Buckley: We’ve got Kraftwerk doing an amazing remix for us, Aphex Twin, he’s always keen to help with WipEout soundtracks, Noisia…


SPOnG: Who are they?

Tony Buckley: They’re a Dutch-based drum’n’bass outfit; young lads. Initially I wasn’t sure if drum and bass was a bit too heavy for the game, but one of the girls in the office just kept on telling us “No, they’re great, they’re great, it will work”, so music licensing got in touch with them and they’ve been great. They’re suddenly starting to bubble up a bit and get noticed a bit more.


SPOnG: Well, that’s my question I suppose – how do you select the music for a new WipEout game?

Tony Buckley: We’ve got a range of people in the office who have a passion for dance music. So, the way we work it is “Anybody got any suggestions?” We get a massive list together and then we talk to our music licensing department. We actually find that a lot of labels come to us.


SPOnG: Well, going back to the first WipEout – you had the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy among others.

Tony Buckley: Yeah, well it wasn’t WipEout that made them as big as they now are, but it was a great time to use their music just as they were becoming so well known internationally.

It’s a bit different now in that the range of artists out there is immense and the dance scene is so fractured and is no longer so mainstream. So, there are artists in there that people won’t know. But I’ve always maintained that the music that’s created and that we choose to use in the game enhances the gameplay. Even if you are not massively into dance music, it just feels right in the game.

But saying that, we have given people the chance to use their own music, uploading their own MP3 tunes into the game should they so wish. We’re just generous like that…


SPOnG: Ha! Thanks for your time Tony, good luck finishing off the game.

Tony Buckley: No worries, cheers.