Interviews// MX vs ATV Reflex

SPOnG: The last game was pretty massive. Is this as big? Have you reduced that to focus on all the features you mentioned?

Ian Wood: (Laughs) That's always been a challenge for us – the amount of content we put in a game. That's also been one of our strong selling points – some of us on the team would love to focus it to just be on motorbikes and ATVs, but we'd like to keep that broad appeal of the game. We still feature over 40 levels, we'll still feature all these multiple-vehicle races, and also this time we really want to provide character to each one of those racing events. Last time, I feel we could have done better with characterising them a bit more, especially, say, a National Supercross and things like that. I think that this time we've got a lot closer with that.


SPOnG: Just to clarify – you said 'over 40 levels'. Is that 40 tracks that are different courses on the same terrain? How does it break down?

Ian Wood: They'll certainly be unique tracks. I think there will be a few that share the same environments, but it's almost seen as... they'll have their own character, even if they're based in the same world.


SPOnG: What do you make of Fuel? Do you see that as competition to Reflex?

Ian Wood: No, we don't. It's obviously in the same (genre). It will have similarities, but I think just our deformation, our art quality, our physics and rider control system are enough to separate them. We have a very strong franchise. In fact, we're the top-selling off-road title out there through all the generations. We're not too worried about the competition. We always look very closely at (it) and see what they're providing, but we truly believe that it's about forging your own path and leading the way rather than following.


SPOnG: I noticed Wii's not among the platforms. Is that because you've got another Wii game in the works?

Ian Wood: No, it's not on the list this year. No, we don't have one planned for Wii.


SPOnG: So, another MX vs ATV game for Wii?

Ian Wood: I imagine that's probably the case, yeah. If that is going to be the case, expect more play on all the features we've just described. We really want to see how much we can do with this, because we feel we've got something special with the terrain deformation and the new physics.


SPOnG: From what I've seen, the game's looking good...

Ian Wood: Yeah, I'd love to talk about the art for a second. Immersive environments. Immersive is the word I've been using for all the artists here. You can really see the net result. We're moving the terrain in closer. Just the way we're building the levels – if you're familiar with the product you'll know that last time we had big free-ride worlds with the National and a free ride in it, so we really had to shuffle our resources. Where we put the trees, how many we could put somewhere, just how much we could draw. This time we've really separated out in giving all those environments and those challenges unique character. So, free ride is just about free ride now, and we can put far more eco in it, far more detail in and we'll get far more resolution from the height field. The art quality has been my big thing for this one.

SPOnG: One thing I noticed in the free-ride level in the mountains was the mist. That added atmosphere. That reminded me of being in the Canadian Rockies.

Ian Wood: You'll also start noticing, if you look at the level real close, there's animated mist coming off the top of the mountains as well, and we're going to get the snow flurries at the top. We have true volumetric fog as well, so it's not in the distance or on an alpha plain. It's really volumetric, so you head into it and all of a sudden it's really misty, you head out of it and it's clear, so it's a lot of really good features we've added in terms of the art this time.


SPOnG: Does the weather change as you race?

Ian Wood: No, no dynamic weather. It's one of those things – you're in the level for about 10 minutes, we're not running an open-world, sandbox game. If we were to do so, there would be a lot more reason to put something like that in, but seeing as you spend a limited time in each level, are you really going to see so much change? That's not to say we'll never consider it for the future, but (not) for this title.


SPOnG: Thanks very much for your time!