Neil Thompson: It's very much a linear narrative. You're limited in the amount of areas you can explore, but it's made better with a particular device that can let you learn more about the plot. I can't tell you what this device is, but it will help you make decisions about how the narrative is playing out.
The levels themselves were very much designed to meet the criteria of the narrative. The gameplay and the script have to work hand in hand, so there's nothing that's in there just for sake of it. We didn't just go 'shooting level here, driving level here,' it all follows the narrative. So it's a large world, but not a sandbox world. For what we want to achieve, I think it works better.
SPOnG: Have you played Alpha Protocol, because that's gone some way to revitalising the spy genre. Has there been anything from that game that you might like to introduce to Blood Stone on a design level?
Neil Thompson: Well, not having played it, I can't really say. I think in terms of inspiration for this game, Bizarre Creations has a long history making games - we have huge heritage in level creation and writing. So we use our experiences as a starting point.
And of course, like everyone we use other games as inspiration on some level, like Call of Duty for example, to inform what we do. But for a title like this, where you're just trying to do justice to such a strong brand and create a cinematic way of presenting a game... really, our visual influences were the Bond movies and books. We wanted to immerse ourselves in world of Bond and try to bring that to the TV screen, rather than relying on game elements as inspiration for our direction.
Neil Thompson: Only so far in that there will be a multiplayer mode (laughs). And that it's fun.
SPOnG: Could we get an overview of the plot behind what we saw in today's demo?
Neil Thompson: Sure. What we saw this morning was a little pre-credits vignette - like in Bond films where there's always that one, long action sequence that leads into the titles. The setup is that there's a G10 meeting at the Acropolis with various world leaders, and a chap called Greco is looking to blow it up. He's using explosives that he's taken from a yacht that the player starts off in. From there the player fights through the boat, into a car sequence and into the Acropolis where your mission is to stop Greco at any cost.
Neil Thompson: Well this was led by the Feirstein script, so it very much follows the Daniel Craig generation of Bond villains. I don't think our villains are quite as outrageous as the older films - they're not the larger than life, Goldfinger-type characters you'd have in days of yore, they're far more contemporary. And there's plenty of them too, which makes for an interesting experience.
SPOnG: Do you mean to say that there's more than one villain that leads this narrative?
Neil Thompson: Ah, you see that would be giving away the plot and I can't do that (laughs)! You've got to play the game to find out.
SPOnG: With the support Danjaq is putting behind this, it seems like the licensees are treating this as not just a video game, but a bona fide entry in the Bond franchise that could follow on from Quantum of Solace and lead into the next movie. Do you think that's the case?
Neil Thompson: Well, wouldn't that be a wonderful case of convergence if that happened? That instead of doing a licensed game from a movie, it becomes part of the franchise, and that the interactive world becomes as big if not bigger than the film? I would love to think that. I believe we're getting there with games - the release of some big games is a huge event now, in the same way as the release of some blockbuster films are. And its wonderful to see the people at Danjaq just feeling the same way.
Neil Thompson: I'm not sure if that's the idea for the single player experience, because it's narrative driven. Once you reach the end, you can't really add bits to it. But for the multiplayer, that's definitely something we're thinking of looking into.
SPOnG: Activision's also publishing Goldeneye 007 exclusively for the Wii, but Blood Stone isn't heading there. Do you think Blood Stone could see a Wii release, or does Activision want to keep the two separate?
Neil Thompson: I think it's a case of giving a difference experience across different formats. These two products are different entities, pitching to different markets. Who knows, if there's demand for Blood Stone for the Wii, maybe we could make it. I actually think it's exciting to have two entries in a franchise that are very different, so people can have those unique experiences.
SPOnG: What sort of locations will Bond be visiting? I have a feeling it's not exclusively set in Greece?
Neil Thompson: No, definitely not. There's a range of different locales - we start off in Greece, then go to Monaco, Siberia, Bangkok... where do we end up in? There's Burma...
Neil Thompson: (Laughs) We should have gone with the volcano, but no we don't go there. There are a large number of locales though, and that's part of the challenge to make this as visually rich and diverse as possible.
SPOnG: Did you do a lot of research for this title? Knowing Bizarre and its penchant for going on location and taking tens of millions of photos, did you take a similar approach here?
Neil Thompson: Absolutely. While the environments we recreated aren't 100% faithful, we definitely wanted to present an authentic flavour, so we did the research trips, took tens of thousands of photos and then incorporated those into the levels. So it's not a faithful recreation of Bangkok, for example, but it certainly represents it and gives you that flavour. I think you can only get that level of authenticity by visiting the place and allowing the artist to work on those levels.
SPOnG: Anything in terms of gadgets?
Neil Thompson: Blood Stone's not a gadget-heavy game. This is Daniel Craig's Bond, a more physical Bond. So there's no real necessity for gadgets. There is one in it, but I won't tell you what it is. It isn't a Roger Moore-style gadget though, it's something you'd expect it to see in a Daniel Craig film.
SPOnG: Thank you for your time.
Neil Thompson: You're welcome, thank you!