As the lead designer of the need for speed Shift 2: Unleashed, Andy Tudor is close to finishing the second iteration of simulation flew by Electronic Arts Need for Speed-driving game franchise. He is the only homemade developer at Gamesblog (Live) – slightly Mad Studios is based in London – Tudor revealed the complexity of making an ultra-realistic racing and argued passionately about how mathematical realism in games fall flat unless it is complemented with emotional commitment.
What level of detail you have go to do a modern racing game realistic?
Start from scratch with cars in the game, we get the data from the CAD-producers. We have great relationships with producers, and they will be in our games. Of course, we will them just as much to showcase these amazing cars, as most of us cannot afford to buy. They provide us with all their assets, and when you look at these amazing cars, there are crafts with regard to the technical side of things – how fast they go, their acceleration, and so forth-and then in the aesthetic side. So the crafts, the subject in the real cars, we are trying to reproduce as precisely as possible, as well as in 3D. And it is the same with the tracks. We are trying to get as many tracks as possible and get them mathematically correct, but we also take the guys to track days, so they can drive the tracks themselves. Because what you find what looks correct on a Google Earth map does not necessarily give the same sensation when you drive it, you find yourself thinking things like: "Oh my God, that is way more than I trøde it would have been, or than the mathematical height elevation tells me. "
What is your favorite cars and tracks?
Shift 2, we have black, that people want. It is just as if you ask me what my favorite game, I would not be able to answer, because I would like one from each genre — one last-Gen Games, a handheld one, one MMO, etc – so when it comes to my favorite bilerJeg personally drive muscle-carbut other people can hate. The new Pagani, which we announced today, is absolutely amazing. But there are plenty of people who would like old retro machines.
Do you have tracks such as the Nürburgring Nordschleife in Shift 2?
Absolutely: we have 50 unique locations in the game now, including the Nordschleife and Nurburgring GP circuit. Then, we have included Bathurst circuit. Again, talk to black, Bathurst is something we really wanted in the game – it is based in Australia, there is an epic event each year and the scenery spans an amazing vista that you get a place less, like Hockenheim. I think Bathurst is one of my favorites, as is the new Shanghai circuit.
Technically, what Shift 2 has that other racing game not?
Genre simulation is really just a numbers game at the moment; It is about "we have the largest physics engine, and we will add 1,000 cars, belts, etc. There are pretty dry experience. We want to turn it on its head, by adding social features, such as Autologous, for example: what can you compete with your friends, even if they're not online right now. But that thing where I can see all your lap times and spend a half hour or hour trying just to beat you is great. And we continue to pioneer in new areas. Many games have night racing, for example, but none have night racing like we do, because the previous games have always made it the same as normal just with darker lighting – there are no new gameplay at all. We are removing all of the lights and you now have just misunderstood your headlamps to guide you, which is a scary place. Based on feedback, which has given us real drivers: they say: "we have got these high-beams, however strong they are, we still cannot see the next corner comes".
Shift 2: Unleashed is finished yet?
We are so close to completion – we just add the last 5% of Polish, verify that things are stable and everything is so bright that it can be, and it will be released on 1 April.
Where can simulation games go in the future? What lies behind the full realism?
It is one thing that always gets better graphics and better: cars will look smoother, the track has more spectators and details — each leaf of grass will be modeled and everything so that we can sort by: discount, it naturally will happen. Where we feel it will go add in a real feeling you get when you run: emotional response, G-forces. When you're sat at home on the couch with a gamepad, there already is one step removed from a wheel, which is one step removed from actually is in a car with suspension and so on. We believe that rather is merely a mathematical simulation, we need to be an emotional simulation of what happens. So with a helmet cam, for example, physics is transferred from the track to the deck, which is transferred to the suspension, which goes to your body, which goes to your head, and where a helmet cam come. Header move around simulates the things you don't actually feel with just a game pad in your hands.
What can you tell us about racing drivers you used as consultants?
I am sure that plenty of other games to say they had feedback from drivers, but need for speed-by-case basis, we have a racing team, Team Need for Speed. They are out there – they won Dubai 24-hour race, running BMW Z4 GT3 car. And another team is winners of the formula D Drift championship. These guys are the winners, best on their territory, and they run under need for speed flag. You have given us feedback on how the cars feel, how they handle what angles the lights should be on how effective they should be, how hard the parking brake must be, what angle the head must be happening in a corner, etc. Kind of feedback is probably without precedent.
How do you expect Shift 2: Unleashed stacks up against the Gran Turismo 5?
I have gone on record before saying the GT5 and Forza is on estrader currently: all believe they are games in beat. The great products, but they stop becoming a numbers game, a mathematical simulation of large physics, should we proceed with the emotional and social aspects. This has happened in the past in the games, when FIFA tried to keep with Pro Evolution Soccer and Dante's Inferno with God of war: it is the same kind of sparring, we have with our competitors. We will see where we go, but we are working in the long haul.
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