It's sure to be in hot demand for Christmas but parents beware, Resistance 2 is not a kids' game. MATT GREENOP talks to the Kiwi artist behind one of the biggest games of the year
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Raisingthe ire of the masses with a video game is not that difficult these days. Some parents, seemingly incapable of noticing an R18 sticker on the front of a game case, suddenly get up-in-arms when they notice Little Johnny blowing off heads in his virtual universe.
It's usually
titles like the uber-controversial Grand Theft Auto series, steeped in violent reality, that cause problems. But last year, a sci-fi shooter for PlayStation 3, Resistance: Fall of Man, managed to incur the wrath of the Church over a firefight in Manchester Cathedral.
The game was set in the 1950s, with soldiers trying to defeat an invading alien force of monsters, the Chimera, and save the planet. The fantasy element of the game didn't seem to matter much to the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, who slammed the alien blood-fest's use of the cathedral, getting stuck into Sony publicly.
"For a global manufacturer to recreate one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible," he said.
Game developer Insomniac studiously put up the "no comment" barrier, with Sony itself eventually apologising for not seeking permission to use the cathedral.
Now the sequel, Resistance 2, is ready to hit game store shelves and sees main character Nathan Hale back behind the barrel as the Chimera threat against humanity escalates - but this time he's carrying their nasty alien virus alongside a host of wickedly destructive weapons.
And at the development coalface of Insomniac Games is Kiwi Steve Moore - an artist on both Resistance projects and the hilarious Ratchet and Clank series.
Moore, who headed to the United States after finishing school with the goal of working in the fast-growing games trade, has worked for several companies with varying degrees of success.
It was when one such outfit went belly-up that he started belting on the door of highly regarded Insomniac.
"I really wanted to work for Insomniac," he said, "and when you apply, they give you a test. But after doing this test, they didn't call me back.
"So I just kept on bugging them."
This hassle-till-successful Kiwi approach paid off in spades, with Moore given the opportunity to work on the PlayStation's answer to Xbox's Halo, as well as on Ratchet and Clank. He prefers the latter's humorous storylines and cutesy gameplay to the frantic, no-holds-barred pseudo-realistic Resistance.
"I like cutesy violence," he said, "I'm a bit of a goofball. A lot of my colleagues prefer first-person shooters, but I like the slapstick comedy of Ratchet.
"Also with a game like Ratchet, as an artist you get to be more creative, and to make characters really funky. With Resistance, you'll notice that a lot of characters are bipedal and that we use motion capture a lot. It's nice to work on something "realistic" because it's a change of pace - but for me Ratchet was definitely the most fun to work on."
The cuddlier - yet still heavily armed - characters may be more his gaming flavour, but you can't help pick up on the 37-year-old's kid-like enthusiasm about his job, and his favourite Resistance 2 creation, Marauder, which he modelled and applied textures to.
"He was a lot of fun - he's like a really big T. Rex with armour on his back, and he's got a gun in his mouth."
Moore has some sage advice for the hordes of Kiwis with ambitions in the exciting game world - pick who you work for wisely.
"What really struck me at Insomniac was the production pipeline. It sounds like a no-brainer but I've worked at so many places that don't do it properly.
"But we have a definite pre-production pipeline. We know how long it will take to create each environment and the characters to fill it."
Working exclusively on the PlayStation 3 is also something that he relishes: "As you work on these consoles you learn how to exploit them - and as we move from one game to another we can push it even further. The PS3 has got so much raw power and we're still learning how to milk it - we've got a long way to go."
Resistance 2 is out now on PlayStation 3.
