The Unreal Tournament mod that became a game in it's own right, hit the shelves on April 24th, 2002, and continues the evolution that started in late 1999. Created by Kamehan Studios and published by Infogrames, this game pits Special Forces against Terrorists. Each map has it's own objectives for each team to complete. These can range from Special Forces rescuing hostages to Terrorists blowing up a hydroelectric dam.
Each team has it's own unique weapons, while some are available to both. Weapons, grenades, and body armour are obtained by a buying system, with bonuses for completing objectives and kills. Map locales include a middle-east town (Blister), an arctic missile base(IcyBreeze), C.I.A. headquarters (CIA), a highway tunnel (Thanassos), and many different European/American areas (Forge, Scope,Monastery and Verdon) just to name a few. The Tactical Ops site has screenshots of TO:AoT, along with community forums, downloads for the UT mod, and much more game information.
This interview won't be like others with game developers. I feel that they have gotten too canned and predictable over the years. Of course the interviewed are gonna hype their game, of course the interviewer is gonna kiss butt for a few slivers of information. All the while, you never really get to know the people. This interview asks those questions. I wanted to know about the people that created a mod and the game that eats up all of my time.
This is a big interview. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I approached them. I was think "I'll get about 10 people to respond. It'll make a nice feature for the day." WRONG! 30 people answering about 30 questions. So today we'll get to thru the introductions and try to get some personal dirty on these guys, and the next 2 days we'll get into their likes and dislikes, plus their thoughts on being a part of this creation
larrystorch: How many people do you have working on Tactical-Ops:Assault on Terror?
Shag: 33 developers worked on TOAoT, our internal beta testing team consist of 12 people. Plus all the people at Infogrames... So about 60 people were involved in the production of the game.
larrystorch: What were some of the most creative lines that were used by someone to get on to the team?
Shag:Actually, we didn't have any auditions. I knew most of the people that we hired, and i relied on our current team members to bring more people aboard. We needed talented people that could work efficiently as a team. I knew already most of the artists as they're quite popular in the Unreal Tournament community, so they naturally joined the project.