[2/20] PSP首款FPS大作<密码武装Code Arms>制作人访谈！

凯因

IGN: But one of the first things I wanted to ask about was about the virtual reality concept -- it's a very odd take on the first-person shooter genre. What is this game about and why did you choose to do a virtual reality story for a FPS?

Daikai: First of all, an FPS, you can use actual weapons and you kill enemies, so it all tends to become very violent. So, what we thought about was making the setting a virtual world, a digital world so that we could soften up on the hard violence.

Gameplay-wise, by making this a virtual world, the world itself and the things in it, everything is just digital data, so when you destroy stuff or collect weapons and get items, you are basically getting just data. You are able to do unexpected things if the world is not real. Also, we were able to put a different kind of effect on the graphics of the weapons. Visually, weapons, shooting enemies, the world -- we were able to implement unique effects.

This game is in the near future, and this story occurs inside a military defense system that has been abandoned ... really, we're focusing on the gameplay itself, so the storyline is pretty simple. We tried to keep it simple. The storyline itself is not too in-depth, it's a backdrop for a game that is meant to be played over and over again, for a gamer to go through and enjoy the shooting action.

IGN: When the title was demoed at E3, the very first video that we saw of it, it was under the title of a "Adventure Horror Shooter Project." Are the horror elements still in the PSP game?

Daikai: Heh, right now we don't have much of a horror element to it. At the very beginning of the project, we didn't have the PSP in mind -- we were intending this game for the PS2. But we decided to do Coded Arms for PSP instead when that system came to be, and so the concept has changed a bit. We don't really have that horror adventure element the same as it was in the original concept. It's a little different game now.

IGN: Also in that early demo, there were outdoor elements -- are any of those segments going to be seen in the final PSP incarnation?

Daikai: We had some outdoor parts when it was a PS2 game, but we have a new concept now, the Random Map Generating System, and so we focused design to work with that feature. The game now will take place 'indoors', inside the defense computer.


IGN: This Random Map Generating System, that was one of the first things brought up about the game at Konami's Gamers Day announcement. How deep can the random mapping go, and how are you structuring the stages so that they still feel like designed stages and are still fun to play?

Daikai: At the very beginning, there are levels and boss characters. It's a full game. After defeating everything and clearing the game, the map becomes deeper as it mixes all of the stages endlessly, and it becomes a challenge to see how deep you can go into the world.

We have a couple of areas, all different from each other -- they can be military designs, or they can be ancient dungeons, different pieces of places. The depth of the world, at the very end, can be endless.

IGN: Talk, if you would, about the technology that went into this PlayStation Portable game. It looks like there is a little bit of 'ragdoll' physics, for one ... What are the different technologies involved in making this PSP project?



Daikai: Ragdoll, we're using a cutting-edge technology for this title. As far as AI, each enemy character, we gave them unique movements and characteristics to make the game different and enjoyable. The random map generating feature, it's not just big chunks of blocks stuck together -- these are actually very small pieces that we are combining to make very complex and in-depth map every time it's generated. Making this kind of detailed, random map without sacrificing the visual quality has been a very challenging task that we're working on right now.

IGN: How would you compare designing for PSP versus PlayStation 2?

Daikai: PSP is limited against everything you can do with PS2 ... but on the other hand, there isn't much of a big difference to the PSP versus PS2. According to our lead programmer, if you're able to make a game on a PS2, you would be able to make it on PSP as well. PSP is a very new hardware, so there are still some points that we do not yet understand about how it works, and that's what we're figuring out right now.

IGN: The FPS is a very American genre, and Coded Arms is one of the first that I've seen from a Japanese or Asian development team. Could you talk to us about what it has been for you to take on this genre.

Daikai: I very much wanted you to ask this question! In Japan, first-person shooting is not that popular yet, especially compared to the US. It seems that Japanese gamers get dizzy watching the screen of an FPS -- they're not really used to that kind of camera point-of-view at that speed. What our team feels is that this genre is one of the ultimate as far as being realistic, being inside the character in the first-person view. It gets you close to the actual world. We think the style of view has tremendous potential.

For our FPS, our first, we needed a very talented programmer to succeed in this genre. One of the hardest things that we had to do was find that kind of talent in order to compete with what is expected out of a FPS in the United States. We looked for a very talented group within the Konami company. Thinking ahead, when Xenon and PS3 comes out, we're sure that the FPS will be one of the main genres of mainstream games, so we thought that we had better start developing new FPS games early. That's one of the reasons why we gathered this kind of talent for this particular game. We wanted to show that we Japanese could build a FPS as well, and with the PSP new and coming out, we thought that this was the best timing to take on this kind of challenge. This is a highly competitive genre, but we're out to do our best


IGN: What kinds of titles has this team worked on before?

Daikai: It's a wide-ranging staff here that we have gathered. The team itself, most haven't worked on really major, big titles -- most of the games they have worked on, these were very challenging projects that haven't maybe succeeded sales-wise. But they all have great potential.

IGN: OK, and finally, the controls. This is probably the most talked-about concern regarding this game, maybe controversial even. This being the first FPS for the PSP, what is your team doing to make this work on PlayStation Portable?

Daikai: We thought about the feeling -- the way it controls has to be very natural. But we are also aware that certain individuals have certain likes and dislikes in how they want to control this type of game. So, we tried to have as many settings as possible, and also allow people to assign settings in the game -- we do have certain pre-sets for the game that we feel are the right way to play, but we also leave it up to the player to set his controls.

IGN: Will you have the 'FPS look' available as a choice for use on the analog controller?

Daikai: We will leave that up to the users to configure if they like.



PSP初でオリジナルのFPS『コーデッドアームズ』の開発者コナミ第3開発部Yasuo Daikai氏へのインタビューがIGNで記事にされています。『コーデットアームズ』は30種類以上のウェポン、それぞれが集めたウェポンに依存した4人対戦、ランダムマップ生成シテテム等を備えたPSP初で日本人開発のFPSです。

[ 舞台に仮想世界を選んだ理由 ]
・　FPSとは、武器を持って敵を倒せるゲームなので非常に暴力的になる傾向がある
・　舞台を仮想世界のデジタルワールドに置いて暴力性を柔らかくすることにした
・　ゲームとしての仮想世界は全てがデジタルデータなので何を壊すにしても何を得るにしてもそれは全てデータ
・　実在しない世界なら予期せぬ物事が出来る
・　ウェポンのグラフィックエフェクトにもそれがある
・　ビジュアル、ウェポン、敵を打つこと、ワールドに独特な効果を与えることが出来た
・　ゲームの舞台は近未来で放棄された軍事防衛システムの内部を題材にしている
・　ゲーム部分に注力して、プロットは余り難しくしていない

[ PS2版の頃からの違い ]
・　E3ではアドベンチャー「ホラー」シューターだったが今ではホラー要素は余り無い
・　当初PS2向けに考えられていたけれど、PSPを選んだ
・　PS2の時は屋外を舞台にする場面があったが、今は新しいランダムマップ生成システムというが生まれた
・　この特徴の設計に集中し、ゲームはコンピュータ内部世界。屋内が舞台になる

[ ランダムマップ生成システムはどの様なものか ]
・　ゲームはステージにボスが居て成り立つ
・　全てを倒しクリアすれば、ステージが混ざりマップは際限無く深くなる
・　どれくらい深く潜入できるかのチャレンジになる
・　軍事的なものや古代の地下牢獄と言った全て異なるエリアがある

[ PSPでの技術、ラグドール ]
・　（脱力したキャラクターの動きをシミュレートする）ラグドール技術は最新のものを使っている
・　敵AIにはそれぞれ違った楽しめるユニークな動きや特性を持たせた
・　マップ生成は単なるブロック型の部屋にならない様にしているし、苦労した

[ PSPとPS2を比べて ]
・　PSPはPS2で出来る事に対してあらゆる面で制限されるが、一方大きな違いが無かったりする
・　チームのリードプログラマーによるとPS2のゲームが作れればPSPで同じようにそれを作ることが可能だ
・　PSPは新しいハードであり、その動作について理解しきれていない部分がまだある

[ 米国で主流のFPSを日本のチームが作るのだけど、何故FPS ]
・　この質問が欲しかった。日本は米国と比べるとFPSは視点になれておらずポピュラーではない
・　FPSはリアリスティックにとって1つの究極的なジャンルだと感じている
・　FPSを成功させる為に、優秀なプログラマを必要としてコナミ中から探した
・　PS3/XenonでFPSが主流なジャンルの1つになると確信していて、早いうちに新しいFPSを開発するべきだと考えた
・　加えて日本人がFPSを作れる事を証明したかった。新しいゲーム機PSPがこの挑戦にとって最良のタイミングだった

[ 他 ]
・　このチームは広範囲から集めたスタッフで、大部分は大きなタイトルを手がけていない
・　挑戦はしてきたが大きな成功を出して来なかった。しかし大きなポテンシャルを秘めている