Driv3r Development Director Martin Edmondson

Also some new screens.   I\'m big fan of Driver, Can\'t wait!  

Exclusive interview by Russell Frushtick, contributing editor



In many people\'s minds, the whole concept of driving around big, active cities in video games was spawned with GTA III. But Martin Edmondson and his crew at Reflections Interactive first brought the concept into the 3D world with Driver. The franchise has since expanded, but the heart of things has remained the same: Creating thrilling car chases like those seen in classic action movies through realistic cities, in the comfort of your own living room.

 Now Edmondson and Reflections have returned with a third installment, Driv3r, and it\'s looking bigger and badder than ever, with more (and more detailed) cities, a lineup of hot Hollywood voice talent including Michael Madsen and Michelle Rodriguez, and an even more comprehensive "film director" function that allows you to capture automotive mayhem any way you see fit. Read our chat with Martin Edmondson below, and check back often, as we\'ll be blowing things out with full coverage of Atari\'s Driv3r launch event, including celebrity interviews and exclusive video!

UGO: What do you mean by convergence between movies and games?

Martin Edmondson: The convergence for us, really...well, the inspiration for Driver originally came from movies, anyway. So it was completely natural. The way that we presented the stories, cut-scenes in the game, it\'s very film-like in its approach. It\'s a very realistic look, generally. So for us, it can only really continue. And using the likes of Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez, Mickey Rourke, Ving Rhames and Iggy Pop for the voices, it just lends it that - apart from the film credibility - it\'s the standard of acting. It just raises it to another level. We\'re used to using voice actors as the years have gone by, but having professional actors there - aside from the fact that the voice is recognizable - it just makes it that much more natural. You take it for what it is rather than things that have a slightly unprofessional feel. This just really brought it together.

UGO: Do you think the Hollywood element helps the gameplay as well, or is it just improving the presentation of DRIV3R?

ME: It helps the gameplay in that anything that becomes more believable is only going to help the gameplay. If you go into the game and it grates, it\'s not quite right, it\'s not professional, then that illusion starts to become destroyed. It can be seen as an additional thrill, but it really does enhance the gameplay because of that, because you just get drawn into it more.

UGO: What\'s the worst moving violation you\'ve had?

ME: The worst speeding ticket I\'ve ever had? In real life? Um...I\'ve been unlucky with these things that we have in England, speed cameras, these things that have a radar on them that you don\'t know they\'re there. Until recently, they were allowed to paint them the color of trees, so you just don\'t see these things. Now they have to be painted bright orange, so they\'re not quite such a problem. But I got flashed by the same camera in one day twice. Twenty miles an hour over in one direction, 15 miles an hour over in the other direction. Two tickets in one day.

UGO: Could you talk about the scouting shoots for Miami, Nice and Istanbul as the cities for DRiV3R?

ME: We didn\'t do scouting shoots so much for the cities. By the time we sent the teams to the cities, we\'d already decided which cities we were going to use, so the scouting was all done from personal knowlege of various people, the Internet, obviously, just to decide which cities to use. But then, once they\'d been decided, we sent a team over to each of the cities. They went there with these digital SLR cameras with the microdrives on them. Just tens of thousands of photographs and videos. They brought all that back to the studio.

UGO: What was it about those cities that really caught your attention?

ME: Well, first of all, we wanted a US city. Miami was an easy choice, because Driver 1 was set in Miami. It\'s Tanner\'s home and we\'d done Driver 1 in Miami with the Playstation One. We just wanted to give it the benefit of Playstation 2 and Xbox, and really do the city justice. And, as I said, because it was in the first game, it was almost like Tanner back to his hometown, back to his roots of the original game. And, also, Miami\'s a pretty interesting city. A lot of people have been there on holiday, and all Americans are familiar with Miami as well as kind of a holiday resort. And it\'s good in that it mixes the sunshine and the palm trees are all positioned next to some really quite run-down areas to show the gritty, seedy side as well. So that was the reason for Miami. We chose Nice, in France, really because it adds an extra element of relief, and the engine we have is able to create hills and small roads that we couldn\'t do with the original two games. So Nice was a good one. Winding roads up into the hills of Nice, some gorgeous scenery, really old, rustic buildings and castles and so on. And, finally, Istanbul was the wildcard, I suppose, and the reason for that choice was that it\'s so wildly different from anything else. Again, it had this incredible combination of Mosques and temples next to the most horrible looking run-down, slum areas. And the change in scenery is just so incredible. Also the roads are very, very different, even to Nice, in the fact that they\'re very, very narrow. There\'s a lot of relief there, as well, but not the extent of Nice. The roads are so tiny, sort of ratruns around the backs of some of these areas that gave the game a whole different driving experience. It\'s about as diverse as we possibly could have made it.

More here!
http://www.ugo.com/channels/games/features/driver_3/interview.asp

Question

Will it have the "do what ever you want when you want " free roam gameplay that GTA has ?

if not and its just level after level...

Driv3r = yawn