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				Scheduled release date:  August '06 Publisher:  THQ Developer:  Volition Number Of Players:  1 (1-12 online) Genre:  Third-Person Action Shooter Cheats Screenshots
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Saint's Row Developer Interview

Last week I attended THQ's Summer Games' Day here in So Cal and spoke with one of the development team members while he led me through a hands on-demo.

Let us start with your name and your position at Volition?

My name is Alan Lawrance and I am the Technical Director on Saint’s Row.

What is the basic premise or story behind Saint's Row?

The game takes place in the fictitious city Stilwater, which takes inspiration from Chicago and does border on water. (Editors note: the developer Volition is based in Champaign, IL) You start the game as a thug in a gang call the 3rd Street Saint's. The Saint's occupy only a small sliver where three other gangs control the rest of the city. The whole overriding object of the game is to defeat these gangs and gain control of the entire city. You do this by earning respect in the different neighborhoods. You earn respect by doing this freeform gameplay we call Activities. Racing, pimping, drug trafficking, 13 types in total scattered all over the city. As you complete these, you will earn respect and this will reveal enemy buildings that are gang strongholds. Now you work to take them over which gains you control of that neighborhood.

We also have four story lines in the game one attached to each gang. These story missions open up as you start to earn respect. All theses story lines will converge at the end, to a series of missions that tie everything up at the end of the game. A large map will show what area of the city is under your control by covering it with your gang's color. You are able to take over the city in the order you want by choosing the different Activities. Each gang has its own color (clothes, cars) so it is always easy to make them out.

How large is the city?

It is approximately 9 square miles.

How do I know which buildings I can go into?

That's a good question, it's something we talked a lot about, we decided at least for now to have this in-world icon that indicates a door is kickable (you open door by kicking them) Other locations such as stores have their doors open during the day indicating you can enter them. At night, they close but you can break into them.

I have seen both day and night areas, is there any sort of time cycle?

Yes, the game has a full day/night cycle. The sun and moon will move across the sky causing the shadow to change.

How long is that cycle?

Right now its 20 minutes, but it is totally open to tweaking and we plan on getting more feed back on this feature.

What about weather?

We have an advanced weather system where fog & light rain turns to a heavy rain, then to a full storm with thunder & lighting. In fact, lightning can even hit people!

Any snow?

No. No snow.

What about lava?

Ha-ha, No. No lava.

When you kill innocent people, are there any repercussions?

Yes, there is a police force in Stilwater. In the lower left hand corner, you can see there is a blue bar or meter called Police Notoriety. Once it fills up you will get one star at the base of the meter. As you increase the number of stars, so goes up your Police Awareness. It ranges from cops arriving in cruisers to swat teams & roadblocks to helicopters with sharpshooters and spotlights.

Ok, let's say have a few stars and the first wave of cops show up, will they be relentless and never stop or will they give you a break? Can you escape?

You can escape several ways. We have these stations set up called Drive-Thru Confessionals. It is not the most realistic thing in the world but it is a great gameplay device.

So it is a way you can erase your negative record.

Yeah, they cost a little bit of money, but you can use these Drive-Thru Confessionals and erase your Notoriety with the cops. Notoriety will also erase over time, so if you can escape from the police and not do anything that causes them to get angry then it will wear off over time.

You do a lot of driving in the game, what control do you have over the camera while behind the wheel?

The camera tracks behind the car but if I want to shoot, say behind me, I can use the right stick to aim my gun while continuing to steer with the left stick. It can be a bit of a challenge. Whether on foot or behind the wheel aiming your weapon is completely manual, there is no auto aim in the game. We did experiment with auto-aim but we felt the manual aim was a lot more satisfying in the end. Also multiplayer is important to us and you cannot have auto-aim in multiplayer so it was important for us to be consistent.

Now I have started a racing Activity and you can tell where these Activities are by the checkered flag icons on the mini map located in the lower left hand corner. The checkpoints your car has to go through are marked with flaming barrels.

Now the rival gang members you are racing against, are they trying to stop you or win the race or both?

The racing AI has some aggressiveness in it where they will try to ram you and run you off the road. There will be different kinds of twists to some of the racing where you will be able to use your weapons adding a combat angle to it. The cars when destroyed will break apart into about 30 different components, it is quite spectacular. (Editors note: It is!)

How many different cars are in the game and are you able to customize them in any way?

There are 80 basic cars and yes, there is a deep Car Customization which allows you to do custom paint jobs, bolt on new rims, window tint etc. Now if your car is destroyed you can recover it at an impound, so for a fee you can get it back. We added this feature so people would not be afraid to drive their pimped out rides.

Now in addition to the Car Customization there is the Player Customization. There are stores you can visit where you can buy different clothing and accessories. Therefore, as you move up in your gang, and you become a higher level you actually really need to start upgrading your clothes, or the game is going to let you know that.

Related to customization, is Player Creation. At the beginning of the game, you completely create your character. You can create any face you want, skin color, hair, you can make him look like anybody. In the game there are plastic surgeons you can visit, which will allow you to redo the creation process, so you are not stuck with that one face.

Now is this just cosmetic or will it effect gameplay? Meaning will people recognize you?

If you go through plastic surgery this will reduce your Notoriety. Your gang will always recognize you however.

Tell me about the weapons in the game? How many are there, how many can you carry on you.

There are eight general categories or class of weapons: fist, melee, handgun, machine, shotgun, assault rifle, missile and throw. You can only carry one weapon from each category at a time. You can pick-up weapons in the game. Say I killed a swat guy and he dropped his M-16 I could pick it up but would have to swap it out for my AK-47. You can also acquire weapons at gun stores. There is also what we call Player Cribs, which are buildings that the player owns where weapons are stashed. As you progress in the game, you move up in Cribs that have better weapons. Therefore, as you can see there are many ways to obtain weapons.

The interface for choosing the weapons is a radial pattern showing your eight categories and what weapon is currently occupying that category. You use the right stick to highlight the weapon you want. I noticed there is a life bar of sorts around each weapon, does that signify the remaining ammo?

Yes, that is the ammo. You will not find boxes of bullets; you find a weapon from the same category or class to replenish your ammo for that weapon.

I noticed when you entered that building there was no loading screen. Does this mean the game is continually being streamed off the disc?

Correct, you will see no loading screens whatsoever in the game no matter where you go, including all interiors.

Hey I see a subway train running across a bride up ahead, can I destroy it?

You can derail it; your Notoriety will go up. Not only that, but there are stations throughout the city were you can hi-jack it too. You can pilot the train, turn at the various junctions, and even derail it by taking routes where there is construction along the track. It works also as transportation devices to teleport you to various locations around the city or you can drive it and take in the scenery.

So other than all the vehicles and light poles I have been running over, what other parts of the environment are destructible?

Buildings are not but they can be scared or scorch. All the street clutter, like hot dog stands, newsstands, benches, all the things on the sidewalks or side of the road are all destructible.

Now who is the pretty young girl who just showed up in an exotic car and is sporting a sub-machine gun?

Her name is Lin, she is one of my Homie's and I just called her. Homie's are story characters that become unlocked over the course of the game. You are able to call them up and have them accompany you on Activities, and will fight by your side. If you pull your weapon, he or she will pull theirs, when you get in a car, they will also. Each Homie has their own car and will always arrive in it so if you want a particular ride then call the right Homie.

Can you tell me about the multiplayer? What kind of modes will there be?

12 players on Live, 7 gameplay modes, all team or gang oriented. You can forum your gang on-line and play against other gangs. We are trying to make the modes fit in to the theme and style of Saint's Row. One example of our on-line modes is Blinged Out Ride. Each side starts out with a real crappy car and they have to kill the other gang, which earns them money they use to upgrade their car through 7 levels. The first team to get their car maxed out and turns it in wins. However, beware of the opposing gang trying not only to kill you but to destroy your ride as well.

Currently how many people are working on the game?

Internally we have 90 at Volition working on Saint's Row and we have out- sourced some content to The Netherlands, particularly the level art, like the buildings. We have 25 people in Holland doing art for the game. Surfaces are just one texture anymore; they are 4 or 5 textures, normal map, and specularity map. All these things take a long time to make.

Approximately how long has the game been in development?

About 2 years. Me and another guy started on this 2 years ago, doing the initial investigation stuff, it ramped up quite quickly.

Now at that time were you planning on making a current generation (PS2) game?

(Laughing) Yeah we were.

Then at some point, you decided to move it to the x360?

Yeah, it was really good timing hearing about the X360. We were not too far into development so making the switch was not a problem. The game we were trying to make would have been really tuff to pull off the PS2. We would have had to make a lot of comprises.

How has been working with the X360 hardware?

It has been good. Microsoft has been great, there support is awesome.

Now I know a lot of developer just recently got the final dev-kits.

Yeah, we just got ours about a week ago. To get it to run on final hardware was not that hard because it was already running on the beta hardware for us so it basically got faster. Now the switch from alpha to beta was really hard. We had to re-engineer the way things work to run on the multiple CPU’s. It is a big challenge.

Most games tend to get better with every generation as developers get a handle on the hardware. Do you think the X360’s three cores will extend its life or merely make programming more difficult?

The multiple CPU, multi-threaded programming is another level of difficulty that many developers are struggling with, including us. It has taken us quite a bit of time to get a handle on it.

The physics and rag doll animation in the game are very impressive; can you tell me about the engine you are using?

We licensed the Havok 3 Physics Engine (made for next gen consoles) and the rag doll is part of that. Havok has been great to work with because it allowed us to get things running quit early in development so we could tweak it and play around with it. We are still working on optimizations but I am still very happy with the performance.

Well Alan, thank you so much for taking the time to show me your game and answer all my questions. I can't wait to see it again when it's closer to completion and optimized.

9/13/2005  Eric 'Jetson' Pfoutz