Fired Up is an original title, no "port" question in the Q&A, of eight-player vehicle combat under development in London. The in-game images, available by following the Screens tab above, show a polished effort which may produce a PSP original franchise. Read on to find out what the developer has to say about the potential of this game.
Game Overview:
In an anarchic world of high-octane vehicles, big guns and bigger explosions, a rag tag team of resistance fighters are about to strike back against a faceless aggressor. They're desperate for your help; but if being a collaborator in the rebellion isn't your thing, you can always go it alone, blow up your friends and experience genuine mayhem in multiplayer mode. So buckle in, prime the weapons and hit the gas. What's it to be? Smash and grab or crash and burn?
Features:
-Huge open-ended environments to explore, each packed with vicious vehicles, brutal weaponry and unlockable extras
- Take on missions from a variety of outlandish characters and give the good guys the upper hand in single player story mode
- Experience frenzied action, diverse locations and multiple game modes in the blisteringly fast multiplayer mode, with WiFi compatible support for up to eight players.
Fired Up is one of the new, originally developed titles for PSP - can you give us a bit of background on the game?
Fired up is a brand-new action game from the London Studio. It's a vehicle combat game with a free-roaming, story-based single player mode and a blindingly fast-paced, enormously expansive multiplayer mode.
The player controls a team of cool and quirky vehicle combat specialists who find themselves fighting the invasion of a totalitarian superpower in a small eastern European country. The team members have diverse backgrounds, unique customised vehicles and their own joyous way of dealing out extreme violence.
What are your favourite features in the game?
Four things. Firstly, we've managed to get big, free roaming levels in our single player mode, large outdoor environments (cities and countryside) that the player is free to drive around at will, full of enemies and cool little touches like turrets and trains that the player can take control of. Integrated into this big world are numerous story-based missions and arcade-style mini-challenges.
Secondly, we've developed a game that can be fun if you play it for 30 seconds or if you play it for three hours. You can literally boot the game up and play it for under a minute and have made progress in the story mode. You can also spend hours and hours trying to find all the hidden extras in the environments if you want.
Thirdly, we've all been surprised that graphically, the game looks a lot better than the team's previous PS2 release. The PSP is a really powerful piece of kit.
Finally, we've got a multiplayer mode that rivals most modern PC or console releases.
What games have the team worked on before?
The last game some of the team worked on was the London Studio's critically acclaimed PS2 online title 'Hardware: Online Arena'. We based our multiplayer mode on elements of this game. We also have a batch of new blood on the team who have worked on other London Studio games as well as titles for Sega, Criterion, Warthog and Lionhead amongst others.
Are there many major differences in the development for a software title for PSP?
Our team is relatively small for a PSP project at around twelve, and our development time is fairly short (as are most launch titles), but in general I think PSP development is going to be as large-scale as PS2 development, given the hardware is comparable in terms of performance, and also because it has additional features like WiFi
Tell us more about the WiFi elements in the game.
We have a full-scale 2-8 player multiplayer mode using the PSP's WiFi capabilities. Twelve maps and eight game modes, including Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, Bomb the Base and more. The player can also unlock extra vehicles for multiplayer by playing through the single-player mode. This is the PSP launch title that really shows off the multiplayer capabilities of the machine.
Are you going to include any downloadables that can be used to enhance the title at a later date?
We are currently looking at providing additional multiplayer maps after launch, but nothing is confirmed at the moment.
As a developer, what is the most exciting element of working on software for PSP?
It's a portable PlayStation! It really doesn't get any more exciting than providing a launch title for a platform like this.
What features has the game got that takes into consideration the fact that the PSP is portable?
There are technical considerations that the programmers have to take into account, but as a designer, I haven't really noticed any significant restrictions that impact the game design. Obviously we have a 16:9 aspect ratio screen which makes HUD design different, and also the controls on the PSP are different (more elegant) to most home consoles. We have made sure the game can be played for shorter periods of time than home console games, but other than that, we have always thought of this as a fully featured, modern console game.
