Shiny's David Perry Talks on The Matrix: Path of Neo -- Page 2

GP: The Wachowski's opened doors for Shiny and Atari, and it seems like directors are the ones bringing games to Hollywood.

DP: Yes, top movie directors are moving over to games. Peter Jackson's doing King Kong and, of course, he did the Lord of the Rings with EA. Then you have Steven Spielberg behind Dreamworks Interactive. George Lucas has Lucasarts, of course. James Cameron signed with Microsoft to do Battle Angel and he's working on another movie called Project 880, which I'm sure will be a game as well. John Woo has his own game company, Tiger Hill Entertainment. Vin Diesel has Tygon Studios. The Wachowski brothers have their Matrix games. Moving forward all the top directors will have their own games one day.

GP: That's an formidable list of talent, but how important are games to them?

DP: My point is that you start with the directors. And that's the best place to start because if they come they bring talent with them. And these directors are doing it themselves.

GP: How do you approach directors like the Wachowski's to make video games when it seems that they're already so focused on mastering an entirely different medium?

DP: They care about doing something fun, something that's interesting to them, something that's going to break new ground. If you can tell them that we can do something that's never been done before, they are all ears. It's not even a very difficult conversation quite frankly.

GP: What aspects of games do you think movie directors find most intriguing?

DP: The directors are very interested in the concept of the non-linear narrative. Director's don't just plan how to make a movie. They're very emotionally involved with all aspects of their projects, the writing, the set design, even with the music. They have a vision and they want to see it expressed in a certain way. With people like that the challenge of a medium which has more depth than a typical linear story is something they love to try to get their heads around. They want to discover what they can do in that space.

GP: Do games have some sort of advantage over film that they find attractive?

DP In the movies everything's shot according to a pre-designed plan. If at the end of the day there's a shot you missed or you wanted to take differently you can't unless you rebuild sets and recall actors and crew. It's a called a pick up shot and it's an expensive hit to your budget. In the video game world the sets are virtual. You have all the sets and all the assets all the time. You can move the camera to any position to experiment with shots in any way you like.

GP: What kind of influence do you see movie director's having on games?

DP: I think what you're going to see is a lot of games get very photo-real and very good looking as we move forward. But then you're going to see certain games that showcase some real creativity by movie directors like the Robert Rodgriquez's (Sin City) of this world who have a vision for what they want to do. They're just going to do things that haven't been done before.

GP: The Wachowski brothers for instance already have one game, Enter the Matrix, under their belts. How involved were they with Path of Neo?

DP: They were actually more involved with Path of Neo than with Enter the Matrix. You have to realize that last time they were involved in making three movies, plus the videogame, plus the comic books, plus the Animatrix.

GP: Whew. They deserve a break.

DP: If anyone deserved a vacation they did. I thought they were going to take a vacation because there was some time after Matrix: Revolutions released where they could have time to themselves. They went right to work on the Path of Neo and wrote the overall design for the game.

For more details on the game, also check out the October issue of GamePro magazine, which goes on sale September 6.

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