Lair devs: "We were blown away by Cell" (a GP Q&A)

In what other ways does Lair take advantage of the Cell?

We have all of our animations running on the S.P.U.s of the Cell's chip because you couldn't draw armies or basically animate armies of that amount and size without it. And our physics are completely on there. We are also doing fluid dynamics for the first time in a game, as far as I know. Water is not basically a sheet of a base surface, but completely animated and sub-divided, and you actually can direct with it thanks to the Cell. We actually do part of our rendering on the Cell. Simply because it's so powerful, we spent months and months moving more and more systems onto the S.P.U.'s.

Do you dedicate one S.P.U. to enemy A.I.?

Not a specific S.P.U. Our S.P.U. code works dynamically, so we are not locking up one S.P.U. and saying "OK, you are the A.I. S.P.U., but we instead say, "OK, here are these 15 things including A.I." We run them on the S.P.U., and the code automatically distributes them. And sometimes, yes, A.I. certainly can take up a full S.P.U.

Is there a multiplayer mode for this game or an online mode?

There is an online mode, so we are permanently integrated into a network platform. Inside the game, you'll have community features, such as messaging between players. You'll also have leader boards and online stats, which I think is very important because we have a replay value system very similar to the Rogue Squadron's where you earn medals. You'll basically want to track your stats against other the guy's to see what he did to get that gold medal.

We don't have multiplayer because we had so many other systems to figure out for the first time, especially the fight aspects for a flight game that nobody ever tried before. So we spent enough time with that, and basically, to do multiplayer on top of that really wasn't feasible.

Now, if people like Lair and we do a sequel, which we certainly would love to, then of course multiplayer will be on the table.

When Lair makes it to market, what would you like the players to pay close attention to? Maybe something that wouldn't be obvious at the surface.

I think Factor 5 is known for its graphics, so it is almost a no-brainer. Lair supports high definition and you've got a 1080P display. It's pretty nice looking, I think.

Another thing they should pay attention to is the story. I hope people will be surprised at how deep and involved the story is with all of its unexpected twists and turns. It's not the straightforward "waging-a-war-against-these-guys" tale where you beat them in the end and then "poof!" -- that's it. It is a very involved story where basically your morale is tested, and where there are plot twists in which you suddenly might not be flying with your troops anymore -- things like that. I think the story is quite involved, and there is something else that comes along with the story that players will find interesting.

Having worked with Star Wars for so long, did that put any added pressure on the team for this game?

We had the "problem" of having worked on Star Wars for so many years that we almost had John Williams as member of our team [chuckle]. Those fantastic music scores always made a big difference in the games because they are so iconic. One of our challenges was who do we get for the music because we feel the music is extremely important. In the end, we ended up getting John Debney, who scored The Passion of the Christ. I'm extremely excited about that because John's work for the game is just absolutely fantastic! It's really, really brilliant because on the one hand, he is channeling a little bit of John Williams, but on the other hand, he brings in these ethnic undertones which The Passion of the Christ score had.

The music plays a huge role in terms of the story, which is all about two civilizations not being in harmony anymore with nature. It's really a story of reunification, and if you don't have the right music for that, it simply doesn't work. I think that is also something that people should really pay attention to.

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