Op de website van Gamecloud vinden we vandaag een interessant interview met Doug Lombardi gaande over de Xbox versie van Half-Life 2. Dit interview ziet er als volgt uit:
Gamecloud – First, when was the decision made to make Half-Life 2 for the Xbox?
Doug Lombardi – Many, many moons ago. As soon as we received our Xbox dev kits, we started running prototypes of Source on them. It was determined fairly soon thereafter that the Xbox would be the only current gen system capable of running a Source-based product without having to essentially run at an HL1 standard of graphics, sound, etc.
Gamecloud – Why did Valve decide to make the port themselves rather than give it to a third party developer like other PC games are handled?
Doug Lombardi – We want to bring the Source engine to new platforms in a manner that allows us, and others, to re-use the technology for applications other than HL2. Many times, a PC to console translation is done in a way that is optimized for bringing the game to market as quickly as possible, which leaves the tech in questionable shape for future projects on that system. Developing Half-Life 2 for the Xbox here at Valve allowed the engineers who built Source and Half-Life 2 to bring both the technology and game to a console platform (which will then help us migrate our technology to additional console platforms) and, in the process, deliver an uncompromised version of HL2.
Gamecloud – Overall what was the biggest challenge in porting the high graphical PC game to the Xbox hardware?
Doug Lombardi – Fitting a game with a min spec of 256MB or RAM through a console with only 64MB of RAM without making major compromises in the fidelity of the graphics, AI, nor physics. The solution was to develop a streaming system. At the end of the day, this what allowed us to maintain the integrity of each scene/level.
Gamecloud – How hard was it to get the control scheme for the game to the Xbox controller?
Doug Lombardi – Fairly easy due to the nature of the Xbox controller and the tests run by all prior Xbox FPS games, including Counter-Strike for the Xbox. Everyone on the team had an almost identical first draft for how we’d layout the controls, so our starting point was fairly evolved. From there, we tested and iterated upon the configuration and sensitivities until the defaults felt very natural to players.
Gamecloud – Did the levels in the game have to be sliced down in order to work on the Xbox?
Doug Lombardi – A handful of the largest levels were just too big to fit in memory. So, we did have to create a few additional level loads, essentially splitting these levels in two. However, no content was cut in the process.
Gamecloud – Why was the decision made not to put in Half-Life 2’s multplayer games (Counter-Strike: Source; Half-Life 2 Deathmatch) into the Xbox port?
Doug Lombardi – It was more or less a question of quality vs. the clock. With the launch of the next generation systems looming and our desire to deliver an uncompromised version of Half-Life 2, some hard decisions had to be made. However, Counter-Strike is already available for Xbox and we are very interested in making Source multiplayer games for the future generation.
Gamecloud – Overall is Valve pleased with how the Xbox port came out?
Doug Lombardi – Absolutely. And, more importantly, reports from press and others who’ve played the final game indicate that we’ve hit our goal of delivering a high-quality translation of the product.
Gamecloud – Are there any plans for releasing the PC expansion pack Half-Life 2 Aftermath to the Xbox?
Doug Lombardi – We’ve not made any console announcements regarding Aftermath.
Gamecloud – What is Valve’s current opinion on the next generation consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Revolution) and will we see future Valve games on those consoles?
Doug Lombardi – Jury’s out on at least a few of these. But I think it’s safe bet to say that we’ll do something for at least one of them, one day.
Gamecloud – Finally is there anything else you wish to say about the Xbox port of Half-Life 2?
Doug Lombardi – We hope Xbox gamers love it.
Uiteraard geeft Doug toe zeer tevreden te zijn met het eindresultaat op de console. Hij zegt dan ook dat de graphics die op de PC zorgde voor tamelijk hoge systeemeisen zorgde voor de meeste problemen aangezien deze ook overgezet moesten worden naar de Xbox. Verder zijn er helaas nog geen plannen voor een eventuele uitbreiding van het spel voor dit platform.
