The Oufit (Xbox 360) Interview

[RainOfTerror]

THQ and Relic take explosive World War II combat to the next generation in an all new 3rd person action game. Combining intense squad-based combat and easy to use strategic gameplay elements, The Outfit takes players behind enemy lines, battling the Nazi War Machine through a variety of combat missions. We sat down with The Oufit producer Adrian Crook for some questions ...

WP: Xbox, PC, Xbox 360 .. all Microsoft, so I have to ask, is there any possible way we might see The Outfit on PC? How hard, or easy, would it be ?

AC: Fun fact: Up until a couple months ago, we had a PC version of the game that ran in parallel to our 360 version (mostly used for testing purposes). But now that we have a lot of the wizbang graphical features in on the 360 only (MSAA, depth of field, heat shimmer, etc.), the PC version looks like the ugly step child. The 360 is much more powerful than your average PC, so we’d have to make a lot of sacrifices to get the game going again on that platform. You never know though!
Read the complete The Outfit interview (http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=30803) over at WorthPlaying.

[GrinR]

It looks awesome. I'm still waiting for a "wow" game from the 360. PGR is close, but really it's still high-end PC for me.

[Sazime]

So, inserting toggle boxes while programming is that hard? I can understand making the effects themselves taking a lot of time, but being able to turn them on and off? That sounds like a cop out.

[GrinR]

Any game where you could simply toggle effects is going to be a game that's designed around the minimum config. No thanks, that's the PC mentality. I bought a console in part so I could enjoy developers who designed for the best they can possibly do with the hardware - not the opposite.

[Sazime]

I see it just the opposite. On a PC, there is no max spec, so you can have all the effects you want, unless you have an inferior system. Then you just take steps down.

With a console, you are stuck with that consoles spec. Which, with recent ports, have been the minimum or medium spec. For instance, I would never play Doom 3 or HL2 on an XBox because my PC can doa MUCH better job with textures and lighting. Right now, the 360 is at the top of the pile (and much more affordable than a high end PC), but the average gaming PC will be outperforming it at least halfway though its lifespan.

[GrinR]

Halfway through it's lifespan, The Outfit 2 will be coming out.

[Noiz]

... Another WW2 shooter.

[Paranoia]

Good reason why I should save up and get next-gen console instead of investing on expensive 3D card.

[Twigz'N'Berries]

I see it just the opposite. On a PC, there is no max spec, so you can have all the effects you want, unless you have an inferior system. Then you just take steps down.

With a console, you are stuck with that consoles spec. Which, with recent ports, have been the minimum or medium spec. For instance, I would never play Doom 3 or HL2 on an XBox because my PC can doa MUCH better job with textures and lighting. Right now, the 360 is at the top of the pile (and much more affordable than a high end PC), but the average gaming PC will be outperforming it at least halfway though its lifespan.
Wow. That is an interesting idea, but hardly practical. Sure, you can 'max' out your game, but then you would eliminate the majority of computers because it wouldn't run the game, then subtract all of those eligible computers which owners will not be interested in your game...then, beat out your competition for that pc gamers dollars. The better selling pc games know better than to make such a mistake.

Second, not many people can justify spending upward of a $1000 plus to buy a system as powerful as the 360. Hell, look at the PS2. They squeezed the crap out of that machine and made some very good looking games for it....even though it was overpowered by pcs a long time ago.

[51|RandoM]

All they're really saying is that they don't expect the game to sell enough copies to justify a pc version.

Guess it just isn't that good. :-)

[Borys]

Hahahaha.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/10/23

[Knite]

As much as it seems that it's just "easy" to add a checkmark in the setup, it's not quite as easy. [On a PC] The turning on or off of a sepcific graphical feature has to be tested for each and every different video card, because even though many have similar features, sometimes a "work around" needs to be used to get card A to do a certain feature, while card B is slower, but natively supports the feature. Now if someone turns the checkmark off, the engine is still working with card A's work around in engine, which may cause issues with the engine without the specific feature being turned on. Quite often in a piece of software, you change one thing, even something as simple as a misplaced comma, and suddenly you get bugs that are program ending, even if the thing was rock solid not an hour ago.
By switching to a single console platform, there is only 1 hardware (ok... because of MS's stupid ass decision, 2 hardware (HD)) specs to worry about, there's far less testing needed, with less time needed to make the software in the first place to be compatible with different hardware specs, and more optimization possible since you're programming for a known entity instead of an unknown.

[Vandenh]

Well the game looks pretty fun. I am getting excited. As to the PC vs 360 debate... I don't care. I buy some games on PC and some on 360. This game I would buy on 360 anyway since it looks like a couch fun-action game.

Also you can't blame devs for wanting to make money by publishing games on consoles first. If all PC guys would buy instead of pirate games it would help a bit.

[bapenguin]

Co-Op over live...hell yes. Lets hope this becomes a standard feature this gen. It seems that more and more games are having it...speaking of...where the hell is the patch for Kameo!?!?!

[Borys]

Also you can't blame devs for wanting to make money by publishing games on consoles first. If all PC guys would buy instead of pirate games it would help a bit.

This is soooo fucking true. I can't believe there are live torrent/ edonkey sites offering games BEFORE their legal release date.

Software piracy is at about 70-80% here in Poland, fucking insane. The only games that sell are 5 year old originals with a pricetag of $5.

For each legal copy sold there are 10 copies downloaded.

[Everlost_MI]

where the hell is the patch for Kameo!?!?!

Ok, I am lost - thus the name, but what patch are you talking about?

[sflufan]

The Xbox 360 gets "The Outfit"
The PC gets "Company of Heroes"

Fine with me.

[bean19]

I'm calling this one a terd.

[Vandenh]

>but what patch are you talking about?

Co-op over Live

[Cool AN]

The Outfit is one of the only Xbox 360 games I am interested in. It is from a good developer, and it looks really cool.

[Morratut]

Also you can't blame devs for wanting to make money by publishing games on consoles first. If all PC guys would buy instead of pirate games it would help a bit.

:D So true. The amount of torrents for games is crazy. I bet piracy is a major factor in developers not making for PC. More and more devs are creating games for consoles.

[ÜberJumper]

I may be the biggest Relic Fanboy in existence, but this game is a fucking blast to play. Errrrrr or so they tell me.

It's like a cross between Mercenaries for Xbox, the A-team, and battlefield 1942.

It's certainly not "another WW2" game. There's no realism in this game, it's all over the top blow 'em up violence. And how glorious it is, with everything being destructible (minus certain objectives required for gameplay), you can lay waste to the game environment like has never been done before.

Now Relic's Company of Heroes, that's going to be authentic WW2 PC RTS action, and totally different than The Outfit.

[Steele Johnson]

Any game where you could simply toggle effects is going to be a game that's designed around the minimum config. No thanks, that's the PC mentality. I bought a console in part so I could enjoy developers who designed for the best they can possibly do with the hardware - not the opposite.

Exactly. I want games where the technology pushes the hardware. No need to dumb it down for the pc. I'm tired of buying pc games only to find out that it doesn't take full advantage of the specs of my machine. It's dumbed down for the most common pc... a 1.3 Ghz, with 256meg of memory and a 3 year old graphics card.

[Schnoogs]

This guy cracks me up. You can always tell when a company is under license with a console.

I'll stick with playing Call of Duty 2 at 1920x1200 on my PC...

[ÜberJumper]

"You can always tell when a company is under license with a console."

Errr not sure what you're getting at here, but Relic, like any other developer, is looking at improving the markets their involved in. They started and quit a game for the Xbox back a couple of years ago, and now, they're developing more in house console expertise. Heck, I'm pretty sure they're even looking at developing PS2 titles.

Of course they are a THQ studio, so it'll be interesting to see which directions THQ takes them.

[Schnoogs]

"You can always tell when a company is under license with a console."

Errr not sure what you're getting at here, but Relic, like any other developer, is looking at improving the markets their involved in. They started and quit a game for the Xbox back a couple of years ago, and now, they're developing more in house console expertise. Heck, I'm pretty sure they're even looking at developing PS2 titles.

Of course they are a THQ studio, so it'll be interesting to see which directions THQ takes them.

Not sure why I have to explain this but whenever a company is under license with a particular brand or platform you should take their praise for that product with a rather large grain of salt.

It's a slight understatement to say that they're biased.

[ÜberJumper]

Ahhh, I see what you're saying.

However, reading that article, and knowing the Devs on the product (at least a few of them), I'd say they're simply biased towards console development in particular. haha I can picture Stephane "reflecting" on PC development in his awesome French Canadien accent right now.

[GrinR]

Also you can't blame devs for wanting to make money by publishing games on consoles first. If all PC guys would buy instead of pirate games it would help a bit.

Naturally, if all PC guys bought games, PC game devs would all be too busy counting money to make games anymore - and so you'd have the end of PC gaming.

Or, if PC games were actual legal tender, PC devs would essentially have money making machines! Then they could just make games and buy things with them directly!

Pshh. Gimmie a break. Maybe if we took all the guns away there would be no more crime, too. Things are far more complex than that, as has been hashed out ad infinitum on these very pages.

Edit: I quoted the wrong person - I was responding to the responses to this quote. I shouldn't post before my morning coffee.

[Voodoo]

The Xbox 360 gets "The Outfit"
The PC gets "Company of Heroes"

Fine with me.

This is my impression as well. The Outfit and Company of Heroes both have fully destructable environments, the main difference between the two is one has a more realistic flavor while the other is more action/arcade oriented.

[ÜberJumper]

Voodoo:

I'd say the main difference is that one is a third person squad based shooter (The Outfit), and the other is an RTS (Company of Heroes).

[GrinR]

I remember thinking Impossible Creatures looked great. I also remember really wanting Homeworld 2. Relic is a bit washed up, IMO.

Company of Heroes looks like an Impossible Creatures mod.
The Outfit reminds me of Hidden and Dangerous. Call it arcadey if you like, but a wide selection of options more often makes a game confusing than it does complex. And this is coming from a big Silent Storm fan.

[ÜberJumper]

Impossible Creatures did look great... and then it got watered down into something more generic. It didn't totally suck as a game, but it wasn't *OMG WOW* either. I still quite enjoyed it's storytelling even though it was an RTS. Homeworld 2 had awesome art direction, graphics, and sound, but its story didn't fall together as well as it could have. Dawn of War is perhaps Relic's biggest success out of their released game with action, effects and a storyline borne from one of the biggest Sci-Fi IPs around. Homeworld though is still my favourite Relic title.

I will say though, saying CoH looks like an IC mod doesn't really do CoH's technical improvments justice (they do share roots in the same engine after all). Compare this IC shot (http://www.microsoft.com/games/impossiblecreatures/img/screens/ss23.jpg) with this CoH shot (http://www.companyofheroesgame.com/images/screenshots/DirtRoad.jpg). I doubt someone outside of people who know Relic's products could identify those as coming from the same company.

[Everlost_MI]

>but what patch are you talking about?

Co-op over Live

Ah ok. Danke!