Gorgies: The Reds That Have You Seeing Red
September 30th, 2010 by PlatinumGames
Filed: Community, Games, PlatinumGames, Vanquish
Hi. I’m Noriyuki Otani, and I programmed the Gorgies, Burns, and friendly forces in Vanquish. I thought I would take the chance and write a blog and shed some light on the Gorgies themselves.
When I was creating the Gorgies, our “grunts”, the thing I paid most attention to was how to make sure that people wouldn’t realize that the Gorgies were actually going easy on them.
Going easy on the player might be the wrong way of putting it…
For example, when Gorgies faced off against the player, even though you would expect otherwise, you couldn’t fire upon them before they spotted and fired upon you. Even people who were used to shooters and great at aiming couldn’t do it. The worst would be trading attacks, and if you weren’t any good you would lose the exchange, which is guaranteed to stress you out. At Mikami-san’s suggestion, I tuned the game so that there is a gap before the Gorgies fire. It seems really simple, and I am sure that teams with tons of shooting game experience have plenty of know-how in this regard, but we started everything from zero, so this was just one of the many examples of us falling back on our tried-and-true method of “crash-and-build” development.
The Vanquish that emerged from all of these trials has tons of little tuning adjustments where the “game goes easy” to make things more fun to play. There aren’t very many places in the game where you will actually notice these things while playing, but every place we’ve put in these tweaks, we consider them as an act of love from us to you.
I hope you give Vanquish a whirl and enjoy the hell out of those bloody robots!
If you don’t want any of our love, you can get a real taste for what the robots can do to you by trying God Hard mode. I took great joy in not only powering them up in lots of different ways, but also making sure to remove their limiter. Even though our friends usually end up scrap metal, it would make me really happy if you give this mode even just a short try to see what the Gorgies are truly capable of.
Tagged: Game Design, Gorgies, Noriyuki Otani, Playstation 3, Programming, PS3, SEGA, Shinji Mikami, Vanquish, Xbox 360
9 Comments Add Your Own
SonicTHP Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:20 am
God Hard mode sounds like it would be ridiculously challenging. I suppose that’s what a super soldier is meant to go up against though, right?
60Hertz Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:47 am
GOD HARD MODE!!! scary… can’t wait!
Kaz Posted on September 30, 2010 at 11:46 am
I’m just posting to say that I’m really enjoying reading about the approaches you guys are taking to developing your games. I am a game designer myself currently working in the industry in the west and and I had a chance to play the Vanquish demo recently. I was really impressed with the high-speed feel of boosting around and the great visual effects of things like the crazy spray of missiles flying all around you during the boss fight (which makes the situation feel more threatening than it actually is, but also makes it feel more exciting).
I would love to hear more about your general design philosophies as a studio (i.e. How your design team is structured; How you make key decisions and manage the design direction throughout production; How you review and iterate on mechanics to reach a high level of “quality”, etc.).
I’m also interested to know how you iterated on some specific game mechanics, such as the boost and AI partners, and what challenges they presented you with during production (and how you went about solving those challenges).
I get a sense of these things reading through this blog, but I’m hungry to hear more details
All the best and keep up the good work. I look forward to reading more.
-Kaz
twenty1 Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I anticipate another stellar PG* title more & more daily!!
TOLLMASTER Posted on October 1, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Video games have taught me that robots painted red ALWAYS move faster than the other color ones. I'm happy (scared, even!) to hear the in God Mode they retain the "red is always better for robots" property.
Dodgers Posted on October 2, 2010 at 5:12 pm
It's a good thing when a game can offer a challenge for anyone, doesn't matter how skilled one is. I liked this "fun for the beginners and skilled players alike" concept in Megaman 10, and it seems Vanquish will offer the same. Easy Mode was very easy in MM10, but Hard Mode… uh… it' just very HARD. So i hope God Hard mode will live up to it's name, since Vanquish already seems to be a somewhat arcade-esque, retro fashioned game. Which is always a plus. But I do hope that the enemies will get new moves, or different behaviors, and not just stick to the usual "more firepower for the enemies, less HP for you" rule.
Mike C Posted on October 4, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Can’t wait for God Hard! One of the only bosses i have never beat in a game was the original VJ on hardest difficulty. Tons of memorable experiences though!
axiomprime Posted on October 12, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Reminds me that I have to go back to God Hand.
Marlon Posted on October 14, 2010 at 1:23 am
why wont they allow GOD HARD to be available from the beginning of the game?
Makes me MAD -_-