300: March to Glory Interview

IGN: The movie capitalizes on massive battles with thousands of soldiers - how many enemy units will players need to fight simultaneously?

Jeff: We use some tricks to make you think you are seeing more than you actually are and it works really well. Collision developed something they affectionately call "HordeTech." Basically, if you run across a side scrolling area of the screen, you'll see a seemingly unending steam of bad guys, but it's mostly a facade. If you play other games on the PSP in this genre, you'll notice that most employ a heavy fog. This normally saves the processor so they can put more guys on the screen. But we don't do this, since fog is only used when you are in a foggy environment and it never obscures your view of the action - it just adds ambience. You can see everything and it looks like there a lot of guys.

The phalanx mixes things up a bit more. We have seven Spartans and lines of Persians to dispatch…I'm not sure how many we maxed out on having on screen at once, but you'll be fighting full lines that span the width of the PSP.

IGN: Will players ever need to use the environment to achieve goals in the game?

Jeff: We do have small environmental puzzles like walls to push over, levers to be pulled and cranked, boulders to push, cliffs to climb, etc. Little diversions here and there mix things up a bit and give the player a short break from slaughtering hundreds of Persians.

IGN: What's the one element about 300 you believe players will enjoy most?

Jeff: I'd love to say the tactical elements of the combat, but gauging the reactions of the few people that have gotten to play the game, I'll say it's more likely going to be our unabashedly M-rated approach. We really didn't hold back. Yesterday, I accumulated 728 decapitations (yes, we keep track for you). That's something you just can't say very often. I don't think there are too many PSP titles out there that offer what we have - a cool, fun, intelligent action beat'em up that's just gory and bloody as hell.

IGN: Thanks for your time, Jeff.

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