Infamous 2 Message Board
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Gran Turismo 5 XL, first released in January 2012, includes all of the racer's updates through to Spec 2.0, and a voucher for five bits of DLC. There are no fancy pants extras in the Infamous 2 disc, but it is the last chance to enjoy Cole's electric persona; Infamous: Second Son introduces a smoky new protagonist to the PS4.
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inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood received widespread acclaim from the gaming community in 2011 not only for their amazing open-world super hero gameplay, but also for one very important, very unique feature: the ability to make your own missions. To bring out the best aspiring developers, we launched a contest late last year to see who could build the best mission within inFAMOUS 2. This mission needed to focus on telling a story about the main character Cole McGrath that could fit within the fiction of the universe. It also needed to play great, meaning good gameplay balance, strong action set-pieces, and a compelling narrative to pull you through.
From the missions that we’re submitted on infamousthegame.com, PlayStation and Sucker Punch reviewed only the most-played and highest-ranked missions as voted on by the community that plays. This tool not only makes it easy to find great missions in-game, but you can also browse and queue up missions to play in-game on the web by logging in with your PSN ID.
After much debate with the team from Sucker Punch, we’re ready to share the grand prize winner of the Cole’s Missing Mission contest. Introducing PSN member Seth9977 with his mission: Spying on the Spies. His mission brought a great story that matched the tone of Cole’s character while providing sweeping travel segments, awesome combat, and just the right amount of humor. He also goes a bit in-depth with Cole’s character to imply some deeper issues he’s struggling with and has some great call-backs to Cole’s time in Empire City. It’s now playable in inFAMOUS 2 under the Featured Missions category.
Hi everyone; Seth9977 here.
The thing that inspired me to make that mission was the story mission: “Alden Strikes” from inFAMOUS. I put my own little twist of Zeke being captured to bring back some good old memories of rescuing Zeke from inFAMOUS 1.
My advice to other mission builders:
It’s always best to get an idea of what you’re about to make, rather than sit there with nothing. Find something to spark your creativity, and don’t be afraid to try something new. It’s also best to learn how to use the tools. If you don’t know how something works, look at a template, play around with it, or come ask the friendly users at suckerpunch.com for help. Another thing that is a must for creating a fail-proof mission would be play testing and polishing. It’s always best to constantly test and play your mission whenever you make a change, look for ways that a player can break your mission. It will help you in the long run!
Whenever play testing a narrative, make sure to check your grammar, and read it out loud to make sure it sounds right. There are three questions that you should always ask yourself: 1) “Will this be enjoyable for the player?” 2) “Can less experienced players beat this?” and 3) “Will they be able to break my mission?” If you design around these questions, I’m sure you will have a great and fun mission for users to play!
My thoughts on the design tools:
The design tools overall are well made and allowed me to do a number of things. From creating a simple sentence to making an intense fight. I enjoy working a lot with narrative type stuff, so when I first picked up inFAMOUS 2, and fired up the UGC creator I was glad to see there was a way to implement a story into my mission. The variety of tools in the UGC creator has expanded upon the months, and I’m eager to see what else the people at Sucker Punch have to offer to us!
I would also like to thank everyone who has made this possible for me. I’ve learned a lot on my own, but when I got involved with the community at Suckerpunch.com and infamousthegame.com, I’ve learned a lot more on how the UGC creator of inFAMOUS 2 works. It wouldn’t have been possible without the players too! A lot of thanks have to go to the PlayStation.blog and PSN Community Management team too! Thanks for playing all my missions and inspiring me to keep on creating!
We also want to include mentions for the runner ups in this very heated competition. PSN members jedicam10 (Karma Police), The_Golden_Hero (Children of Empire City), and codybean1 (Cole in Time) also made some stellar missions. These missions are also now easily accessible in-game under the Feature Missions category.
Congrats again to Seth9977! Your $1,000 in PSN Voucher Codes, limited-edition Cole statue, and signed copy of inFAMOUS 2 from the Sucker Punch team is on its way!
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John Bellomy, AKA Cowboy, is a programmer at Naughty Dog, and not, as his nickname might imply, a real cowboy. At least, as far as we know. He's pretty enigmatic.
I thought the hardest part of this list would be finding enough games to fill it. Not for a lack of titles but because of the amount of games I didn’t get to this year (I really need to play Saints Row). Naturally as I worked my way back through my catalogue I ended up having to make some really difficulty sorting decisions. Games like Mortal Kombat I want to give props to because it got me hooked into fighting games to a level I hadn’t experienced since Super Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. For obvious reasons I exclude games I had a professional hand in, namely Uncharted. Still I would be remiss in not acknowledging the quality of the team and that awesome talent I get to witness first hand. The development talent continues on display here and I am fortunate enough to admire and enjoy their hard earned work with perhaps a bit of insight and appreciation into just how nuts making video games really is.
10. InFamous 2After playing the first Infamous it was clear Sucker Punch was onto something special. Refined and distilled Infamous 2 takes a lot of small steps in the right direction making it a great iteration in the franchise. It does well what any open world game needs to, which is making traversal fun. Hurling my body upward on spikes of ice to bound across rooftops had such an intoxicating rhythm that this is clearly more about the journey than the destination. One may criticise that the missions themselves don’t feel that much structurally different than the random street fights but the fact that I had fun doing both is a credit to the design of their systems. A lightning bolt to the face or a well landed grenade remains a simple expression of joy for me.
9. Renegade OpsI really loved Just Cause 2, so to see Avalanche take their particular style and flair for action and apply to a new genre meant I was there day one. Let there be no mistake: stuff blows up real good and with a zany story to match; thus completing my games-from-Avalanche requirements checklist. So much the better then when the absurdity scales beyond linear when adding your friends into mix with coop. The game swings between laser-like efficiency of purpose and straight bedlam. The game is exhibit A in the case of chaos theory, I just can’t tell you for which side. Now if only I could beat that last mission on hardcore...
8. Shadows of the DamnedEasily one of my favorites this year if for nothing else but the production quality alone: the character design, the writing and voice acting- to say nothing of that fantastic music. A video game that is truly funny is a rare treat and Shadows of the Damned brought the light of comedy to an area once abandoned to the insipid and uninspired: juvenile humor. This game has almost as many dick and sex references as listening to five un-muted minutes of Xbox live chat. Yet it’s crass is compelling; a wonderful mix of subtle and overt without making you feel dirty for watching it. If Infamous can be described as story being in service to the combat then the opposite goes true for Shadows of the Damned. To have competent combat was perhaps one of the biggest surprises for the game yet I still found myself shooting dudes primarily to see what that cabal of artists had in store for me next- and they did not disappoint. One thing is for sure: I will never look at story time the same again.
7. Deus Ex: Human RevolutionI had many fond memories of the original Deus Ex so to say I was, like so many others weary of what Eidos had in store. Cheap, delicious words promised a return to form where a solution was as unique a snowflake as the players themselves. The reality is perhaps a bit more closer to it being a game with a golden path but said path ended up being right in my wheelhouse. Armed with my dart gun and an innate obsessive compulsion to clear areas without any alerts or kills each scenario became a puzzle. No matter how insurmountable the setup I could always find the right combination of darts to the face, stealth take downs and tazed bros. Set it to a Tron-esque soundtrack and add a non-embarrassing hacking mini game to boot and I’m in.
6. Trenched Iron Brigade
Double Fine was in fine form this year, completing the last fruition of their Amnesia Fortnight and demonstrating their deft ability to leap from one genre to the next each time delivering a tasty morsel worthy of Ferran Adrià himself. One in particular stood out for me though with Iron Brigade. Building Trenches and testing their mettle in the forge of battle, only to return with more loot and more combinations to experiment with meant I was stuck in that feedback loop until I had rocked every level with Kings and Mr. Pancakes. There are enough found weapon and gear combos to tailor yours to your particular play style and they’ve done a good job of making them all nearly matched in effectiveness. Still much like good food this one is best when shared with friends. After coordinating strategy and ridiculous firepower against the horde of tubular menaces you’ll have earned that victory scotch, victory cigar, and victory second scotch.
5. Bastion
So much of this wonderful game has already been written and covered here that it’s hard to imagine adding anything of meaning to the conversation. Having watched that game come together through the Building the Bastion series I was expectantly pleased with the narrative structure, quality voice acting and visual style. What I did not expect however was the elegance of the combat design and the game’s ability to cover a wide difficulty span without feeling cheap or stupid. Idols tempt you with the promise of accelerated rewards if you have the chops but they don’t come easy. Everyone weapon feels unique and effective, but not overpowered. Challenge maps force you to not only experiment with new weapons but learn their strengths and weaknesses if you hope to earn the gold. All these pieces come together to form a lovely piece of craft like so many chunks of Caelondia.
4. TerrariaHerostratus's baseThe best value for money by a country mile, Terraria had always intrigued me but I didn’t really get around to it until late in the year. I had picked it up for a song during one of Steam’s sales of insanity. While working at home I decided to try it as a palette cleanser for my mind. While I have not played Minecraft, I suspect the process is very similar to what I went through. I would get in, harvest a bit of resources, clumsily try and divine how to do anything with them, build out my shelter a little bit more and try and survive the night from the bastards that swarm when it gets dark. I may make it a few nights or only just one but I would always get exasperated at cycle and call it quits. This is where the true evil genius of Re-Logic comes in because my mind would start to imagine better defenses, better strategy and more elaborate construction and soon enough I was back in grinding resources out and zombie faces in. Before I realized what was happening I went from a sad wooden hole to a flying castle in the sky. What I really enjoy though is that the game isn’t primarily a survival game, it’s a game of exploration and challenge. Areas and boss battles that once destroyed you can be plunged and their treasures, so gratifyingly won are a sweet testament to how much your little survivalist has developed. I went from merely surviving the world to conquering it... with a jetpack.
3. Portal 2Seems like a no brainer but as a developer I have to hand it to Valve for improving on the original Portal in nearly every way. The puzzles continue to make you feel smart for solving them and the new gel elements didn’t strike me as overwrought in their design. Still what I perhaps more than the puzzles themselves were all the supporting elements. Portal 2 had more than a couple of my favorite characters this year with stellar voice actors delivering that rapier wit. Traversing through the world I found to be a fantastic example of passive storytelling. You learn the story of Aperture not just through narration or by cutscene. You witness both their vast excesses and the collapse under their own weight walking through their environments and examining their relics; never feeling forced. I was happy to soak it all in all the way up to that exquisite spike of genius that was the ending. What I really loved though was the coop. Playing with a friend working out some truly epic I-can’t-believe-that-worked puzzles together on the couch was the most fun I’ve had playing with friends I wasn’t actively seeking to destroy. Like a good book I couldn’t put Portal 2 down and I have to tip my hat once again to Valve for advancing the craft.
2. Batman: Arkham CityI’ve always felt that the key to any good action videogame is that it makes you feel like a badass while playing it. Rocksteady has created my favorite personification of this ideal with their Batman franchise. With every gliding boot to the face, strung up thug and batclaw escape up into the night, my mind is reinforcing that I am the god damned Batman and Arkham city gave me even bigger grounds for me to hunt. Combat continues to feel tight as a drum with the quickfire gadgets adding smart nuance to a deceptively simple fighting system. What surprised me the most however was just how much I enjoyed collecting every Riddler trophy and completing every challenge (including the rather devious augmented reality ones). Arkham City was the only game this year where I pulled a full on all-nighter, ticking off every last collectible box. With the hundreds of Riddler trophies I found there to be a lot less repetition in their solutions than I was expecting. I say solutions because so many of them were phrased more as puzzles rather than finding the hidden nook of the map where the designer could hide them. I relished into divining the subtle twist on my Batman talents required to get some of that sweet, sweet green. While fine, the story worked better as the sinew connecting big fights and awesome characters. Mark Hamil’s Joker and Nolan North’s Cobblepot being particular standouts here. Arkham City was a game I gorged upon and came away feeling satisfied, feeling like the god damned Batman.
1. The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimWith the odometer turning over into triple digit hours and I find myself planning more than one new character builds it’s no wonder that Skyrim tops my list this year. I have yet to find my fill of the seemingly endless world Bethesda has put together. I absolutely love games with good atmosphere and tone and Skyrim provides it in spades. Whether it’s traversing gusty snow peaks, stalking in quiet meadows or emerging from battling in a dungeon to discover a beautiful night sky lit by the northern lights set to a quiet melody it feels like there is always something new to see. I have yet to feel like any dungeons repeat themselves or to encounter a new city that I had already seen before. Skyrim is a world of discovery and immersion where each step forges my character, crystallizing their talents until I find myself satisfied with that play style and seek to view the world through a brand new lens. This I will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Exploring the world, cleansing dungeons, macing faces and rending dragons.
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The Holiday Season is upon us and we get to take over the PlayStation Blog for a day! We are going to start with a new trailer, yes after releasing inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood some of us have had some time to play some of the user generated missions, as well as catch-up on Skyrim and Uncharted 3. This trailer shows off some amazing creations with UGC… perhaps your mission is featured in the video. If you find a cool UGC mission be sure to tell us in the comments below.
Later today look for our next blog post with some unreleased concept art from inFamous: Festival of Blood and our Sucker Punch Holiday Cards. Be sure to Follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook. From all of us here at Sucker Punch have a Happy Holiday.
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It’s been a great month for inFAMOUS! inFAMOUS 2 user-generated content continues to grow at a tremendous rate: we are seeing missions that use UGC in ways we never could have imagined and the community continues to amaze us with some truly creative missions. Second, we want to thank everyone for making inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood the fastest-selling PSN game in history!
A couple of weeks ago we released an update for inFAMOUS 2 that included the 2D Cut Scene tool that was in packaged inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood. This update allows you to create your own comic book-inspired cut scenes for your missions, giving you tons of control over the types of stories you tell. To guide you through the creation process, we created a new video tutorial explaining the basics of the 2D Cut Scene tool — you can watch it below.
If you are new to UGC, be sure to watch all of our tutorials which will explain all the basics on creating a great UGC mission.
Stay tuned to infamousthegame.com and join our forums on SuckerPunch.com for future updates on inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood. Also follow us on Twitter, @SuckerPunchProd, and check out our Facebook Page.
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inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood will be available on the PlayStation Store in just a couple days. Before you can get your hands on the game, we had Billy Harper (Animation Director) and Ken Schramm (Marketing Director) pack their bags for a whirlwind three-day tour spanning 5,668 miles, two coasts, three cities, and over 20 interviews with press from North America and beyond. It was an amazing couple days of sharing the latest adventure in the inFAMOUS universe.
We have been pretty quiet about Festival of Blood, not really sharing anything since we teased you with a clip revealing Bloody Mary at PAX. Since then we have been hard at work crafting this next adventure, adding in all the last details, and finishing touches on this standalone game to make the perfect purchase right in time for Halloween. This Press Tour allowed us to pull the curtain back and give one big preview before the game comes out next week. Billy and Ken covered tons of the new features in Festival of Blood, some of which we will cover here.
With a totally new story in Festival of Blood of course we had to give Cole a totally new set of powers. One power that fans have always wanted in an inFAMOUS game has been the ability to fly, and with Festival of Blood we thought it was time to give Cole the chance to spread his wings. Bat wings that is… With a new power called Shadow Swarm. While Shadow Swarm allows you to experience New Marais, in a whole new way, it does come at the expense of the innocent people walking around in the night as you must feed upon them to fuel your flight.
Speaking of Pyre Night, all of New Marais celebrates this hallowed night by shrouding the entire city with banners, fireworks, and pedestrians dressing up in the streets. The look the of Pyre Night comes from the City Team taking the summer dreaming up the spooky street party that with surprises around every corner. The abandoned subway lines of New Marais now converted to macabre, underground Catacomb. Stepping into these dark corridors leaves anyone unsettled, even more so when you find out that Bloody Mary’s minions have been crawling around them for years.
UGC is a big part of the inFAMOUS universe, as you can see from the Cole’s Missing Mission Contest with the grand prize winner receiving a $1,000 PlayStation Store Gift Card among other prizes, and we haven’t forgotten this feature with Festival of Blood. Over the last couple months we have been listening to your feedback and playing all the missions we can from the community and the one thing we have been seeing is the desire to create strong narrative missions. To help users tell their stories we are happy to add the new 2D Cut Scene Tool with Festival of Blood that allows you to create comic book inspired cut scenes in your missions. You now can create intro sequences, provide key story details mid-mission, or end your mission with a bang. Along with the 2D Cut Scene Tool, Festival of Blood brings a whole new set of gory assets to the UGC universe and you can now design missions with as many fiends and harpies as you want.
If you haven’t had a chance to read some of the previews we have some listed below:
Be ready to download inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood on the PlayStation Store on Tuesday, October 25th in North America for $9.99. Play it with the classic Dualshock or try it out with PlayStation Move.
Stay tuned to infamousthegame.com and join our forums on SuckerPunch.com for future updates on inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood. Also follow us on Twitter, @SuckerPunchProd, and check out our Facebook Page.
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If you’ve played inFAMOUS 2, you’ll know that it comes with a complete set of mission design tools to allow you to construct your very own missions within the game. Not to mention that when you’re in the game world, you can play other’s creations for yourself to keep the inFAMOUS 2 fun going beyond the game. Some of you have shown off some real talent in creating missions, while some of you may not have had the chance to get your hands on it yet.
Now, to get ready for the release of inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood on PlayStation Network, we’re announcing “Cole’s Missing Mission,” our very first mission design contest in the inFAMOUS universe.
Think you’re an expert in creating missions in inFAMOUS 2? Now you’ve got a chance to prove it. Using the UGC tools in inFAMOUS 2, we’re challenging you to come up with a Narrative based mission that tells a unique Cole story; meaning you’ll need to apply the Narrative tag to your mission for it to be considered. The winning mission will have all the right stuff: a great Cole-centric story, all while happening within one mission (so no multiple part missions, i.e. Part 2, Part 3, etc). The level must be created after the announcement date (today), and submitted before October 22nd.
To make the cut, the level must have a user rating of 4.5 stars and have at least 15 ratings. One grand-prize winner will receive a Good and Evil Cole statue from inFAMOUS 2 , their mission featured in-game as a highlighted mission, $1,000.00 in PlayStation Store credit in the form of a voucher (voucher will be emailed to the winner’s email address that is linked to their PSN ID), a signed copy of inFAMOUS 2 by the Sucker Punch team, and the winning mission will be highlighted on the PlayStation.Blog. Two runner-ups will each have their designed mission featured in-game as a highlighted mission, $100.00 in PlayStation Store credit in the form of a voucher , and the mission highlighted on the PlayStation.Blog.
Once you’ve created and published your mission with the ‘Narrative’ tag applied, you’ll need to do the following to submit it to the contest:
- Navigate to infamousthegame.com on the internet and sign into the website with your PSN ID.
- Navigate to Community –> UGC Missions. Scroll to the bottom and select “My Published” and identify the level you want to submit.
- Select and submit the level (“Entry”) by clicking on “Submit My Mission” button.
- Submit your entry or get more info by going to the official inFAMOUS website.
Once you’ve submitted, we’ll be reviewing all qualified entries starting October 22nd, and announcing the winner on November 11th, 2011. You can read full contest rules here.
So make your “Cole’s Missing Mission”! Although it should have a narrative focus, don’t forget, it should be fun and fair to play as well. After all, inFAMOUS is known for super-hero action, so we can’t forget the fun stuff! You’ll want to have as many people review and play your mission before you submit it as well. If you need help, check out Sucker Punch’s UGC Tutorial Videos to get a grasp on the basics. Get ready for even more inFamous with the standalone PSN title inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood, coming to PSN October 25. Stayed tuned to the PlayStation.Blog for details on all things inFAMOUS!
For more details on Cole’s Missing Mission design challenge contest, see the Official Rules.
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This fall, PlayStation Move is set to deliver a new batch of compelling experiences that get you on your feet and put you directly in the game. As we mentioned to you previously, the number of PlayStation Move games released or in development have surpassed 80 titles and continues to grow. When coupled with 3D, PlayStation Move continues to set new benchmarks in immersive gameplay experiences.
Already you’ve seen AAA titles such as Resistance 3 incorporate PlayStation Move compatibility and you can expect more to come soon, including downloadable expansion packs for LittleBigPlanet 2 and inFAMOUS 2. Today, LittleBigPlanet 2 Move Pack: Rise of the Cakeling kicks things off with five giant story levels and seven side levels, making it LittleBigPlanet’s biggest Downloadable Content Pack to date. In October, we’ll really get things moving with the launch of Everybody Dance, the high-energy game that lets you and your friends dance to 40 chart-topping party hits. Also launching on the 25th is the inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood game, the single-player game that lets you experience first-hand what it’s like to wield electricity with the precise motion control of PlayStation Move. On November 15, titles such as Carnival Island, which lets you experience the joy of classic family-friendly fun with 35 carnival attractions; EyePet & Friends, the continuation of the innovative EyePet franchise which enables kids and their families to experience the magic of a virtual Pet in the real world; and Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest, which combines sword fighting, archery and throwing stars in a playful action-adventure, are sure to engage families in interactive gameplay.
Our goal here at PlayStation is to challenge gamers and create games that push the limits. Since launch, PlayStation Move continues to offer an innovative gaming experience by using realistic, high-definition gaming along with accurate, intuitive control. We’re very excited at the number of titles we continue to add to the Move arsenal and we’re looking forward to bringing you even more compelling gameplay experiences into 2012. Enjoy!
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Other additions in the update include an option to link your homemade levels together, and a peer review system for UGC missions -- which should help separate some of the wheat from the chaff while you're electrically sailing through New Marais. Check out Sucker Punch's site for more details on the patch!
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Greetings from the deck here at Sucker Punch Productions! As many of you may have heard we had an excellent panel at PAX Prime last weekend about creating our 2D cutscenes. Those lucky enough to attend got a sneak preview of a cutscene from inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood, and a free inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood t-shirt to boot. We can’t wait to share more details about Festival of Blood, so here’s the sneak peek. Let us know what you think in the comments!
If you want to know how we created these sequences you can read our detailed summary of our PAX Prime panel, A Panel on Panels: Creating the Comic-Inspired Cutscenes of inFAMOUS 2, over on SuckerPunch.com. For more updates, be sure to follow us on Twitter, @SuckerPunchProd, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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Hello there PlayStation.Blog readers! Hopefully, all of you inFAMOUS fans have had a chance to play plenty of the UGC missions since our June launch. Here’s a fun fact: Players have spent a total of 451,251 hours – or 51 years – playing those UGC missions. While those missions have kept you entertained, it’s now time for a major DLC announcement.
inFAMOUS 2 Festival of Blood will be a brand new standalone single player DLC for download via PSN. Vampires swarm New Marais, and revered superhero Cole MacGrath has been bitten. To save his soul – and the city – he has just one night to find and kill the head vampire. Featuring new missions, themed environment settings, plus new characters and enemies, Festival of Blood explores the darker side of the inFAMOUS universe. Previous inFAMOUS games will not be needed to play this DLC.
The DLC will swarm PSN in October, in time for Halloween. In the meantime, here is the first piece of high-res art and a new video teaser trailer during Pyre Night in New Marais. Enjoy!
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This was called a "brand new game available for download," which sounds more like a standalone PSN game than DLC.
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While the world’s greatest fighters were trading blows during EVO, I was scrambling to trade words with top fighting game developers who attended the tournament. In recent years, Capcom Producer Yoshinori Ono has become the face of the legendary Street Fighter series and he was on-site showing off the upcoming crossover Street Fighter X Tekken. I wanted to pick his brain concerning his friendly rivalry with Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada, his thoughts on PS Vita development, and why he chose inFAMOUS frontman Cole as an exclusive special guest for the PS3 and PS Vita versions of Street Fighter X Tekken.
PlayStation.Blog: What made you and Harada face off in the Ono X Harada video?
Yoshinori Ono, Producer, Street Fighter X Tekken: We started a tradition at last year’s Comic-con, this kind of a pro-wrestling-style rivalry. The new video is just this year’s version of our wacky rivalry. The game itself has kind of a festival atmosphere, so we didn’t want to be too serious about it. We wanted to bring Tekken fans and Street Fighter fans to the same table, and the best tool for something like that is humor.
PSB: On that note, what was the genesis of Street Fighter X Tekken? Who came to who?
Ono: It’s something we’ve both wanted to do for a long time. We’ve known each other for a long time, and years ago we’d have dinner and talk about the idea. But we were in different companies, so there was kind of an invisible wall between us…especially to combine our top brands and mix them together, that would have been unheard of a few years ago.
At one point, Capcom got out of fighting games for a little while. By the time we got back into them, I had risen within the company a bit; Harada had as well. So we have more political capital to make things happen back in the home office, so to speak. So it seemed like the right time to make something happen, and sure enough we pulled it off.
We actually set up a meeting between the presidents of both companies (Capcom and Namco Bandai). I was a little nervous — I thought they might back out or be lukewarm on the idea. Sixty seconds later, they’re shaking hands and the deal is done. So this was the right time to do this.
PSB: What are some other series that you have considered a crossover with? I know that, in the US, many fans would love to see a Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat…
Ono: I actually get a lot of requests for Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat on my Twitter feed and elsewhere. I understand why people want it, but it’s easier said than done. Having Chun Li getting her spine ripped out, or Ryu’s head bouncing off the floor….it doesn’t necessarily match.
But I’ve had a couple of dream projects in my head for a while, one being Street Fighter X Tekken, which is actually coming true. Another would be a Marvel vs DC game which would be pretty damned cool if we could ever pull it off. I’m a big comic-book fan.
Now if I can get the presidents of those two companies in the same room shaking hands, then we could get something started. I’d love to see that just as a fan!
PSB: It’s got to be tough to combine two radically different fighters; Tekken couldn’t be more different from Street Fighter. What were some ideas you had early on the process that you had to discard?
Ono: There was one feature that we gave up on, but then we brought it back: the Cross Rush combos. When you think of Tekken, it’s always been about aggression and in-your-face combos; dodging a move and then letting the opponent have it. The long Tekken combo strings…we thought, should we put them all in SF X Tekken? At first we thought, should we put them all in there? But if we did, we’d just be making a Tekken game. But we couldn’t take them all out, either, because there wouldn’t be much Tekken-ness left.
So we decided that the Cross Rush would be a good way to mix them together. You have that feel of rapid combos from Tekken, but it still feels like Street Fighter…or more precisely, a bit more Darkstalkers. But it’s sufficiently Capcom-y, so to speak. So the Cross Rush serves as a bridge between the two gameplay styles. It fits in there pretty nicely.
PSB: Tell me why you chose Cole from inFAMOUS for Street Fighter X Tekken. Did you seek him out? Are you an inFAMOUS fan?
Ono: Actually it was 50/50. I had been talking to SCE about perhaps getting Cole into one of our games because he seems well-suited to a fighting game: he’s got all of these cool moves. And it just so happened that, almost simultaneously, Sucker Punch was also wanting to do some sort of tie-in with Street Fighter. So it was a perfect storm, it was almost exactly 50/50. Luckily we could pull off the E3 announcement, which tied in nicely with inFAMOUS 2’s launch.
Here’s a little bit of behind-the-scenes info for you. inFAMOUS 2 was still in development and we didn’t have a lot of visibility into it, so our original version of Cole was mostly based on his appearance in the first inFAMOUS. Then we started talking to Sucker Punch and they showed us inFAMOUS 2 and we said, “Oh crap, he uses weapons now! We don’t have any weapons.” So we went back to the drawing board to make his moves more familiar to inFAMOUS 2 players.
It was a good collaborative process. Sucker Punch offered us a lot of information and data, so we’ve done our best to mimic the way he looks and feels. It was a fun process that’s still ongoing, but it’s been a real pleasure working with those guys.
PSB: How would you describe Cole’s play style?
Ono: If I was going to compare him to any character, it would be Seth — he has a lot of sneaky, tricky moves. I took the latest build of Street Fighter X Tekken up to Sucker Punch just before EVO, and even those guys were wondering if Cole wasn’t too strong [laughs]. So there’s still some tuning to be done. I don’t want to upset Street Fighter and Tekken fans by making the strongest character from neither camp!
PSB: What did you think of your first trip to Sucker Punch’s studio?
Ono: Actually, the impression that I got there was that it felt very Capcom-y to me, a lot like our Osaka office. Clearly these guys love games, and the dedication and energy that they put in reminds me of our Osaka office. And for an American studio, they’re in kind of a unique position in that they’ve worked on the same IP for a long time with a lot of the same time — that’s not necessarily common in America. That part is very much like Capcom. I think we can do something really special together.
All joking aside, I talked to the president of Sucker Punch while I was there about how awesome it would be if SCE, Capcom and Sucker Punch could get together and do something really cool. I plan on taking that conversation to SCE next time I’m there!
The biggest difference between Sucker Punch and Capcom is that those guys have all this free soda and cereal and snacks…Capcom’s way to cheap to do that kind of thing, we have nothing like that! [big laughs]
PSB: Have you played any interesting fighting games lately?
Ono: I’ve been playing a couple of things, and some of them make me feel a little bit bad about myself. One of the reasons we went with a tag system in Street Fighter X Tekken is because I personally loved the first Tekken Tag Tournament so much. In talking to Harada, he dropped that he thought of that in five minutes and it was a simple idea. That made me feel like a dumbass and just reinforced to me what a genius he is. I still do play Tekken Tag Tournament when I can.
I also have a penchant for wacky, over-the-top games so I’ve been playing a lot of Mortal Kombat, enjoying their Story mode. And they did such a good job with their Story mode and some of the other features that I feel like they kind of beat me in that sense. So I’m playing these other fighters and enjoying them, but sometimes it depresses me, too.
As far as upcoming games, I can’t wait to play Skullgirls. It looks like a really cool independent fighter, I’ve been on YouTube checking it out. I would love to meet that team someday, those guys seem like they know what they’re doing.
PSB: There’s obviously going to be a PS Vita version of Street Fighter X Tekken. What’s your philosophy for PS Vita development?
Ono: First of all, it’s always fun to work on new hardware and try new things….We’re doing a lot of customization and tweaking to make sure it’s as good as possible on PS Vita.
The really cool thing about PS Vita, of course, is the wealth of new features: Wifi, 3G, GPS, the gyroscope, and touch panels on both sides. There are all sorts of cool things that we can do with those. We want to take advantage of that and really encourage people to get out into the world with their PS Vita and play Street Fighter X Tekken. And we’re looking at ways to link to the PS3 version as well to get you into the habit of leading a double-life of Street Fighter X Tekken. When you’re out of the house, you play it on PS Vita and then you come home, turn on your PS3 and keep going.
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Earlier today we announced Sucker Punch Productions has officially joined Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. We’re thrilled to share the news and welcome Sucker Punch to the PlayStation family.
Brian Fleming, managing partner of Sucker Punch Productions had this to say about becoming the sixteenth studio to join PlayStation:
“We’ve enjoyed an incredible relationship with Sony that has allowed us to combine our creative design capabilities with their guidance to make some of the best franchises to hit the PlayStation platforms. Equally important, the relationship with SCE has provided us the flexibility and trust to take creative risks and invent new properties. And best of all, we get to keep doing what we do — pushing ourselves to make more innovative games and more exciting experiences for PlayStation gamers!”
We’ve worked closely with Sucker Punch for more than 12 years, bringing fan favorites like Sly Cooper series and, of course, the inFAMOUS storyline to life on PlayStation platforms. On behalf of our executive team and Worldwide Studios, I’d like to take just a moment to welcome this immensely talented group of individuals to our team. I look forward to seeing what kind of gaming magic we can make happen in the months and years ahead!
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According to Sucker Punch Managing Partner Brian Fleming, "the relationship with SCE has provided us the flexibility and trust to take creative risks and invent new properties."
Among the studio's known properties, inFamous 2 is notable for having been one of the top selling games in June. The next Sucker Punch project has not been announced, but we do know of another "acquisition" that may play a role in it: the studio was recently joined by former Halo designer Jaime Griesemer.
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Since the launch of inFAMOUS 2 there have been over 50,000 UGC missions submitted, 4.8 million UGC missions have been played totaling over 300,000 hours spent in those missions. A new UGC mission is added at a rate of one per minute and two UGC missions are started every second! Check out the map below and you can see where missions are being added in New Marais.
inFAMOUS 2 players have submitted more than 50,000 user-generated missions, played more than 4.8 million user-generated missions, and played over a total of 300,000 hours of user-generated content.
Speaking for the staff of Sucker Punch Productions, we’ve been astonished by the creativity and variety of your creations! We want to spotlight a couple of the missions that have really impressed us, all of which can be found on the Sucker Punch Featured list in-game.
The Cage“, by UGC veteran CJon, pits Cole into a vicious cage match! Step into the octagon as Cole fights against Swamp Monster and his underlings for his freedom, and watch as the crowd cheers for a winner (hopefully it’s Cole!).
In RetroSteveUK’s Invaders from Space, Militia grenadiers seek to protect their landing invaders and it’s up to Cole to protect New Marais. Recreating retro-style games with UGC tools has always been a fan favorite — just ask LittleBigPlanet fans! — and now inFAMOUS 2 fans are joining in on the arcade fun.
Billysan291′s Lost Temple of the Fire Stone plunges deep into ancient passages and tasks players to hunt for hidden treasure. Built around parkour, this UGC level has Cole doing his best impression of our favorite treasure hunter from the 80s. Don’t tell Nathan Drake!
SolidSnake1776′s Sky Fort is a battle up a twisted path to the Militia’s floating base. Platforming and battle blend together to create a fun and challenging mission that takes place in the skies high above New Marais.
TheDragonmind’s “Hand-Crafted Boss Battle” is one level that instantly caught our attention. You’ll fight a huge four-story robot — hand-built by TheDragonmind — while dodging cars attempting to avoid being stomped on. Cole has to scale this mechanical beast in a fashion reminiscent of the crazy ascents in Shadow of the Colossus. This is one level that really shows off what you can do with inFAMOUS 2′s UGC tools and makes us thrilled about the possibilities that will come in time.
Be sure to head over to infamousthegame.com and add some of the missions listed above to your queue, and explore the thousands of other UGC missions in inFAMOUS 2. For the latest news, check out infamousthegame.com,the official PlayStation.Blog, follow us on Twitter @SuckerPunchProd, or visit our Facebook page.
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And for those of you who prefer to consume user-generated content, Sony also announced a new search feature, accessible by pausing the game. You can find content by multiple search vectors, including PSN usernames. As of now, it's unclear whether you can sort by presence or absence of trucks.
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