PLAY Magazine Interview with Mark Lamia

[m12]

Hey, I was just reading a short article in PLAY, and it has an interview with Mark Lamia, it has some interesting stuff in there. I can't remember if scans are allowed or not, so I thought I'd type it up and post it.

What was so appealing to you about black ops?

Nothing they did could be known about, so for us it was just this totally fertile ground. And creating something in this era, doing Call of Duty: Black Ops, it was a totally ownable space for us to create this game. It was all inspired by what could have happened, or what did happen, or what we didn't know about what happened. What people think they know about this period is definitely not everything and is probably wrong.

And you also met with some former Studies and Operations Groups members. Did they make it sound like suitable territory for a game?

What they told us is that they would literally go into the armoury and then pick what they wanted, much like we would do... it's anything but a videogame, but as soon as they start talking about that stuff, you can imagine as game makers, we're like, 'wow, that's the kind of thing we like to do before we think about our levels'. We like to think about what weapons we want for this level and everything else.

Could they really do some of the stuff in the game like overruling officer's orders and commandeering vehicles?

That was kind of inspired by... literally, if you needed to, you could commandeer a general's jeep. You could really stop him at the road and take the jeep. They had identification so people would know they were SOG, and even a general would have to obey that.

And do you have reason to believe that SOGs might actually have been operating behind Soviet lines during 1968?

Clearly that would be a black operation if that actually occurred. And you don't know that it did or did not occur because, well, that's classified.

Did you meet with any 'enemies' as well?

On the other side, we met with some Soviet Spetsnaz. They came from a completely different perspective during the whole Cold War era. They talked about their training - you never knew that there were so many different uses for a shovel. Everything from a culinary piece to cook your food to the most lethal weapon you cold imagine to what it was actually intended for. There was something like a hundred different ways to use just a shovel.

The only levels you've shown us so far have taken place in 1968. Will the game cover a broader period of time than that?

1968 is an important period for our story - there is a large portion of the game that does thread through that. However, I can tell you that the game does span a larger portion of time. It's not just about one location and it's not just about one year, it is about a larger period of time. I don't want to share with you the entire timeframe because it's actually part of the Black Ops storyline.

Oh, go on...

Our trailer gives you some info to piece together on how we might tell a larger period of time story. When you dissect it, it shows quite a few images. It may flash quickly, but when you slow it down, there's quite a bit there.

[kuoguy]

which trailer is he talking about?

good work, brains for u

*crap, cant give you brains because yuo were the person i gave some to last time, lol

[m12]

I think he means the single player trailer, it's the only one I can think of that has all the different images, such as the missiles launching, etc.