12:49 Uhr - We had the chance to chat with Derek Littlewood, Creative Director of HAZE, about aspects like new concept of Nectar, the development for nextgen consoles and his secret passion for Gitaroo Man.

Hi, would you please introduce yourself to our readers?Hi! I'm Derek Littlewood, Creative Director of HAZE! My apologies to those of you who were expecting Dr. David Doak of 'Why the hell doesn't he always appear in the same place in the facility?' fame, but he's taken a ief sabbatical to go and shout at people who are more rich and famous than he is. He'll be back soon enough.Catching you after the new E³ in Santa Monica, what are your feelings about the new concept? [DL] I asked Dave what he thought of E3, but sadly it was unprintable. Well, not entirely – he did have lots of good things to say about Ubisoft's new title 'Horsez', which apparently was his game of the show.Anyway, my own impression was that it was as noisy and annoying and exciting and hectic and surprising and disappointing as ever. There were definitely some great announcements this year – I thought all three platform holders had pretty strong, but not jaw-dropping showings – but as usual, there were so many publishers trying to show so many games that it was easy to miss the more interesting, low-key titles.Lets talk about you current Project Haze! Could you tell us in three sentences, why i should sell my grandma for this game.[DL] Because if you want four player online cooperative play through a stunningly gorgeous, shell-shockingly intense FPS this Christmas, HAZE on PS3 is the only place you're guaranteed to be able to do it.Only needed one! Do I get a prize? Oh, and don't sell your granny. Really. I mean, it'd be a terrible thing to do. Plus granny trade-in prices have really dropped lately.On many events, where you showcased Haze, your emphasis was always on morality as a big element of gameplay. Of course, other games tried this as well, thinking about Deus Ex, Fable or Splinter Cell Double Agent. What makes Haze different?[DL] HAZE doesn't present morality as a black and white decision; it's about the grey areas in between. The reality in war is that you don't get lots of clear-cut opportunities to do the 'good thing' or 'evil thing'; every soldier on a battlefield is some mother's son and neither side believes they're the 'bad guys'. It's all a matter of perspective – and perspective is what HAZE is all about.Mantel plays a big and sinister role in Haze, are there any real life companies that inspired your picture of Mantel?[DL] Although it's set in the future, there's a lot about HAZE's plot that isn't science fiction at all; there are real-life parallels for just about every part of it. You'll have to draw your own conclusions about what they are though!Nectar is very important in Haze, first as a supporting drug, later as weak spot on your enemies. Can you describe the creative process in your development-team, that lies behind the gameplay-idea of nectar? [DL] Nectar has a very strong role to play in the narrative of the game but for that to really have resonance for the player, it wasn't going to be enough for it to be just something that gets mentioned from time to time; we wanted the player to use it, and more than that, we wanted them to need it, to yearn for it whenever they ran out.This is why we've endowed nectar with such a potent range of abilities – abilities such as nectar foresight, which allows you to anticipate danger before it even happens, like a sixth sense - and have developed a range of visual and audio effects that really make using nectar a 'buzz'. We want the player to feel addicted to using it, because when the narrative kicks in and reveals nectar's true purpose, the player won't just stop using it, they'll hate it, and they'll hate Mantel for making them use it. That way when you start exploiting the weaknesses of nectar to take the fight back to Mantel, it's all the more satisfying.A movie director once told, that the best way to show the audience of a cinema the terror of war, is to pick up a machine gun and shoot into the people. In which way could Haze deliver new impressions about being a soldier?[DL] The most important thing to realise about depicting the horror of war in a game is; you can't. War is a terrifying, hellish situation; playing a game is sitting on your sofa in your nice warm house with a controller in your hand. There's a gap there you're never going to be able to close, which I think is what that Director is saying, too.But just because you can't make the player feel the full intensity of war doesn't mean videogames can't say something interesting about it, although to be blunt, traditionally they don't. Traditionally they tend to say something like 'Look, this is war – this is a place where everyone's a hero and the good guys always win out over the evil bad people'.When you start HAZE, you'll probably feel like that too – but not for long.Its current knowledge, that developing for next-gen consoles is an expensive business. Could you compare the development process of Haze with the past experiences of Time Splitters or Second Sight?[DL] This time the whole team had to spend a lot longer busking on the street raising money before we could start making it. Fortunately for us, several weeks in, Dave was in the middle of an hour-long ocarina solo that sounded so awful a passing Ubisoft exec offered the company the deal to make HAZE just to get him to shut up. We were all most relieved. Mainly because Dave had stopped playing.HAZE is a far bigger and more complex beast than anything we've ever worked on before. Fortunately we also have the most unbelievably talented team I've ever worked with making it, so it's in good hands!As the game Haze was announced at the E³ 2006, it was classic multi-platform title. Now, it is ps3 exclusive for a certain amount of time. Could you tell us something about the decision to position this game as PS3 exclusive?[DL] If you've spent two years working hard on something, you want to make sure it has a great chance of being noticed by gamers; PS3 this Christmas is that chance for HAZE. The PS3's a cracking machine, and I think HAZE will be one of the first titles to really show just what it can do.How is working with the PS3 devkits?[DL] Much like working next to a large black box that's hot enough to fry an egg on.Being a member of Rare once, what are your feelings about Perfect Dark Zero? [DL] Er, I wasn-oh, right. That one was for Dave, right? Well, as it happens, I asked Dave about PDZ recently, and he said he thought it was slightly underrated and had some nice touches. But he still prefers Horsez overall.Are there any chances, to see a Time Splitters 4 in the near future?[DL] Yes! I can guarantee that it'll not only knock your socks off, but also wash them, iron them, stitch your name into them, fold them neatly like your momma used to, and put them in the drawer next to your bed ready for the morning!So basically it's TimeSplitters but with added home economics skills – we're going to put that on the box!What game makes you yell „Damn! Why didn`t I come up with this Idea first?“[DL] Shadow of the Colossus.If you could turn one game into reality, in which game do you wanna live? Playboy the Mansion is disqualified![DL] Easy – Gitaroo Man. That way I could play ridiculous guitar solos to a stadium packed full of people every night before seducing the lovely Kirah with my acoustic noodling skills.Thank you very much for your precious time and keep up the good work![DL] Thank you! I should probably go now!Best wishes from Germany.[DL] Best wishes from England! How's the weather over there? It's very rainy here!