Treyarch’s Gregory John swings in to chat about Spider-man 3: The Game
By Michael Lafferty

“The power of the next-generation systems meant we could infuse our huge city with incredibly fine detail”

When last we left our hero …

No, wait, that won’t do …

He’s baaaac … whoops, too cliché!

Well, truth be told, only Stan Lee could do an intro to the next Spider-man movie and game justice, because the game is huge, exciting and an extremely visceral experience. GameZone was on hand in San Francisco for a pre-release event for the game, but now we get to delve a little more into the title and what went into the making of it.

Spider-man 3: The game, from Treyarch and Activision, is the biggest Spidey game to date – featuring more bosses, more territory to cover, a new combat system, a sandbox mission system, and “epic” “cinematic” moments.

As great as the game looked during the S.F. event, GZ wanted to know more, so we were hooked up with Gregory John, the senior producer at Treyarch, for a little chat.

Question: The next generation of gaming machines must have thrown the doors wide open for you in terms of what you would be able to achieve within the game. What was the first thing you knew must be realized to keep the game in line with the next-gen idea?

Gregory: It most definitely did throw the doors wide open. First and foremost we applied the new power to making the gameplay even more dynamic and awesome. We were able to give players more city, more moves, more enemies, more variety – all providing a bigger, more intense experience. Areas like combat and city environment and population have really been blown wide open.

Q: You have markedly expanded the terrain which our favorite Web-head can use as a 'playground?' What were the graphical priorities when creating the above and underground sections of the game?

Gregory: The power of the next-generation systems meant we could infuse our huge city with incredibly fine detail. It also meant we could expand the playground a lot – to give a much greater variety of setting such as the sewers and subways. The city is no longer just a backdrop for our great web-swinging system – it’s a fundamental component in some of our most elaborate missions.

Q: Tell us a bit about the new combat systems and why you felt it important to rewrite what previous games had done.

Gregory: Moving from the previous game to this one, we made sure to preserve what was really cool and revolutionary, like the web-swinging system. We wanted to bring the entire game to that level, and combat was exactly the system to showcase how much cooler we could make Spider-Man 3. The new combat system is over the top: fast, frenetic, and fun. We use the power of the next generation systems to amp up the intensity and variety of the combat moves and really make the web powers integral to the combat.

Q: The movie introduces a wealth of "mob" bosses (to put it in gaming terms) and yet you went ahead and created three non-movie gangs for Spidey to contend with. What was the reasoning behind creating more opponents? Did the wide-open mission format dictate this?

Gregory: In making the city more rich and varied, we created three very distinct gangs for Spider-Man to interact and contend with. The player will need to discern each gang’s (and within each gang, each type of enemy’s) particular strengths and weaknesses in order to most effectively fight them. We push this even further by having several more enemy types beyond gangs that Spidey encounters in the missions and in the city. On top of all that, we have playable black-suited Spider-Man, which features a totally unique set of way more powerful combat moves. This will be the first time that players get to fully play as both Spider-Man characters in a video game.

Q: Speaking of the wide-open missions format, why did you decide to create this scheme, and will Spidey actually have to accomplish certain tasks in order to unlock the boss battles (though you allow players to dictate their own pacing through the game)?

Gregory: Yes, we allow for a very broad range of missions at the same time, so the player chooses which storylines and city missions to progress in at any given time. We have 10 storylines and they run concurrently and weave together at specific points, so the player definitely can dictate their own pace through the game. For example, once you acquire the black-suit, there’s a whole suite of missions that open up, all specifically designed to be played with the darker, more aggressive and powerful suit.

Q. How hard is it to implement character models that look like screen personalities, not to mention the cinematic moments you have created?

Gregory: This is our third Spider-Man movie game with the movie makers and we’ve had great support from them. With the next-gen systems, we’ve really been able to do justice to the actors’ images and we’ve been able to model our in-game assets on the actual CG assets from the movie. No other Spider-Man game has ever been as visually so close to the movie as Spider-Man 3.

Q: How many hours of gameplay is there and are there any multiplayer modes?

Gregory: I wouldn’t want to give a final or specific number, but I can say with confidence that this game has well over 12 hours of story missions alone and that is not even counting the huge number of crime-fighting activities and challenges in the city. This is the largest and most robust Spider-Man game ever made.

Q: What is your favorite aspect of this game, given the new capabilities you were able to work with in creating it?

Gregory: I think my favorite aspect is the huge variety of missions and the depth of each of them in comparison to past products. No more balloon saving for us.

Q: What one villain would you like to see Spidey contend with in a sequel?

Gregory: Well… I think we’ve unleashed a collection of Super Villains in this game that the player will be very excited about.  Let’s see what the fans think in May – then we’ll start thinking about future baddies to include in other potential projects.

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