SHADOWMAN
PC Zone Supplement, July 1997
The developers of Shadowman are pulling no
punches with this bizarre and shockingly different 3D adventure. We talk to them about
games, voodoo and all things weird.
Introduction
This is a journey into voodoo, a journey which along the way will encompass many
disturbing sights and thoughts. Welcome to the wonderful and frightening world of Shadowman...
with Steve Hill. Bring your own live chicken.
"We want to screw people's heads up." As premises for games go, this ethos is
certainly a cut above the bog standard intention of 'providing hours of zany
entertainment', and is a refreshingly honest approach. The man behind the mouth is Guy
Miller, creative director of Shadowman, and he is deadly serious. "What we've tried
to do is come up with a psychologically disturbing game. I mean really seriously tried to
put some seriously strange shit in there."
The game is being developed by Iguana UK, based in the bleak urban wasteland of
Stockton-On-Tees in Cleveland. Simon Phipps is the Project Manager/Game Designer, and he
has similarly sinister intentions for the game they're all calling Shadowman.
"We're trying to take all the really sort of upsetting stuff, the most upsetting
stuff that you possibly can, and put it into a video game. The only thing that you can do
really well in a video game is scare the pants off anybody."
Guy takes up the theme: "You can't make them cry - you can make them cry if they buy
a £50 video game and it's shit - but you can't engage the player so much that he's
weeping about the characters, because you can't get that sort of involvement really. But
you can, like Simon says, scare the shit out of everybody. So that's what we're trying to
do, and we're doing it in the sort of way Jacob's Ladder did. In that sort of
psychological way - well hopefully - because of that total immersion you get in video
games where the player actually believes he's right in there. And because you're on your
own. Completely."
That's macabre
For those unfamiliar with 1990's Jacob's Ladder, it's a disturbing psychological thriller
starring Tim Robbins as a Vietnam veteran bedeviled by violent hallucinations. It's a
genuinely disturbing film, particularly to anyone who has consumed their own bodyweight in
lysergic acid, and if Shadowman comes anywhere near to capturing that macabre atmosphere,
it will be some feat. Iguana are definitely going for a dark, twisted approach, and other
cinematic influences cited include Seven, Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Manhunter, and Eraser
Head, although crypto-gothic chiller Herbie Goes Bananas would appear to have been
tragically overlooked.
Films aside, Shadowman also doffs its cap to gaming classics such as Myst, Legend
Of Zelda and Super Mario 64, and visually to the paintings of Bacon, Bosch and Bruegel.
Other influences claimed include the poetry of TS Elliot - specifically The Wasteland and
The Hollow Men - as well as the works of Joseph Campbell, and intensive studies in the
fields of psycho-sexual pathology and forensic psychiatry. Hey, one of the programmers has
even written his own poetic creation (see Poem from a Programmer).
It's in the game
Loft pretensions indeed, but how ill this serious strangeness come across in the actual
game? Based on the Acclaim Comics/Valiant Heroes character of the same name, Shadowman
is essentially a third-person, 3D horror adventures set against the mysterious backdrop of
voodoo mythology. The player takes the role of Mike LeRoi, and English Literature graduate
turned hired assassin (let's face it, proper jobs are pretty thin on the ground for
English Literature graduates). Operating within the seedy underworld of New Orleans - a
city synonymous with voodoo, as utilised by the first Gabriel Knight adventure - Mike has
the ability, at will, to cross over into Deadside, a form of hell where all the worst
people go. Here he becomes Shadowman, an immortal voodoo-warrior with astonishing powers.
Shadowman, you're hard
Simon explains: "The whole point about Shadowman from the comics is that he
can exist in our world at night, or he exists in the world of the dead where he is
all-powerful. So we're sort of working the contrast between this human, vulnerable guy,
who's pretty hard - he's an assassin, he's an English Literature graduate."
Guy intervenes: "But he ain't as hard as Shadowman,
who is actually really hard."
So it's a battle between good and evil?
Guy: "Fundamentally it is, yes. But it's not quite so black and white as that,
there's a grey area in there somewhere, because there always is. Well, there always is,
isn't there? I mean philosophically there is, and that's in there as well somewhere."
4ad3dcd
Philosophically withstanding, the game's specifically created 3D VISTA (Virtually
Integrated Scenic Terrain) engine utilises Binary Space Partition technology, allowing
potentially limitless game environments that let the player see, often literally, as far
as the horizon. All characters are depicted using a highly advanced 'softskin' system
which allows them to be accurately depicted. They also feature realistic muscular
definition and deformation effects, and are brought to life using Acclaim's motion capture
technology and fluid 3D animation.
Simon explains the thinking behind the game design: "When we started the whole thing,
the thing that me and Guy were so adamant about was that we didn't want to be going from
room to room - or into opened-out rooms with the ceiling missing. We want you to turn
around and say 'Right, see that over on the horizon, I want to go in there'. So whether
it's a church, like we have in the beginning of the game, through to a mile-high black
citadel in Deadside, you can stand out there, see it, and just keep walking and walking
and get in there, or come out the other side."
Voodoo chile
The whole Shadowman concept is heavily wrapped up in voodoo, and some disturbing rumours
have circulated regarding the involvement of some of the development team. So, was there
much research into voodoo? Guy: "Oh yes." On a practical level? Guy: "Well,
we got an altar. But I think it was getting a bit out of hand." This kind of talk is
liable to add fuel to the fire of the moronic moral majority who believe that games are
the warped product of Satanic degenerates. In this case they may have a point. Inevitably,
there will be people who say that voodoo is a dangerous subject that shouldn't be tampered
with. Guy concurs: "Probably not, probably not. I think that it's one of those things
like ouija boards were at one time. You just don't want to mess with that really. You're
not supposed to mess with it. But we have done."
Core Blimey
Before becoming sinister voodoo fetishists, both Guy and Simon previously worked at Core
Design on the smash hit Tomb Raider, and elements of that game are definitely
evident in Shadowman, although staring at the arse of a voodoo-warrior may not
have quite the same aesthetic appeal as perusing the curves of the ubiquitous Lara
Croft.
Guy readily admits the influences: "We'd been talking about doing this type of game
for a long, long time. A lot of the original ideas for Tomb Raider were quite complex,
which they couldn't do within the time. So what we've basically done is to take some of
those ideas that we originally talked about and put them into this game.
Ashley, I say Ashley
Throughout the interview, Guy displays a conversational trait in common with Coronation
Street's rotund master butcher Fred Elliot, in that he says everything twice,
everything twice. "It's weird, it's weird. It's a very weird game. You explore, you
kill, you get scared. There's puzzles - when I say puzzles, it probably involves a human
corpse. We've taken everything and tried to blow it, blow it away, turn it on it's
head." It's A Knockout Summer Special it isn't. What it is, though, is a
sinister, menacing, headfuck of a game. Shadowman should be making its way onto
your PC in Autumn 1998. Assuming voodoo doesn't get them first.
Return to Press
Clippings Index
|
That'll be your actual Shadowman then. Not
someone to be messed with.
|
