Criterion Studios is a UK-based developer with a pretty impressive lineage. Its parent company, Criterion Software, is a subsidiary of Canon and the force behind the Renderware middleware package, which forms the foundation of a great many high-profile games--Ubi Soft's Rayman Revolution and Midway's upcoming Mortal Kombat 5, among others. The studio has worked on games with regularity for several years, all of which have been immensely impressive, from a technological standpoint. Its latest project, titled Airblade, is proof that the studio has considerable design chops as well. The game revolves around the enticing concept of a gravitationally liberated skateboard and is a loose follow-up to Trickstyle--that well-intentioned Dreamcast launch title. Its form, however, bears a much closer resemblance to modern boarding titles than it does to its "predecessor." Recently, we convinced Criterion's creative director Paul Glancey to talk about the game at considerable length. He was happy to clarify the game's relation to its lineage: "The only thing Airblade shares with Trickstyle is the fact that the player rides on a floating board. Aside from that, they're very different games. Trickstyle was primarily a racing game, and Airblade's gameplay is much more mission- and trick-based, and it's set in a much more contemporary (not futuristic) world."

Throw a hoverboard in a 20th century environment...

The game was compelling at first sight, and anyone present at this year's E3 will attest to the level of polish that Airblade exhibited on display. Not to downplay the technical achievements of its predecessor, but Airblade easily seemed leagues above Trickstyle in almost every conceivable respect. "Obviously, there is a whole load of technical improvements, because our engineers and designers are a bit more experienced since they finished Trickstyle back in 1999. But the most notable improvement, I think, aside from just having better graphics, sound, gameplay depth, etc., is that we've gone to great efforts to make the game easy to pick up and play, so players can have fun, look cool, and get spectacular rewards very quickly. A lot of players found Trickstyle frustratingly difficult when they first started playing, and that counts heavily against the game," Glancey told us. Clearly, a whole lot of thought and time went into the development of Airblade--resources that few studios have easy access to. Luckily for Criterion, it seems to be well positioned enough to have ready supplies of both.

The game tells the story of Ethan, a hotshot skater, whose friend Oscar worked at a certain GCP Corporation. Oscar happened to invent a hoverboard while simultaneously working on a secret project for the GCP Corporation. During the course of his research, Oscar found a way of generating unlimited energy via force field technology. Upon learning the results of his research, the GCP Corporation feared a loss in profits, because the new discovery would threaten to collapse the oil market. The decision was made to fire Oscar, but the corporation wasn't able to enact its will: Oscar managed to escape the building with his prototype hoverboard before the company's security got a hold of him. Nevertheless, he was soon found and subsequently whisked away, to whereabouts unknown. Ultimately, it's up to Ethan--who managed to hold on to the hoverboard, called "Airblade"--and his friends to find Oscar and free him from the corporation. In particular, a crackpot computer specialist named Kat provides Ethan with much help in his quest to find Oscar. Clearly, one of Airblade's most distinct properties is its story--or, more specifically, the fact that it focuses pretty heavily on it.

...and madness will ensue.

"Lots of people ask this, and yes, it is unusual, and we've taken a few risks to do it. The obvious answer is that it clearly differentiates Airblade from competing products. In addition, though, we did think that if you gave people this amazing piece of kit and stuck them in a regular skate-game location like a schoolyard or a shopping mall or whatever and said, "Off you go and do some tricks!" that would have been pretty crappy. This Airblade is an absolutely awesome piece of gear! It's an antigravity skateboard! So it's bound to be the cause of some greater excitement in the gameworld. We really wanted to make it and the characters surrounding it the stars of the show, so we created this story. That said, we didn't really want the story to be massively overblown and intrusive. We just wanted it to provide the background to some really excellent and extraordinary trick-based action that's more exciting than you'd find in any other game," said Glancey. The trick, of course, is to wrap these elements around an engaging game design in a nonintrusive way.