MediEvil 2 Preview

MediEvil was always one of those games that people tend to remember fondly. The truly bizarre skeleton-hero with the glimmery name of Dan Fortesque had to save the world from the evil Lord Zarok. But what was it all about, and what is the sequel going to be like? After all, as one of the PlayStation's more pleasant surprises, a sequel would, hopefully, warrant new ideas and innovations. We sat down with Sony-Cambridge's James Shepherd, the creative director of MediEvil 2, to find out more about the crazy knight who definitely has no weight problems to worry about.

MediEvil was set in the legendary land of Gallowmere, in the Dark Ages of history. Lord Zarok, an evil demonic sorcerer, attempted to conquer Gallowmere by casting the Spell of Eternal Darkness. The result was an army of undead creatures that ruled the country and caused fear and darkness to rise up across the land. But by casting the spell, he also unwillingly awoke our long-lost hero, Sir Dan Fortesque, who then took on the challenge of defeating Zarok and his evil army. Of course, he succeeded at the end of the game, and Lord Zarok died in his collapsing, castle, and the magic book, which included the evil spell, was thought to be lost in time for good.

The second part of the game is set 500 years after the first game. You're in London in 1888, and the Victorian age is in full swing as new industries forge wealth throughout the empire. Everybody in the country seems to be happy except for one man, Lord Palethorn - an arch criminal, evil magician, and high-society wannabe. He is going for a goal much higher than the ones of the usual citizens. He discovers some pages of Zarok's old spell-book. Of course he tries the spells out and discovers that the spells work, indeed. As he realizes he is getting more powerful, he casts the Spell of Eternal Darkness, and, as in the first game, an army of undead start to take over London. From there, he prepares to take on the world.

The situation is clear: Poor Sir Dan Fortesque needs to save the world all over again because Lord Palethorn doesn't seem to learn lessons well. So Dan takes his sword and goes on the quest to find Lord Palethorn and the missing pages of the book, because once the magician finds them, he will be able to dominate the world. So it ends up being a race against time.

At Sony Cambridge, they were all hoping to make a sequel one day. James Shepherd comments: "As Dan goes back to his grave at the end of the first game, we knew it would be set in a different time period - the only question was when. We didn't want to get accused of doing 'MediEvil 1.5,' so we decided to go for something radically different. We quickly settled on the Victorian era, the birthplace of all things Gothic, and the perfect location and inspiration for our 'Comedy Gothic' game." When a game is as good as MediEvil, the expectations of the public about a second game are very high. As a consequence, the pressure is massive, but the team naturally wants to top its own achievements. "The main pressure to improve on the original comes from within the team itself," explains Shepherd. "You always want to improve on your existing games. The things you never got time to put in, or would have done differently, you can address in a sequel.

"We started on the sequel shortly after the first game was released. Everyone within the studio loved Dan, but we weren't sure whether the public would like him. He's no oil painting, and, being a skeleton, he doesn't have the hourglass figure of certain other game characters in the action-adventure genre. Luckily, people loved him, so we got the chance to turf him out of his grave to save the world once again."

A recent trend in the industry is developers not having enough time to finish a game (Daikatana anyone?). As a consequence, developers tend to drop a lot of ideas in order to deliver the title on schedule. The latest and most apparent example of this is Soul Reaver, where material found on the CD never appeared anywhere in the game. Naturally, one of the reasons is the creative spirit within a team, which never stops making up new stuff to implement in a game. That is one of the reasons why many teams need to drop ideas at the end. So, was there material that couldn't be implemented in the first MediEvil game?

"Loads of stuff," explains Shepherd. "To tell you everything would be to give too much away. We always wanted to get some other playable characters into the game and to play on the fact that Dan's a skeleton. Also in our game, he wakes from five hundred years in the grave, so we thought a bit of love action would cheer him up."

One of the strongest parts of MediEvil was the very intelligent puzzles. There was a lot of exploration required for the player to get through the levels, and the brain cells got to exercise too. However, the puzzles were simply great and offered many shiny details, which gave the game a lot of long-term fun.

"The thing we found most people enjoyed about the first game was the integrated mix of puzzle solving, exploring, and good old-fashioned bashing heads in. We want to keep the same game style as the original's but improve on all the above areas. If you like killing things, the fighting and the weapons are better. If you like exploring, with our new, modular loading, we have created levels up to three times as big as the original game," continues Shepherd. "Finally, if you like solving puzzles, there are some real "brain teasers" in store for you that will quite literally have you ripping your head off." One of the biggest changes in the sequel is that there will be three playable characters in the game. Dan quite literally loses his head in one of the earlier levels of the game. This rather painful inconvenience actually gives him a whole range of new abilities. The first of these is Dan-hand's. Without giving too much away, remember the hands that ran around making a nuisance of themselves in the first game? This time, Dan can actually use them as Dan-hands to solve puzzles and explore new areas. When Dan is in Dan-hand mode he can switch to headless Dan, and the two characters have to cooperate to get through the trickier areas of the game, solving puzzles for each other. Dan-kenstein (as in “Frankenstein”) is a version of Dan you get midway through the game for a one-off level, his name should give you a clue to what he's like. He doesn't have weapons as such, but he possesses a wicked left hook."

Every level within MediEvil 2 will have its own style and tasks to solve. "There isn't a really typical MediEvil 2 level. From fighting giant bone demons, to exploring the streets of "Old London town," we've tried to make every level offer the player something different and exciting," says Shepherd.

"My favourite is the level Dan-kenstein, where you have to collect body parts for one of the Mad Professor's experiments. Dan is in a race against time to kill a number of bizarre mutants to get the bits of body he needs. When you see what you have to kill to get the 'bum,' you'll see why it's my favourite level."

Sounds weird? That's right. And if you thought Dan Fortesque would stick to the same weapons as in the first game then you are definitely wrong. "Dan's weapons have been given a total overhaul - he still has the best weapons from the first game; you'll still be squashing things flat with the hammer and chopping things to bits with your trusty sword. We want to add more variety to the weapons and greater diversity to the ways enemies react to them. When I say you will be blowing away fat bearded women with a steam-powered Gatling gun, that's how bizarre it's going to get."

Technologically, MediEvil 2 is also going to have new features. As mentioned, the levels will be bigger, but their size caused some problems within the level design. "The hardest part of the development has been deciding which level ideas were 'crazy funny,' and which ideas were just plain crazy. We wanted to make the sequel as good as possible; We recoded a lot of the core technology, so in some ways it was like starting from scratch. The results speak for themselves, though - bigger levels, better enemy logic, and more moves for Dan. The easy part of doing a sequel is that you already have the character, and you know people are going to like him."

Sounds like the team behind MediEvil are a bunch of crazy guys who are trying to create the ultimate game for the PlayStation. But is it really always fun? "Development isn't a barrel of laughs. The funniest things tend to happen when we socialize after work, and the programming team tries to chat up girls; but it's funny-sad rather than funny." As the era of the PlayStation might soon find an end with the appearance of the PlayStation2, it's of course very likely that development on a next-generation MediEvil could be well on the way. "It is highly unlikely Dan will be back on the original PlayStation. As for Fortesque on the PlayStation2? Personally, I would love to bring him back. I've grown quite attached to the bony little bugger. It's really up to the great game-buying public. If he proves to be a hit again, then anything's possible."

After hearing all the crazy things about Dan Fortesque and his quest that leads him through the Victorian Age, we just wonder how weird it can get and if there is anything that James Shepherd would wish to come true in a possible third game, no matter how likely or unlikely the realisation is. "By the end of MediEvil 2, after saving the world again, I think he deserves a little leisure time. A nice sunny holiday in the Caribbean would be ideal; after all, he doesn't have to worry about getting sunburned. As for his next adventure, I'd like to see Dan in America, on his giant Harley Davidson, pulling chicks, flaunting the law, getting his kicks on Route 66," jokes Shepherd.

It looks like our little skeleton mate is riding on the wave of success for the time being, and if Sony Cambridge can deliver the adventure the way it seems it is going to, then we can all expect a brilliant adventure by the time it is released next Easter. The combination of puzzle-solving and exploration could be the magic combination that makes punters run into the shops to buy the game. If Sony can only halfway match its promises, then we can expect a truly interesting piece of software next year. Looks like the new millennium will bring some new pearls of interactive entertainment. We recently had a chance to sit down with an early copy of MediEvil 2, and what struck us the most was how the game's puzzles have been integrated into gameplay. In the first MediEvil, each level had two or more main puzzles for each stage. Now it seems there are many smaller puzzles you come across before being able to move on. The demo copy we played only had a small number of levels in it, so there may be larger puzzles present as well later on. Either way, we're glad to report that the puzzles - the original's best feature - appear to be as fun as they were before.

The graphics and sound don't look noticeably improved over the first game but don't seem any lower in quality either. New weapons, such as an old-fashioned gun, were present, and the chalice quests from the first MediEvil have returned. All in all, things are looking good. We're looking forward to getting our hands on a more complete copy of the game so we can see more.