Interview with Raven's Jake Simpson
Posted by @ 3:27 PM, EST
Voodooextreme smacked up an interview with Raven's Jake Simpson. They discussed the PS2 a bit…
Here’s a slice:

"VE: Let's talk about the Playstation 2 a little bit. What do you think is the biggest and baddest feature of the Playstation 2? Would you say that the PS2 is going to blow all of its competitors away?

JS: The PS2 is a really nice piece of engineering. Design wise it's what the Sega Saturn should have been. I think the baddest feature is one of two things. The Phenomenal pixel rate of the graphics engine, which has to be seen to be believed and the Multiple vector unit processor architecture. With the right frame of mind and right frame work of code, these babies will chew up and spit out polygons like no tomorrow. We are going to see some damn pretty games on it, that's for sure.

I wonder though if eye candy might be what some games will be sold on. Just because they look nice doesn't mean they will all play nice. The PS2 will not blow all the competition away I don't think, because by the time we see it, the DreamCast will have established a nice little foothold in the industry as a whole. Look at the Playstation versus the N64 right now. There is no way you can compare the technology between the two, the N64 is way ahead, but that doesn't mean that the playstation will just vanish. Far from it. Traditionally there has always been room for at least two consoles on the market, sometimes even three, so I don't think the end is in sight for Sega just yet. It's all about the quality of the games rather than how much in advance the technology is, and right now, the DreamCast is going from strength to strength in that department.

Now of course the Microsoft X box may upset the cart a little. I can't talk about it here for NDA reasons, but lets just say I think it's safe to say that people are going to sit up and take Microsoft's gaming aspirations seriously when it does appear.

VE: Currently, what are Raven Software's plans for the Playstation 2? Any hope of a Soldier of Fortune port? What about for Elite Force?

JS: Much as I would like to I can't really go into too much detail here. And it's not because we are being tight lipped, it's more to do with decisions about which direction we want to take. Currently we are juggling about 3 or 4 different idea's in the air while we explore the technology. Once we've made a decision, I'm sure our glorious leader Brian Raffel will announce it to the world.

Port wise I think we are exploring the possibility of a Sega Dreamcast version of SOF. We haven't decided on any playstation2 ports simply because it's all so new right now. Once it's out there, and the technology is more proven I'm sure this will all be revisited. For Elite Force, well, it's just so far down the pike right now that no one is committing to anything. Traditionally games have to sell a set number of games in the PC arena before they are considered for a port. We will just have to see what happens there. Mind you, it would be nice to see Elite Force on the PS2 I've no doubt :)"
Full interview