Tone Control Ep 3: Craig Hubbard of NOLF & FEAR

[Steve]

PODCASTS ARE REAL!!!! https://www.idlethumbs.net/tonecontrol/episodes/craig-hubbard

 

In this episode of Tone Control Steve visited Seattle to talk with one of the creative minds behind classic the series No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R., and now co-founder of Blackpowder games. Hear white-knuckle tales of checking in code for a new weapon on ship day and other wild west reminiscences from one of game development's veteran creators.

 

Discover which famous Video Game Ladies are voiced by the same actress. You'll be shocked and aghast! I know I was. Well maybe just kind of surprised and think it's cool. Anyway, games!

[melmer]

Games

[Steve]

I'm gonna agree with Mington on this one.

[Dr. Proton]

Monolith had a ridiculous run between 1997 and 2005. Though the NOLF games are incredible, I think Blood is tied with Duke 3D and Doom as the best shooters ever made. Wish there was source port.

 

Awesome to hear Craig Hubbard reminiscing about the early days. What a legend!

[Steve]

Monolith had a ridiculous run between 1997 and 2005. Though the NOLF games are incredible, I think Blood is tied with Duke 3D and Doom as the best shooters ever made. Wish there was source port.

 

Awesome to hear Craig Hubbard reminiscing about the early days. What a legend!

 

Yeah! I was really excited to get to meet Craig. He was actually a super cool dude early in my career and sent me feedback on my F.E.A.R. levels. Looking forward to seeing how Betrayer continues to develop.

[tberton]

I've never played any of the games mentioned in this cast (except for I think the Blood demo when I was a kid), but I really enjoyed the cast. A few thoughts:
 

Whenever Steve says "interface with" my brain automatically fills in "the Animus." Thanks, Idle Thumbs!

 

I 100% disagree with Steve and Craig about knocked out enemies waking back up. If I knock a guy out and the game treats it like the guy is dead, it takes me out of the experience so much. It's not a dealbreaker (I still love Dishonored) but I hate it nonetheless. I feel like it cheapens the decision to go non-lethal and removes the emotional weight from killing somebody. If killing guys and knocking them out are treated the same mechanically, then the player who is deciding to kill people is doing it just for fun and its much easier for the nonlethal player to take the moral high ground, because the consequences are so few. By contrast, when unconscious enemies wake back up, it means that there is a significant cost to not killing them outright, which is much more interesting in terms of gameplay and themes. Think about it in real-world terms: if superspy Kate Archer could knock people out and know for certain that they would no longer pose a problem to her, then killing them would just make her a sociopath, wouldn't it?

 

On the topic of NOFL 2's visuals holding up, I looked up some screenshots and they do look pretty nice. I actually think a lot of games from that period hold up well visually. Nintendo games especially still look nice. Except for some low-res textures and jagged edges, Metroid Prime, Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin all look good today. And of course, Wind Waker is gorgeous.

[Dr. Proton]

Yeah! I was really excited to get to meet Craig. He was actually a super cool dude early in my career and sent me feedback on my F.E.A.R. levels. Looking forward to seeing how Betrayer continues to develop.

That's so cool! Monolith always struck me as an enigmatic studio. I mean outside of being first-person and having detailed, memorable environments, there's not a lot in common between Blood, AVP 2, Shogo, TRON 2:0, Condemned, FEAR and NOLF. 

 

As an aside, I wish someone would attempt a Shogo-like game again. It basically plays like a story-driven counter-strike, with about a third of the game taking place in a giant mech. It's brutally difficult. Since you can die with a single shot, when you get the chance to squish the formally formidable foot soldiers with your ridiculous mech power-armour, it becomes an incredibly satisfying experience. It's such a cool contrast. You can use skyscrapers as cover, turn into a vehicle, and there are nice hub-style areas where you can explore, receive side-quests and chat to npc's before returning to the shooting. 

 

[Steve]

That's so cool! Monolith always struck me as an enigmatic studio. I mean outside of being first-person and having detailed, memorable environments, there's not a lot in common between Blood, AVP 2, Shogo, TRON 2:0, Condemned, FEAR and NOLF. 

 

Yeah I think a big part of that was that they had multiple creative teams working on separate projects at the studio simultaneously. So Craig worked as a level designer on Blood, and became the lead on Shogo and NOLF and FEAR, but then AVP (except for a bit by Craig) and Tron and Condemned were all by separate teams at the company. I think their having less of a cohesive identity is probably a result of that, though all their games I think did play to their core strengths of atmospheric first-person action/story experiences overall.

[Golden Calf]

This was a seriously great interview.

[Dr. Proton]

That makes sense. I forgot that the AVP 2 team was absorbed by TRON 2:0 and NOLF 2 productions and I guess as the scale of production and number of resources required to make a game increased some of that personality suffered a bit in recent years. I wish BlackPowderGames all the best. I enjoyed the first segment of Betrayer. It's a super atmospheric first-person adventure. I'm always keen for more of that!

 

Awesome interview! The next episode is another person I've always wanted to hear interviewed. Really looking forward to it.

[jmbossy]

I was born in the early 90's, so a lot of this episode was beyond my experience. I often wish I was able to have experienced this decade of gaming, so thanks for the retrospective. Another great episode!

[OnePompousPenguin]

I don't know if this has been brought up in other episodes but could you possibly work on getting the recordings to be louder? I have my phone (Nexus 4 4.3 DogCatcher app) on speaker, full blast, and still need to hold it pretty close to my ear to hear everything. Just a small complaint, and it could just be my particular setup, but it hasn't been an issue with the other idle podcasts.

I really love these podcasts though. Do keep them coming :-)

[pabosher]

Steve, you know I love your shit. This was no different. Great stuff.

[Berzee]

If killing guys and knocking them out are treated the same mechanically, then the player who is deciding to kill people is doing it just for fun and its much easier for the nonlethal player to take the moral high ground, because the consequences are so few.

 

I like the way "Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood" handled it. Knocked-out guards would regain their senses pretty quickly, but while they were unconscious you could tie them up and gag them. After that, they could still be set free by other guards who happened upon them -- unless you had a strong character pick them up and hide them somewhere indoors, where they couldn't be found. It also handled the consequences of lethality pretty well by just giving you the choice between shooting everyone dead and being subsequently shunned by the general populace, or completing the levels mercifully (with punches to the back of the head, mostly) and seeing throngs of peasants rush to join your merry band. (I think it was a sliding scale instead of a binary choice too, so you could aim for an acceptable level of murrrder based on the difficulty of that particular mission and the current size of your gang-o'-thieves).

[tberton]

That sounds awesome.

[Jason Bakker]

Thanks a heap for this podcast, Steve. I'm getting a lot out of these discussions - the thing I love the most is how you get your interviewees thinking critically about their development process, often in a new light. It seems like in multiple episodes now I've heard the interviewees say "I'm realising this as I'm talking about it" or whatever; that's really cool.

 

Also, I feel like I'm learning heaps about design, story and production with each episode. The point about internal consistency is a very salient one; it doesn't matter how wacky your world is as long as your characters treat it seriously. Thought-provoking stuff!

[Brannigan]

Man I remember how stitched together Shogo was, still though had a lot of fun.  Was the first time I really got into the multiplayer bit of a game despite it being horrendous on dial up.  Really wish I had been able to play NOLF, pc wasn't quite good enough for it.

[Gormongous]

I bought the first No One Lives Forever because there was a hot lady with embossed boobs on the cover. I was a lot more satisfied by it than the person Craig overheard.

[feelthedarkness]

I really need to play the NOLFs. I don't know how i missed them. 

 

Another great show; I appreciate the passion for gaming history. 

[Roderick]

Fun interview, Steve. I loved hearing about the little details on NOLF2, I had so much fun with that game when it came out. Should replay it sometime soon, I have it lying around. So many great moments: the house that you mentioned, the trailer park, but I most of all remember Ice Station Evil, which was extremely frightening and atmospheric. Again, with nary any AI around.

[Bjorn]

This interview explains soooo much about FEAR for me.  I always felt really mixed about that game, like there were two seperate games there, one that I loved and one that I hated.  Hearing the story behind production makes it pretty clear how that came to be.

[sclpls]

Yeah, this episode cemented what a great podcast this is. I've never actually played any of Craig Hubbard's games, but I still really enjoyed listening to it all the same. That's not always the case with interview type shows. Steve's enthusiasm really comes through though so that goes a long way I think. I'm also glad that this episode reminded me about Betrayer, which looks really cool!

[Roderick]

Wait a minute, sclpls, are you saying that Tone Control is... the «The Third Man» of video gaming podcasts?!

[Professor Video Games]

I don't know if this has been brought up in other episodes but could you possibly work on getting the recordings to be louder? I have my phone (Nexus 4 4.3 DogCatcher app) on speaker, full blast, and still need to hold it pretty close to my ear to hear everything. Just a small complaint, and it could just be my particular setup, but it hasn't been an issue with the other idle podcasts.

I really love these podcasts though. Do keep them coming :-)

 

I had some trouble hearing at points too. I listen on my commute so I there's road noise but it's not an issue with other podcasts I listen to.

 

Anyway, like others said, this was a good interview. The NOLF games are some of my all time favorites, which made it depressing to hear how future sequels got focus tested out of existence. Also, like Craig mentioned, I felt bad when I killed guys after hearing them talk about things like their evil corporate employer's shitty benefits packages, but I loved it for making me feel bad and humanizing what were otherwise just basic fodder enemies.

[Roderick]

I gotta say that FEAR never really did it for me. After the awesome comedic trappings of NOLF, it was a shame they abandoned that for a more, (as I felt it!), cookie-cutter world. NOLF3, is that even a remote possibility at this point?