“ONE” Spectacular Fighter Is All You Need 

by Louis Bedigian

“You have more than 300 possible combos you are able to perform in the three different stances.”

Do you have what it takes to be the one?  What about the one?  The one that makes people sit up and take notice.  The one that will have gamers asking, “Is there a number two?”  The one called…ONE.

Developed exclusively for the N-Gage game deck, ONE is a powerful, polygon-laden, full-3D fighting game with enough kick to make the competition quiver.  Coming this fall, ONE is one of those games that’s destined to become attached to your hands the second it’s released.

Featuring true 3D controls, graphics, and a serious combo system, it’s easy to see where the game’s simple (but highly appropriate) title came from.  Customize your fighters.  Change their body type, skin tone, whatever you like.  Battles take place in real, underground locations.  Who knows – you could end up fighting on a street that isn’t that different from your own. 

Don’t take my word for it though.  It’s up to Xavier Carrillo Costa, Game Director and Digital Legends Entertainment CEO, to get everyone excited about ONE’s release.  And that’s just what he’s done.

ONE is the first true, entirely original fighting game designed for N-Gage.  How did you do it?

Xavier Carrillo Costa: From the very beginning Digital Legends Entertainment and Nokia have shared a common vision of designing a 3D fighting game especially for the N-Gage that takes advantage of its specific features such as Bluetooth for multiplayer.  The initial challenge was also to push the device to its limits in terms of graphical technology to obtain a very appealing and realistic look for the game. We also had to prove that it was possible to get a good response time when fighting through via Bluetooth connection.

The key has been to have a PC approach for the development (same techniques but adapted to the N-Gage), focusing on what we could take advantage of from the device and porting our technology and game play to it.

What technology does the game run on?

XCC: We have technology that was built especially for the N-Gage platform. Our previous experience in PC HQ technology has allowed us to recreate known cutting-edge PC techniques such as normal mapping, characters with skinning or shadows in real-time.               

The most important feature in any fighting game is the combat.  Tell us all about ONE's exciting gameplay.

XCC: ONE was always intended to be the fighting franchise for Nokia’s N-Gage. In that sense all has been done in order to compete with existing brands. We choose to support motion capturing and to contact Tommy Caruthers as principal actor and choreographer, he is one of the best jet kun do specialists in the world. We spent two exhausting mocap weeks with three others actors (acrobatics, impact and intros) to produce awesome moves and intros for ONE. In line with classical fighting games ONE features several single-player modes such as versus, survival or practice and also a story mode. The newest and most challenging feature is probably the multiplayer via Bluetooth connection. It really reveals all the depth of the game play.

Can you give us an idea of what the controls will be like?

XCC: We have designed the controls to be very intuitive so that new players can immediately start playing a match and have instant fun. We have achieved a system that allows you to perform hundreds of moves with very few keys.

For doing this we have included three fighting stances: Offensive, Regular and Defensive. Each of these stances allows you to perform different sets of actions. For example offensive stance is more oriented to quick attacks and dodges while the defensive is more based on blocks and hand-grab attacks. You can at anytime easily switch from a stance to another and adapt your strategy depending on your opponent tactics.

Which of the N-Gage's buttons are used, and how many attack buttons are there?

You have four different keys for actions (Kick, Punch, Defense, and Grab) mapped into 4, 5, 7 and 8 that you will combine with the game pad to perform the combos.  Kick, Punch and Grab are attack actions.

Can you side step or evade attacks in 3D?

XCC: Yes, ONE makes full use of its 3D environment so you do can step aside to dodge attacks, it also takes advantage of your position when you are behind or to the side of your opponent to perform special combos.              

Since this is a brand-new fighting series, we're all dying to know who the fighters are, the reason for battling.

XCC: The main reason for fighting is to become The One. When you play through the story mode you will have information revealed bit-by-bit concerning all things related to the story behind the game.

Your fighter will have an associated ELO number and a title. The ELO computes a number that measures your level, based on your victories and defeats track records and on your opponent's level. It is programmed in a way that just by checking the ELO of your opponent and comparing it to yours you will know if he is better or worse than you. By reaching certain levels of ELO the player will receive a title that appears in fighter's data screen. When you start to play for the first time your title is "Coward"!. If you increase your level of ELO, you will automatically get new titles that reflect your progression, for example "Bouncer" or "Bodyguard". To receive three highest titles, you need to win special N-Gage Arena tournaments.

Another key feature of the game is the full customizable character system. With more than 300 pieces belonging to worldwide urban tribes you will be able to configure your unique fighter with a realistic look and appearance choosing from tens of millions of possible combinations. Throughout the game we have predefined a wide variety of IA's and up to 50 different enemies you will have to defeat.

How many fighting styles are there?  Does each character have his/her own fighting style?

XCC: We decided to choose Jet Kun Do as the common fighting mode to all the players. The reason behind that was to provide a huge variety and depth of moves and combos to each player. We wanted also a fighting mode very spectacular and with an inherent element of choreography.

What kinds of special abilities do the fighters have? Is it possible to perform combo moves?

XCC: You have more than 300 possible combos you are able to perform in the three different stances. They will be needed to defeat some difficult enemies from the story mode and will make the difference between players in Bluetooth face-to-face challenges. We have decided to have all combos available for the fighter you control. So if you are skilled enough you will be able to learn and perform all of them. The enemies you will face at this stage of the story mode belong to different urban tribes. They share common dressing codes and they also have similar IA's.

Each urban tribes has different fighting strategies and use different combos.

What mini-games are being included?

XCC: We have a long story mode with very varied challenges as well as a few Easter eggs and special surprises that should really remain unmentioned for the player to discover...       

About the graphics: are those polygons we're looking at?  If so, roughly how many polygons is this game pushing?

XCC: Yes, you are looking at textured and normal mapped polygons. I would say that what is most important is ONE is not how many polygons we have used but how many polygons we appear to use, as we feature normal mapping techniques that maps high-resolution meshes onto low resolution models and transmits to the players the impression that he or she is seeing more details than that actually exist on the model. This technique has allowed having a hyper-realistic look and giving ONE one of the most appealing character sets so far achieved by any pocketable device.

We have produced models with tens of thousands of triangles to be used as source of the normal maps for the game. I would like to mention all the different fighting locations that correspond to real urban places taken from charismatic cities chosen from all around the world and that have been produced based on material collected during real photo shoots. You will easily recognize New York, L.A. Hong-Kong or Barcelona...

Last but never least, tell us all that you can about the multiplayer / N-Gage Arena features.

XCC: ONE features a one vs. one challenging multiplayer via Bluetooth. We have designed it in such a way that is easy to connect wherever you are. For example you can sit in a train playing ONE single-player mode. Somebody enters into your carriage and start browsing for Bluetooth adversaries. A list of potential adversaries will appear to him and reveal information such as name, graphical appearance and ELO. He will send a challenge to you. You will automatically be notified on screen (without being interrupted in your current game) to a new incoming challenge and will decide to accept it or decline it. If you accept then the combat begins.

N-Gage Arena features for ONE include worldwide fighters ranking that can be sorted by geographical area, cities, titles and ranking positions. Once you connect to Arena you will update your character's ELO and your appearance. You will be able to browse through to find your next opponent probably in your same city.

Special tournaments will be organized by N-Gage Arena and the highest titles will only be granted by them.

Thank you for your time.