It’s the Rise of the Machines in Metal Arms: Glitch in the System

by Louis Bedigian

This exciting robotic shooter is headed to a game console near you this Christmas.  GameZone Online chats with President and Technical Director Steve Ranck to get the full scoop. 

It's not easy being a robot.  In The Matrix, you get slaughtered.  In Terminator, you become extinct.  And in A.I., you spend a lifetime hoping to become a real boy, but due to the fact that Stanley Kubrick is the one who masterminded the plot, the goal cannot be achieved.

There is only one world where robots can be happy and free: in Swingin' Ape Studios's first game, Metal Arms: Glitch in the system.  Of course, you'll have to fight for your freedom first, but the important thing is that you have a chance.

Metal Arms is set in the hugely popular shooter genre.  Played from a third-person perspective, the game appears to give players greater maneuverability in some of the trickier areas. For example, as you'll see in one of the screenshots below, at one point you must slide down a large cable.  The reason for this is unknown, but it likely has something to do with the goal of that particular mission.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but did the person who came up with that saying ever tell us where to find them?  The only words in my head are, "What's this game all about?  How will it play?  What will the missions be like?"  Screenshots tell us a lot, but game creators tell us so much more.  That's why we sat down with Swingin' Ape Studios's Steve Ranck.  Ranck is the President and Technical Director for Swingin' Ape Studios and was happy to share many exciting about their upcoming release. 

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System is Swingin' Ape Studios's first game development project.  How did the title come to be?  Did Vivendi request your development services, or was this a project that Swingin' Ape Studios took to Vivendi for publishing?
 

Steve Ranck: In early 2001, Swingin’ Ape Studios was working on a game concept based on a space traveling bounty hunter. We had a rich story, interesting characters, and exciting planets the player could visit. One of these planets was called Iron Star, and it was inhabited entirely by various types of robots. When we learned that two other bounty hunter games were already far into development, we dropped the idea and began experimenting with a game based on the robot world of Iron Star. We replaced the biological bounty hunter character with Glitch, our small but determined robot protagonist. With our robot universe providing a creative springboard, our design document quickly grew to over 200 pages and from there it was easy to develop a playable prototype using a few of the more exciting ideas. At the same time, we were speaking with many publishers about Metal Arms and eventually signed with Vivendi who really understood the potential of the game.

This game is much more lighthearted than most first- or third-person shooters.  Was that your goal with Metal Arms -- to create a shooter that doesn't need blood or an excessive amount of violence to be enjoyable?
 

SR: From the earliest concept of the game, we always wanted Metal Arms to be lighthearted and not take itself too seriously. But at the same time, we wanted the game to have an incredible amount of over-the-top destruction in it. And we way exceeded that goal! Regarding the violence level of the game, if you ever got off blowing up toasters with homemade explosives at any point in your life, you’ll probably think Metal Arms is the most violent game ever made.

Is this a mission objective-based shooter?
 

SR: Primarily, yes. But we vary the gameplay in various levels of the game. Some levels are driving levels and some are rail-shooters. Some have sneaking while others have a high degree of strategy over action. We also have a good number of mini-games and bosses to mix things up. 

You wanna fight?

My firepower will cause more than a glitch in your system!

Who do you play as in the game?  Are they robots?
 

SR: You primarily play as Glitch, a small robot who was discovered unconscious among a pile of rubble on Iron Star. He has no memory of his past, and although he resembles the planet’s primary robot race called the Droids, his design is unique to everything else on the planet. In addition to Glitch, there are several other robots of different types and capabilities that you play as. And you’ll also get to hijack and play as the very enemies you’re fighting against.

What are their attack methods?  Do they have any unique weapons?
 

SR: Glitch has many powerful capabilities. His right arm is his primary weapon. He literally snaps different weapons onto his right elbow. And Glitch can use his left hand to throw grenades and other devices. Some of Glitch’s gadgets require the use of both hands. And some weapons can even be used together to create some very powerful combinations.

One of Glitch’s coolest and most unique weapons is the Control Tether, a device that fires a fiber optic cable into an enemy’s data port and then transfers a copy of Glitch’s program into the enemy. The player finds himself in full control of the enemy robot, complete with its unique arsenal of weaponry and abilities. Of course, it may take a while for nearby enemies to realize this, which gives the player the element of surprise!

Another really powerful weapon is the Recruiter Grenade, a mysterious device that Glitch can obtain in a number of ways. Toss the grenade near an enemy bot and it’ll reprogram its AI allegiance subroutines to be allied with Glitch. From that point until its death, your new friend will faithfully and viscously fight by your side. The Recruiter Grenade becomes an extremely powerful weapon when you find a nice cluster of enemies to land it near.

Aside from Glitch, the other robots you play as provide their own unique weapons, and some even have some secret attacks.

How many weapons are being planned for the game?
 

SR: If you consider all of Glitch’s right-handed weapons, his left-handed weapons, his two-handed weapons, weapons that can be used together, all of the weapon upgrades you can obtain, the weapons on the other bots that you play, weapons mounted to vehicles, the enemy weapons that you can use when you possess them, all of the environmental elements, and combine that with a few secrets, that sums up to be, well, a lot.

Are all of the weapons fictitious, or are any of them based on real-world weapons?
 

SR: Many of the weapons are fictitious, but some are based on real-world weapons. For an action shooter game to feel right, you’ve just got to have a certain base set of real-world weapons. 

Hey, I didn't cause this.  Honest!

Regarding the third-person view, how much control will players have over the character's aim, and how will it be done?  (Example: with the face buttons, the shoulder buttons, the analog sticks, etc.)
 

SR: Even though Metal Arms is a 3^rd person shooter, the control scheme is identical to what has become the standard for 1^st person shooters on modern game consoles: left analog moves and right analog aims. Anyone who’s played Halo, for example, will be familiar with moving and aiming Glitch.

How are the levels laid out?  Are they filled with doors and corridors, wide-open areas, or...?
 

SR: Metal Arms has the full spectrum of levels, from tight, combat-heavy room infiltration levels to gigantic, wide-open terrain where vehicles are ideal. The levels have been designed to be played in a variety of different ways. One player might defeat a level with guns blazing, while another might look around to discover ways of using the environment to his advantage. Not only does this allow players to get creative with their solutions, but it also provides substantial depth and replayability to the game.

The Metal Arms footage I've seen showed off some impressive effects, nice camera work and detailed backgrounds.  Was this game made with an existing engine, or is it entirely new?
 

SR: Metal Arms uses Swingin’ Ape Studios’ proprietary Fang engine, designed from the ground up to specifically allow our team to create really amazing graphics and effects.

How capable is the engine?  How many characters (good or bad) can be displayed onscreen at once?
 

Swingin’ Ape developed our proprietary Fang engine to pull off the aggressive visuals and special effects we needed for Metal Arms. On Xbox and GameCube, we’re using pretty much every trick in the book, from radiosity lighting to detail maps (so things don’t get blurry when you get close to them) to bump mapping and dynamic shadows. We developed an array of material shaders that our art staff used to render complex surfaces with realistic lighting. The most widely use shader in Metal Arms is the metal surface shader. Probably no surprise there. But it’s a particularly cool shader because it allows the metal to appear corroded in areas so that the reflectivity varies across the surface.

Glitch swings into action.

Are there any multiplayer modes in Metal Arms?  (If yes, please tell us about them.)
 

SR: For Xbox and GameCube, Metal Arms supports 2, 3, and 4-way splitscreen multiplayer games (2-way for PS2). We have the basic Death Match, King of the Hill, and Reverse Tag. But we’ve also introduced elements that make the single player Metal Arms game unique into the multiplayer games. For instance, throughout the multiplayer levels, you can find powered-down AI bots. You play primarily as Glitch, but when you come across one of these AI bots, you can fire your Control Tether into its data port and take him for a spin. Alternatively, you can fire off a Recruiter Grenade and the bot will power up and join your team. Get a few on your side and watch your enemies run. Of course, your opponents may steal these bots from you, if they can. You can even recruit an opponent and ride his score. This really adds a lot of unique depth and fun to the usual split screen multiplayer shooter games. Of course, the multiplayer levels have many other elements, too, such as vehicles, site weapons, sniper’s lairs, trenches, physics objects, etc.

Thank you for your time.