Go Huck Yourself - Mad Air. Mad Attitude. Mad Trix* - Jonny Moseley Mad Trix PS2 - A GZ Interview
by The Badger

3DO has a brand new bag of "trix" for all you ski freeskiing maniacs – and it’s so hot that if it wasn’t a game, we don’t know how they’d keep the snow from melting! Jonny Moseley Mad Trix is on its way to the PS2 console, and when it comes to the freestyle skiing experience, this one’s not only going to give you the chance at doing some of the most outrageous tricks you can imagine, it’s also going to give you a walk on the equally wild side of the pro freeskiier’s lifestyle. Featuring, of course, the talent and input of Jonny Moseley, 1998 Olympic Gold Medalist, as well as other well known sport celebrities Tanner Hall and Evan Raps, Jonny Moseley Mad Trix goes above and beyond the traditional freestyling games you might be familiar with. Plus, with a development team that should set the standard for really showing dedication to creating the ultimate experience, Jonny Moseley Mad Trix is going to be a must see for slope daredevils everywhere!

Wherever do I start with the great list of features? First is the all star line-up, as well as some unique original characters developed just for Mad Trix. Next, Mad Trix isn’t limiting itself to real-life freeskier haunts, but also gives gamers a chance to play some impossible types of courses that even the pros would love to have a chance at; say the Capitol building or the Golden Gate bridge! Think you can master these wicked trix in a day? Think again: There’s over 150 tricks to be learned and mastered for your repertoire. For those seeking a challenge, take on some of the world’s most dangerous slopes in Big Mountain Mode. Succeed at Big Mountain mode and move your sport into stardom as you watching an intense playback of your performance. So, what else can these thrill-hungry skiers ask for after they tame those slopes? Well, fame, wealth, and popularity (babes) of course, and the Mad Trix team spared no expense to bring you the most realistic experience possible both on and off the slopes!

GameZone had a chance to hook up with Kudo Tsunoda from the Mad Trix team, and boy did he have some great game details, not to mention great stories to share with us! One even involves trains, a group of the most audacious freeskiiers around, and a late night outing. That’s all I’m giving you though – the rest you'll just have to read for yourself!

1. The courses in Mad Trix range from real-life to fantastical. Can you tell us a little bit about which courses you decided to use and perhaps what inspired you to use some of the more "extreme" courses?

Kudo: We wanted to have two different types of environments in the game: 1. fantastical places that Jonny Moseley has always wanted to ski but could not, and 2. realistic Big Mountain courses that are skied regularly in real life. The Slopestyle courses are all man made, sculpted courses with pre-placed kickers and rails. They take place in the fantastical environments like San Francisco and Washington DC. While there are pre-placed trick opportunities in the level, there are also enormous amounts of off the course trick opportunities like grinding on the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge in SF or hucking tricks off the Capitol Building in DC. Most of these environments were chosen by Jonny himself. They are environments that Moseley has always wanted to ski in but never could due to lack of snow. We just pretend a big snowstorm has hit and voila, a perfect Slopestyle course. For the Big Mountain levels, we choose the worlds most dangerous mountains. Some are freeskiing standards like AK (Alaska). Some of the best Big Mountain skiing in the world takes place in AK. Others are a bit more creative like Nepal. We wanted to use Nepal because it has some of the most deadly peaks in the world. At the time, we thought we were making things up for the game. But freeskiers are so crazy, it is really hard to make up something you think is unrealistic that one of these nuts are not doing in real life. I read an article in one of the ski mags recently about how a guy climbed to the top of Mount Everest and then skied down to base camp. Nothing is too insane for freeskiers to try.

 

2. How intensive is your research with a game like Mad Trix? As mentioned all game action sequences are modeled from actual footage from Moseley and Hall - how much (or what kind of) studio research is conducted in making the game the most realistic possible?

Kudo: One thing that is really important to the development team is making the game as true to the sport of freeskiing as possible. In making this game, we did nothing but research for the first 6 months to make sure the design team fully understood not only the sport of freeskiing, but also the lifestyle that went along with it. We watched hundreds of hours of freeskiing videos and have poured through hundreds of ski magazines like Freeskier and Freeze. And while doing all this research gave us a pretty good understanding of the sport and the people in it, nothing has been as helpful as hanging out with the freeskiers themselves. It is interesting, since the sport is so creative, most of what the freeskiers do on the slopes are things they make up on the fly. That is what the sport is all about, unbridled creativity and pushing the envelope. So if you sit down with a freeskier like Tanner Hall or Evan Raps and ask them what we should put in the game, you won’t get that many great answers. But if you follow them around on the slopes for a bit, you get an endless amount of cool things to work into the gameplay.

As part of our research for the game, we spent two weeks living up in Tahoe with a house full of freeskiers, hanging out with them and getting an up close tour of what Freeskiing is all about. Near where we were staying, there was a train station. The train ran very infrequently and usually late at night. Having been caught behind the trains while driving occasionally, I can tell you the trains were extremely long. Well, one night in the wee hours, after an extended session of partying, one of the guys stood up and started yelling "Train Jump! Train Jump! Train Jump!". Soon, everyone in the room was chanting it. Our development people obviously had no idea what the hell was going on but soon people were running around in a frenzy grabbing their ski equipment.

We trudged up the hill, which was some task in the condition we were in, and everybody starting putting equipment on. I finally caught my breath enough to ask what the heck was going on. To my amazement, the answer was "the train is coming. We’re gonna jump it. We have wanted to do this all season." I was simply amazed. There were no kickers of any kind nearby so I had no idea how they planned to get any air. As the train rumbled by, one of our freeskiing companions started heading down the hill. Weaving in and out of trees, I finally understood what he was going to use as a ramp. The train station was pretty small, but it had an extremely nice, very ramp looking roof. Since it had snowed so much, you could ski right from the snow on the ground, up the snow on the roof, and go flying over the train tracks. Soon, each of our companions were whipping down the hill, hucking themselves off the train station roof, jumping over the train, and doing some of the sickest aerial maneuvers you have ever seen. And landing them. Unbelievable!!!

Back at the house, our hosts explained that they had never done that before but had always wanted to. Just seemed like the right time to give it a go. That kind of crazy / creative approach to skiing is what Freeskiing is all about. They are pushing trick based snow sports to the limit with everything and anything being part of the run.

3. Mad Trix will combine the best of fact and throw in a generous dash of fiction. While we assume the mechanics of the sport will remain realistic, what kinds of fictional characters will grace the title and will their abilities also be mingled in with fiction?

Kudo: Finding the right balance between freeskiing realism and video game fun has always been one of the challenges of working on the game. We want to make a game that accurately represents freeskiing without keeping things out that will make the game a more fun play experience just because they are not realistic. We have made a game that does a great job at both accurately representing the sport of freeskiing and being a hell of a lot of fun. For instance, with the tricks each character can do, we made sure the tricks were 100% dead on accurate. We got both Moseley and X Games gold medallist Tanner Hall to do motion capture for the game. The mocap really captured the subtleties and style of the different skiers. But then we also played with the physics a little on the jumps so players could get a bit more air then freeskiers can get in real life. The fictional skiers are a combination of the many personalities and individual looks of people we have met in the freeskiing industry. Like most freeskiers, the exude personality and a certain wild-eyed charisma. Plus, we went a little crazy on the signature moves for the fictional skiers so you definitely will get some interesting surprises when picking one of the characters designed specifically for the game.

4. You mention mountain hazards such as avalanches – will any other natural/weather effects become a factor in Mad Trix?

Kudo: Much like in freeskiing, mastering the environment and everything in it will be a big part of your success in the game. Any of the natural environment effects in the game will affect the skier. There is snow, wind, terrain that falls away, as well as a wide variety of different terrain surfaces like powder, packed snow, ice, etc that will change the player’s basic physics model. Besides the weather effects, there are so many other environmental aspects to the game for the player to master. In the city levels, there are moving police cars that you must avoid or use to do tricks off. In San Francisco, there is an earthquake that alters the environment. In Machu Picchu, there are ruins that start breaking up as you are skiing across them. Mastering the environment, both the elements and the objects in them, is key to being successful in the game.

5. With 150 tricks to learn, players will have plenty of options and gameplay methods to explore. Will there be a certain order or system to how tricks are introduced, or will gamers be discovering them on their own?

Kudo: While there are hundreds of tricks to learn, we do try and introduce them in an easy to assimilate manner. There is a base set of tricks that every character has. These can be done with the default equipment set and includes basic grabs, grinds, mistys, and rodeos. But then each player has his or her own signature moves and unique tricks that can only be done by that skier. These are not able to be done until the player gets more sponsors and is given better equipment. Lots of times the biggest tricks are in hidden areas that can only be accessed once you have the top equipment.

6. The Mad Attitude mode is a particularly intriguing additional mode for gameplay in the game. Can you tell us a little more about what players can expect (without giving away any surprises of course!)?

Kudo: One of the things we really wanted to capture in the game is as much of the freeskiing lifestyle as well as the actual skiing itself. It really is an amazingly fun culture to exist in. The attitude of the freeskiers themselves is fun, wild, creative, and uninhibited whether they are skiing or at a party with the babes. Much of this is captured in the game. For instance, a big part of freeskiing is competing in the tournaments to gain sponsors and fame. If you can get enough recognition in the tournaments, you get invited to star in your own ski movie in big mountain mode. This is how it works in the game as well. Plus, as all freeskiers now, the better you do on the slopes, the better you do with the babes!!!

7. Will there be any customization/difficulty options available for gamers who may be new to trick-based skiing or to the sort of gameplay involved?

Kudo: Yes, we will have these for sure. First of all, we have a really cool ski camp, which is optional for people to play if they want. It will give you a brief play through of all the different types of tricks and moves that you will need to learn during the first few levels in a no pressure environment. It shows you exactly what you need to do to pull off basic tricks, grinds, grabs, and walks you through the base ski model. Plus, as you are going through the game, you can customize your skier with different equipment sets sponsors give you. Each set will enhance different skier abilities. Plus, the levels are all tuned to have their own difficulty curve within each level. So the early levels all have pretty well defined trick paths the player can follow if they are a newbie. But there are tons of off the course areas the player can explore once they are better at the game or have better equipment.

8. Game-replay movies have become infinitely more detailed with the advance of console technologies. Can you give us some of the highlights of the Big Mountain movie mode?

Kudo: There are such a wide variety of environments freeskiers huck tricks in and we wanted to get both the terrain parks (slopestyle) and the big mountain runs in the game. Freeskiers are not usually rich enough to rent their own helicopters to fly up to the top of the Big Mountain courses. So they compete in the Slopestyle tournaments to gain enough fame and sponsors to get invited to star in their own ski movie. In the game, once you win a gold medal in Slopestyle, you unlock Big Mountain mode. In Big Mountain courses, you fly up to the top of the mountain via helicopter, jump out, and haul ass down the hill. Unlike Slopestyle courses that are man made sculpted courses with pre-placed kickers and rails, Big Mountain mode is all natural terrains. Instead of jumping off Big Air Ramps, you will be hucking yourself of 500ft cliffs. Instead of grinding on rails, you grind on fallen trees. Plus, in Big Mountain mode, instead of competing against other skiers for medals, it is just you against the mountain and you are trying to get a level completion score. We wanted to add some of the danger element of Big Mountain mode to the game since a big part of Big Mountain skiing is the risk of death. This is kind of hard to get across in a video game. So what we do is take away from your trick score for every time you slam into something, fall off a cliff, or plunge into a crevice. If you can make it down the hill alive, your whole run is played back as a Matchstick Productions ski movie.

9. What kinds of music or bands can players expect to look forward to accompanying Mad Trix?

The tough part about choosing the right music for the game was not just finding the right bands, but finding music that really adds to the gameplay. More than any other game I have worked on, the music really is an instrumental part of the gameplay. While skiing the levels, it is really important to find your line down the course and get a good trick rhythm going. It is critical that the rhythm of the music matches the trick rhythm of the course or it is kind of disjointing. By making sure the music matches the levels they are played on, you can really help the player find a good trick rhythm by letting them ski to the rhythm of the music. The game soundtrack features a good mix of hip hop, thrash rock, and some more techno oriented songs. We have some really great bands like Saliva and Mad Capsule Markets. In fact, a record company has already secured the rights to releasing a CD soundtrack of the game music completely separate from the game!

10. Jonny Mosely’s Mad Trix is not only the first of it’s kind on the PS2 system, but also the first of it’s kind in the gaming world. What have you enjoyed most about working with this hot concept on the powerful PS2 system?

Wow! Tough question. There really are so many things I have enjoyed about working on this game. First of all, we have a team of all-star game developers working on this project. We were allowed to put together a dream team to work on this title. We have people on the team who have already been working on the PS2 for 3+ years now. It really shows in the product. As always, I love working with Sony. They have made a great machine and I greatly enjoy working with them and on their system. It has also been an incredible experience for me getting to meet, work with, hang out, and party some with all the people we have met in the freeskiing community. People are so excited about the game and everyone has really worked hard to do anything possible to make the game better. We are working with over 20+ companies getting the actual equipment and sponsors of the real world skiers in the game. Plus, I have met dozens of incredibly talented freeskiers over the course of the game, which has been incredibly exciting. These are people that I only knew from seeing them in movies and reading about them in magazines and next thing you know they are here in the office playing the game. Very cool. Jonny Moseley, Tanner Hall, Evan Raps, and Vincent Dorion have just been the best people to work with. I get a real charge just getting to hang out with them. I am such a freeskiing groupie.

But probably the best thing about working on a huge breakthrough game like this is getting to talk about the game with video game media people that you admire and respect. I check out the Game Zone site all the time and it is really cool to be able to do an interview with you all. Thanks a lot for giving me a chance to talk about the game. I have sunk nearly two years of my life into this game. It really shows in the quality of the product. Check it out when it releases soon!!!

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No, thank you, Kudo for giving us the details on what looks to be the most freespirited and exciting title getting ready to take the freestyle market by storm!

*Catchy little slogan they got there!

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