Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
110 M PS E . O R G was so bad that you could only use 10 total, I believe. We gave you a lot, but they just said, "We can't use it, we don't have enough memory." Back in those days, that was a problem. CB: Yeah, limitations sometimes force creativity, right? Making a game on a console with a controller, you don't have a full keyboard to have eight million keys or buttons. We were going up against Quake 3. And technically, Quake 3 was more advanced. But we had a really, really great art team. We didn't necessarily want to do the exact same thing as them. We didn't want to make the same rocket launcher, the same shotgun, etc. We wanted to make unique locations, like a castle in the sky, or an old galleon, things like that. And then there was "Facing Worlds," which became one of the most legendary multiplayer maps ever. I grew up reading Wired magazine and seeing photos of John Carmack and John Romero from id Software with their Ferraris. I was listening to Ice-T's music, who I later became friends with and cast him in the Gears of War series. There's a line from New Jack City: "I had nothing and I wanted it, you had everything and you flaunted it." I was jealous. Romero was essentially my rival. He taught me that you can be a rock star game designer. Later, we wound up becoming friends, kind of like Rocky and Apollo Creed. But at the time, I was young and angry. When somebody trolls me online who's younger, usually with an anime avatar, I remind myself that I used to be that kid back in the day. I was just fucking hungry. I lived in Waterloo, Ontario, for a year, which is not exactly a fun town. I didn't drink back then, so there was nothing to do. I focused all my energy working on and shipping the first Unreal, and I shipped Jazz Jackrabbit 2 in the same time frame. To be frank, I have no idea how the hell I did it. Now I just want to sleep until noon. Alexander Brandon, Composer: Like you said, we were all hungry. I was living at my parents' place. And then lived in North Carolina for six months while we tried to do an Unreal RPG. At some point, we had to take jobs—I took one as a travel guide. We did it however we could because we loved it so much. It was like there was nothing else in our life. CB: It's the love of the game. Michiel van den Bos, Composer: Epic Games was really just a bunch of offices at the time. I think there were four rooms in total. There were only a few people working there at the time—a secretary, Tim Sweeney, and two other guys. Mark Rein was working there already, as was Cliff, but I was remote so I never met them. It was a really small operation, just a bunch of offices. That's it. It was a surreal experience. EM: After finishing the first Unreal, how were you looking to expand upon all your work in Unreal Tournament? CB: I was just happy to manage the level designers. I found a lot of very young, upcoming level designers who were involved in the mod community. And initially, I gave them something like $500 for a map, which was highway robbery in hindsight. This guy named Jack Porter, a programmer, made this Windows version of a UI for Unreal Tournament. Shane Cottle did the opening flythrough for UT, where the VO was talking about deep-space miners and CB: When you hear a traditional glock firing, it's like a "pop." But in games, it needs to be so much more exaggerated than that, for that gratification and player feedback. Sacha's sound effects were one of the many factors that led to the special secret sauce of Unreal Tournament being so gratifying and satisfying, along with the voice-over (VO) work. Lani Minella, VO Director: I remember we were trying to do the taunts, and one of the taunts that you guys had written was something like, "Is that my liver over there?" And I said, "Oh, come on, we can do better than that." We gave you something like 150 options, but the memory in the game Lead game designer Cliff Bleszinski playing alongside rapper and actor Ice-T Lead game designer Cliff Bleszinski working on the original Unreal in 1997