Below is an Interview I recently conducted with Simon Humphreys of Codemasters about IGI 2

Hi Thanks for taking time out to answer these questions.

It was the least I could do, you have shown us a lot of support over the last year.

First Off can you tell us abit about yourself and your role in IGI 2?

My name is Simon Humphreys and I am the QA team leader on IGI-2. My basic job involves organising a team of testers to make sure that the whole of the game gets tested and all of the bugs are reported to Innerloop. Half of my time is spent in people and project management, organising the teams work on a day to day basis, working with other departments, my producer, and with Innerloop. The other half of my time is spent testing the game. I dont think its hard to guess which half is more fun ;).

More recently I have been running the beta test for IGI-2, but more about that later.

How much are you enjoying the Game?

Although I have been playing (playing = testing) the game for almost a year now there's still a lot to enjoy. Some of the stuff I have been doing recently
Setting end of level ranking statistics for the single player levels. This means playing through the level in the shortest time possible but while remaining completely covert, it often takes a huge number of attempts to get what I consider to be a really fast time. The factors you will be ranked on include Time, Number of times spotted, Health and Accuracy. In order to achieve the top rank you have to be playing the game on hard mode (no saving and loading) and get through the level without being seen or setting off an alarm. You have to do all that while shooting very accurately and your time has to be really fast.
Multiplayer testing, we call it testing but the shouts of Die Camper!! that fly across the office indicate that its more like playing. We certainly have a lot of fun.

The BETA phase has come in for some criticism from non-phase 1 members, would you like to respond?

I think the criticism is deserved. Phase 1 has run on a lot longer than we hoped it would, this has been completely necessary though. There have been some huge bugs that have come to light, unfortunately whenever we fix one of these a new one arises in the next version. The current bug we are working on is one that causes players to become invisible, the problem is pretty common and would cause huge problems if we had servers full of people. Once this problem is fixed, and providing no other huge problems show up, we will move to phase 2.

Are you able to tell us anything about the Phase 1 part?

Phase 1 is there to get rid of all the huge bugs that impede the testing of the game. As soon as people are able to test the game without having constant interruptions (server crashes, client crashes, basic compatibility problems) we move to phase two.

How much influence has Chris Ryan had in the development?

Chris has been helping us with the realism aspects of the game. At the end of the day, we are a bunch of gamers (I was going to say geeks, but maybe that's a bit harsh), we have played hundreds of different first person shooters and stealth games but we haven't got clue what its like to fire a real gun or remain hidden behind enemy lines. Chris has fired real guns, he has been in very hostile situations and he is an expert at covert operations. These are the things we are trying to portray in the game and theres no way we can be sure we got it right without bringing in a professional.

Are You happy with his input?

There's a lot of stuff that Chris has helped with and he has definitely made a positive difference to the realism of the game, we spend a lot of time debating the importance of realism vs gameplay. Gameplay has to win in the end of course but theres a lot of balance and tweaking that can be done to increase the realism without having a detrimental effect on gameplay.

Will IGI 2 use any of the DirectX 8 or 9 advanced features?

The recent change to water was a huge improvement with realistic reflections and shadows. I believe it was based around the DX8 feature set, I cant be sure though, I'm not a programmer

Any chance of the music being released soon?

Yes, (although I cant say more right now)

In recent Videos the AI looked as stupid as they were at times in the original, will this be fixed?

I know the video's you mean and yes, they made the game look very poor. This was a problem specific to that version of the game, we didnt realise it was going to be used to make video's. If you tried to play the current version of the game the same way as the person in the video did you would not got very far. The AI are much smarter than the original IGI. They perform flanking manoeuvres and duck and dive for cover, they even shout for backup. The AI also use grenades to great effect, your hidden silently behind a box and dont think anyone has spotted you then you hear the familiar clink of a grenade hitting the floor, its all over before you know who threw it.

Can you tell us who is doing the voice acting for David and Anya?

Jones is played by Chris Fairbank, he is an accomplished actor as a google search will reveal.

Larissa Murray will be the voice of Anya again, we were really pleased she wanted to do IGI-2, she has a great voice.

Will there be any missions you will fail if you dont use Stealth?

Yes, but only a few. We dont want to force stealth onto the player, we just want it to be the most sensible option. We give you the tools but its up to you how you use them. The ranking system also encourages stealth, its the most rewarding way to play the game.

We know that the missions are set in Russia Lybia and China, why those countries?

I dont know the original reasons for selecting these countries, I can guess though that its because of the diversity that they allow. The architecture changes dramatically as you move through the different countries as well as the people you encounter and the weapons they use.

Assuming IGI 2 is popular will there be a IGI 3?

I would like to think so. I certainly enjoy IGI2 and Innerloop are a great team to work with.
 

End.