“You’re not playing a corrupt or bad cop; it’s more about having street cred.”
Of the variety of genres that have been seeing huge support on home consoles, the open-world genre has been one that hasn’t really been explored very much on the Nintendo DS. While recent titles like Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars have stepped up to the plate by offering huge worlds that capitalize on the strengths of Nintendo’s handheld, compelling open action games haven’t quite gotten a fair amount of developer support.
Ubisoft is looking to change all of that with their upcoming cop-action game, C.O.P.: The Recruit. The Recruit is geared towards changing the perception of what the DS is capable of, crafting a compelling and fun storyline and open gameplay that is set to dazzle gamers looking for a full open-world experience on their handheld.
At this year’s E3, we sat down with Nouredine Abboud, Senior Producer on the game, to discuss C.O.P. The Recruit, and touched upon the game’s finer points, including its development, the balance between storyline and open-world gameplay and other points.
What can you tell us about the game’s storyline?
Nouredine: So, as the title of the game says, you’re a young recruit who’s just been recruited by the cops. You used to be an underground racer, and you were forced to choose between going to jail or joining the cops. You have your mentor, Brad, who also used to be an underground racer and helps you become a cop.
It’s interesting because from one point of view it gives us the opportunity to use your underground connections. Also, it gives you a reason to have gameplay that is not just about either being the bad guy or the good guy; you are always working on the two lines. And the game itself, once you get onto the police force you have a helluva day because on your first day at the office, there is a terrorist attack being planned on New York, and so you’re right away sent on the mission. Things get a bit tricky when your mentor Brad is placed under arrest on forced allegations.
At one stage, it’s about understanding who the good guys and bad guys are, and the fact that you have a foot in both worlds. However, you’re not playing a corrupt or bad cop; it’s more about having street cred.
In the build we saw, the art direction had almost a 70’s cop show flair to it. Was that a deliberate move in the game’s development?
Nouredine: I will say that the 70’s feel is linked to the [E3] demo. There’s one character that’s an informant that has a sort of 70’s look. Also, the graphics style is quite colorful. However, I must admit that the inspiration has more to do with what can be found in more recently in the world of comic books.
If you look at the evolution of comic books, a lot of paper comics have become a lot more colorful due to the use of computers. This kind of comic book 2D art was what inspired us. Having a very strong 3D world for the action, we wanted to have 2D style comic book cutscenes, and we didn’t want them to look cheap compared to the 3D game, so this is why we spent quite a bit of energy on the colors.
We had some very talented guys from Singapore work on the game and its graphical style, and we had teams from about five different countries help work on the game.
