After the SCEE gamescom press conference, we had an event where press and developers could mingle, overindulge and try out the latest PlayStation games. I got talking to Bruce Oberg, co-founder of Sucker Punch Productions and development lead in inFAMOUS 2; without further ado, here’s what we said.

James Gallagher: From what I’ve seen, you seem to have been working particularly hard on the game’s graphics. Has this been an area in which you’ve placed special focus?

Bruce Oberg, Co-Founder, Sucker Punch Productions: We’ve tried to leave no stone unturned in just about every facet of the game and the graphics have been helped by us having another year of learning about PlayStation 3 under our belt. We’re able to use more of the cell processors now than we finished the first inFAMOUS, so we can have more characters on-screen, more complicated shaders, and much greater layering.
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It basically means we’re able to up the amplitude when it comes to graphics and the number of breakable objects you see on the screen. The characters, in particular, look a lot better as we have learned things like light scattering under the skin that makes a big difference. We’re also using motion capture for the first time to create animations, which gives movement a more powerful, visceral look. It’s all looking great!

JG:How much collaboration has there been with studios such as Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games on this project?

BO: We’ve always felt like a little brother to those guys that you mentioned; they’re down in California so we don’t see each other all of the time, but we’ll occasionally give them a call if we’re having trouble with this or that, because they’re super smart.

We’re completely humbled to be mentioned in the same sentence as either of those teams.

JG: Morality was at the heart of inFAMOUS and I’ve always thought that the Holy Grail for those kinds of games is to nail the grey shades of personality in-between. Would you agree?

BO: Morality was never our starting point with inFAMOUS; it was ‘what would you do if you do if you were suddenly given superpowers’ and I think that karmic choice is a big part of that. What would you do? It’s not natural to give someone this power and then expect them to be a hero.

People responded really well to the choices we gave them, and we’re going to be doing more of that in inFAMOUS 2, but I think we’re going to make the choices even stronger, taking you either further in the good or evil directions. We want it to be clear to people what kind of choice they’re making.

JG: What are the storytelling challenges in that kind of forking narrative?

BO: It’s incredibly challenging. You think of the story as a tree that ends up with so many branches that it becomes a daunting task creating all of that content. In inFAMOUS there were essentially two endings that you could see and we might broaden that a little bit, but the real emphasis is on making sure that the way the game plays changing after you make certain choices.

JG: What inspired the new setting of New Marais?

BO: First of all we wanted somewhere that would offer more variation than a regular city. New Marais has echoes of New Orleans and other Southern cities, but there’s also a bit of Atlanta in there. We wanted a warmer, wetter climate with all these different districts like a modern area, a French quarter, a swamp and all these different shapes of the gritty world. It gives us a far more varied ‘jungle gym’ to explore.

JG: What are the new powers like?

BO: We showed the Ionic Vortex at E3, which is tornado made out of static electricity that just wreaks havoc. You have to remember that Cole is not a beginner anymore like he was at the beginning of inFAMOUS. He has a lot of powers already, so we’re giving him even more, but also a greater sense of limitation in that he has to consider the damage he’s going to cause to the city by using the really big powers.

JG: For people like me that have played a LOT of inFAMOUS, what’s going to surprise us in the sequel?

BO: I think that the sheer amount of extra content in there and the scale of the new powers is really going to blow a lot of people’s minds.

We’re really excited to share with you the stunning new gamescom trailer for inFAMOUS 2. It has all the things you could want: new looks of New Marais, monsters, running pedestrians, and an electrified Cole being in the center of it all (who by the way should look a little more familiar. Check it out below!

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Panels are typically the highlights of Comic-Con, but truth be told, they’re a bit of a pain in the arse. You end up waiting in a long line (sometimes for hours), fight for good seats with people who are squatting for the Vampire Chick Lit panel happening like 2 days later in the same room, and endure one or more of the following: difficult lighting/audio issues/off-topic Q&As.

Wouldn’t it be easier if all the good stuff was cut down into, say, 7 minutes and 53 seconds?

In this highlight reel of the inFAMOUS 2 Comic-Con panel, the Sucker Punch team talks about the creation of Cole and the changes he’s gone through since the first inFAMOUS (including his voice), how New Orleans is an influence on inFAMOUS 2’s setting of New Marais, and, the all important question of why Cole can’t climb chain link fences:

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And round of applause for IGN’s Greg Miller – huge inFAMOUS fan and panel host extraordinaire. Nice job moderating, Greg.

One last bit of inFAMOUS-related business: tomorrow is the last day to register on inFAMOUStheGAME.com to get an exclusive PS3 theme. It’s made from concept art for the game and this is the only way you can get it.

For all of our awesome fans who weren’t at Comic-Con this year, I’m excited to share the first look at the 2D cutscenes from inFAMOUS 2 we debuted yesterday night.

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As senior artist on the title, I work with the art teams to help production run smoothly and tackle the huge task of drawing every frame of our graphic cut scenes. It’s time consuming and a lot of hard work but, in the end, I hope InFAMOUS 2 will reflect our love for comic books and give fans the experience of being a super powered hero. It means a lot to both me and the team to see all the love you have for InFAMOUS. In addition, we may have some Comic-Con panel highlights next week to share as well.

Before I forget, go and register on infamousthegame.com to receive an exclusive InFAMOUS 2 PS3 theme!

I’m the Senior Artist on inFAMOUS 2, responsible for doing storyboards and rendering all the line work for the 2D cut scenes, plus anything else I can help the art teams with. We are all busy working on InFAMOUS 2 but wanted let anyone who is going to SD Comic-Con know that we’ll be doing a special panel discussion this week!

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It’s called “From Origin to Evolution: The Making of a Modern Day Superhero for the Videogame World,” and we’ll be discussing topics like how we made inFAMOUS, our comic inspirations, and of course some insights into what we hope to accomplish for inFAMOUS 2.  We’ll be showing some cool artwork, plus one of the first 2D cutscenes from the new game. Greg Miller from IGN fame will be moderating the discussion and you’ll be able to ask us any burning questions you might have. Here’s the summary:

inFAMOUS 2 Panel & Q&A
When: Thursday, July 22nd, 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: Room 7AB

On top of all that, all panel attendees will score a sweet InFAMOUS 2 shirt!

For those who can’t make it to Comic-Con this year, have no fear, check out our first behind the scenes video leading up to our panel discussion to see how much comics have been a factor in the creation of Cole and the InFAMOUS universe.

Hey Guys – you may have seen the new inFAMOUS 2 cover on gameinformer.com.

I’m very excited to officially announce that Cole MacGrath will be returning exclusively to the PS3. This issue will give the very first details of the game and how Sucker Punch has improved every aspect of it. You’ll learn about the new city, new powers and new gameplay. It should be hitting news stands in the next week.

Look for more inFAMOUS 2 news at E3.

Happy ModNation Monday!

To kick off ModNation May, we are bringing you a new Artist Spotlight!

After seeing some of the gaming industry’s top talent and development icons take ModNation for a spin, our next Spotlight takes us to a completely different scene. ModNation definitely has a unique art style, and if you’ve seen any of ModNation’s behind-the-scenes videos, you might know the look of the game was inspired by the Urban Vinyl art movement.

No one knows this scene better than artist Jesse Hernandez, the man behind Immortal Studios and host of Vinyl Addiction, a show that covers the designer toy scene.

We spent sometime with Jesse, not only get a bit of insight on the scene and to explore his art, but to see how a true Vinyl artist could express himself with the game while having some fun along the way. What we saw was how easy someone can bring their vision to life, even if they are used to a totally different medium.

More Spotlights to come in the weeks ahead! As you noticed, Jeff has hooked us up with a sweet new COUNTDOWN clock! (You can see it by looking over to the right!)

Just 22 days left!

To quote Jesse, “That’s What’s Up!”

Greetings all and Merry ModNation Monday,

Just like the past two weeks, we’re kicking the week off with a new Artist Spotlight video. Last week we had the mind behind Twisted Metal and God of War, David Jaffe, give us his uncensored opinion about making games and his thoughts on ModNation Racers (okay, it was kinda censored). If you visited GameSpot at all last week, then you might have learned that we handed a copy of the game to the talented folks at Sucker Punch Productions to see what they could do with the ModNation creation tools.

So what happens when the crew responsible for the PS2 classic Sly Cooper franchise and the recent PS3 hit inFAMOUS decide to have some fun in ModNation?

Empire City gets rebuilt… ModNation-style!

This is an example of what happens when you combine some time and imagination with ModNation Racers. We look forward to bringing you more examples of this in future installments of the Artist Spotlights video series.

ModNationTV Spot hits the Airwaves

If you caught Peter Dille’s post last week, you know all about Kevin Butler’s new ’stache and uh…orange shorts. The VP ModNation Motivation hits Comedy Central on April 28th during the South Park season finale!

If you liked the orange shorts online, you’ll like them even better in HD!

(shiver)

Pre-order Mystery ModNation Mods and Karts Revealed Tomorrow!

If you pre-ordered ModNation, you scored either Kratos, Ratchet and Clank, or Nathan Drake. But you ALSO scored one of four mystery mods and kart packs!

Stay tuned on the PlayStation.Blog this week as we announce not only the Mystery Mods and Karts you will have a chance to score by pre-ordering, but a NEW familiar character who has decided to get a kart and join the RACE!

See you then!

If you didn’t get a chance to check out this summer’s superhero action-adventure blockbuster from Sucker Punch Productions, well, now is the perfect time to do so. Just in time for the holidays, we’re excited to announce that inFAMOUS is now available for $39.99.

If the new price point’s not incentive enough, beginning on December 10th, Cole’s ‘Gigawatt Blades’ Super Power, will become available for FREE on PlayStation Network. The Gigawatt Blades supercharge Cole’s arm into blades of pure energy which can be used to cause massive damage against enemies during melee combat.

In other inFAMOUS news, the official game soundtrack which features three previously unreleased bonus tracks will be released December 8th to retail outlets through Sumthing Else Music Works and is now available for digital download on Sumthing Digital.

And one special final note, we’d like to send out congratulations to Sucker Punch Productions as inFAMOUS has sold over 1.2 million copies as of October 2009 – congrats guys!

Ever wonder what goes into the making of a video game? The July issue of Game Informer reveals a number of fun facts from the Sucker Punch team regarding the development of their super-hero exclusive, inFAMOUS. We thought we’d go ahead and share a few of our favorites from the issue and also the development team with you!

• In addition to the kitchen espresso, the inFAMOUS team traveled to Starbucks approximately 18,200 times. Two groups of 10 people per day, five days a week.
• There were 10 inFAMOUS babies born during development. One employee had two during that time.
• It took over 70,000 separate art, code and media check-in submissions to make inFAMOUS.
• The inFAMOUS team consumed 17,472 cans of diet Coke and 13,104 cans of diet Pepsi during development.
• There were no less than 14 high rise buildings constructed within 3 blocks of Sucker Punch’s offices during the inFAMOUS development cycle.

Here are a few more fun facts about inFAMOUS worth mentioning…

• inFAMOUS is the fastest demo to reach the 1 million milestone on the PlayStation Network.
• According to a recent NPD report, inFAMOUS was the fifth best-selling software title for the month of May after being on the shelves for only 6 days (the title launched on May 26).

We’ve also got a new video to share… check out this walk-through video of the Titanic Beatdown mission with commentary from Sucker Punch Game Designer, Darren Bridges.

But wait, we still have one more fun fact to share with you all…

We’re excited to announce that a new inFAMOUS space will be launching in Home very soon. We’ll have a lot more details on the new space for you all next week, so please stay tuned!