By Ivana Fanboy
Dark Horse is well known for adapting many of pop culture's greatest properties into exciting, world-class comic books, and one of the coolest projects on tap for 2001 is the comic-book adaptation of an all-new video game called Oni. In case you haven't heard, Oni is the latest offering from Rockstar Games, the company that rocked (that's a pun!) the world last year with the controversial Grand Theft Auto game and is currently ruling the Playstation2 with Smuggler's Run, Midnight Club, and Surfing H3O. Now Rockstar is gearing up with Oni, a game that's designed to be the closest thing imaginable to interactive Japanese animé. The game stars Konoko, a beautiful and incredibly versatile female agent of an international police force called the Tech Crimes Task Force. We don't want to give too much away, but the game leads Konoko down a dark and dangerous path filled with insane criminals, deadly one-on-one battles, and into a psychological warzone that's so intense that her allegiances -- and yours -- will be changed in the end.
As story-and-character-driven as Oni is, it's the perfect basis for a great comic-book series, which is where Dark Horse comes in. Writer Dave Land and artist Sunny Lee have been working closely with the fine folks at Rockstar Games to craft the perfect printed depiction of this incredible game. The three-issue series starts in February, and to learn more about the fascinating world of video game creation and what it takes to build something as cool as Oni, we spoke with one of Rockstar Games' producers, Jeronimo Barrera. Barrera was more than happy to spend a few minutes discussing Oni with us, so read on for some behind-the-scenes insight into this fascinating new project.
Ivana Fanboy: Thanks for helping me do this interview, Jeronimo. I'm excited to learn more about Rockstar Games and Oni. Let's start with you -- how are you involved in this whole thing?
Jeronimo Barrera: Well, I am a producer at Rockstar Games, and I'm also the contact for Oni. Oni was developed by Bungie, which is a game developer located in San Jose. They've been working on the game for a while, and Rockstars is taking their assets to bring the game to Playstation 2 for Nintendo.
IF: As a producer, is your role a technical one, or is it more the business side of things?
JB: It's a little bit of everything, actually. I'm just making sure the game gets done, on the creative end as well as the technical end, to assure that the product is cool.
IF: When Rockstar acquired Oni, was it a finished project, or did it just have so much potential that you knew you wanted to be involved with it?
JB: It was the potential, really. Basically, Oni was in development for PC and Mac, and they also wanted to develop it for a "next generation" system. Back then, we weren't exactly sure what we would do with it, but the news about Playstation 2 was very exciting, so we decided to give that a shot.
IF: How long have you been doing what you do?
JB: Professionally or in general?
IF: In general -- how did you get started?
JB: Well, I started working with games -- whether it was playing them or hacking them -- when I was still in middle school (laughs). But as far as my professional career goes, I've been at this for almost 10 years.
IF: So you've been involved with games for awhile. I remember there was a pretty distinct time when video games really began to explode and became a million times better than they'd been in the past...
JB: My first job was at Sega when the master system was still around, if that's any indication.
IF: Oh, so you're old?
JB: I AM NOT OLD!
IF: (laughs)
JB: I'm not even thirty yet!
IF: Eep. I'm joking. I just mean that you've been at this for a long time, which leads to the next question: You've obviously done this enough to know what makes a good video game. What was it about Oni that impressed you?
JB: The cool thing about Oni from the start was the vision of the game. A lot of people start designing games and say "Let's see -- I'm gonna make a hack-and-slash game that takes place on the moon!" That's boring! Oni, on the other hand, actually had flavor. The guys who designed it were very influenced by animé, and they wanted to create what would essentially be an interactive animé.
IF: That's an amazingly cool concept.
JB: It is! So they basically have taken this game and created a character that is very diverse in terms of the mechanics that you use with her. She doesn't just walk around -- it's not just a Tomb Raider. It's way more. You can sneak, pick up weapons, you can fight hand-to-hand, you can disarm people , you can interact with the environment. There're all sorts of things you can do as the main character, Konoko.
IF: Konoko is a very cool character, from what I can tell. I've read our scripts for the comic-book series, but can you tell me how the game works and what she does?
JB: Well, you start off as a police officer, Konoko, and you unravel this mystery. I don't want to give too much away because there are some great details, but I will say that at the end of the game, the character goes rogue against the establishment. You know, it's good fun for the kids.
IF: Yes -- teach them anarchy at an early age!
JB: Exactly! It's also a very story-driven game, so I think the tie between the comic book and the video game is pretty close. You can interact with anybody that's on screen. You can either beat them up or talk to them or shoot them (laughs). So, if you go into an area and there are workers in a plant, you can talk to the workers, and the workers might give you information. Then after they're done giving you information -- if you weren't brought up right by your parents -- you can drop kick them in the back of the head. Not that we suggest that's how people should play, but there is that freedom to decide from a range of actions.
IF: I understand. If you want to kick somebody in the head, you can. Choice is important! I'm curious: what level of expertise would you put this game at?
JB: With these Next Generation consoles, it's really something that nobody's played before. That makes it kind of an even playing field. It's about learning how to move around the environment. There's a very comprehensive tutorial at the beginning of the game that helps you learn all of her actions. Again, you can walk, you can sneak, you can crouch, you can jump. You can also tie the actions together, so if you crouch and hit the jump button, you do a flip. And if there's an enemy on the ground, you can jump and flip and land on him to do more damage when he's on the ground. It's very intricate. It's not something that fits into the mold of other games that have come out.
IF: It's gotten amazing reviews from various gaming magazines and web sites, from what I've read. People are going crazy for this game, and it's not even out yet. People seem to be really excited about all the various possibilities Are there lots of hidden things in the course of the game that players will discover?
JB: The depth of the game is really up to the player. Like I said, you can go through it like a crazy man or woman , or you can actually play the role of the character and follow the course of the game a little more, and you might get more of a reward for that. There's one level where there are hostages in an airport, and there are people running and other people shooting. Let's say you have one of these hostages close by, and they're being beat up by the bad guy. If you start beating up the bad guy, the hostage might jump in and help you beat up the bad guy. Or, if you start beating them up, they might start beating you up...
IF: Cool!
JB: It's very open-ended. It's really unique in that way. But still, there are certain goals. At each level, the players get a task or a mission. Let's say you get assigned to go investigate an area. So you go there and there might be a colleague of yours on the ground who's just been shot. And maybe he gives you your next set of tasks to do, but that won't stop you from exploring the level and doing it the way you want. Obviously there are things that we've added to choreograph all the events, so players aren't going to feel lost. It really does become an interactive animé.
IF: I want to talk more about something you said earlier. You mentioned that the main character, Konoko, turns her allegiance against the establishment at this point. It seems like a neat evolution to have something start as simply as a video game character performing tasks and having that become a situation where a character actually changes philosophy and rebels against everything she knows.
JB: That's exactly what's cool about this, the game's philosophy -- taking it to the next level in terms of going through a story and experiencing what the character feels. When Konoko decides she's going to give up her badge, you really feel that way as a character. You've been through everything she has, and it's clear why she's making that choice. There are things that you will experience playing this game that will make you say "Screw those guys. I don't want to work with them any more." And I think it's amazing that video games can capture this sort of emotion now.
Watch for the release of Dark Horse's comic-book adaptation of Rockstar Games' Oni; issue #1 hits the stands February 14, and the three-issue series will continue monthly after that. Also, thanks to a cool deal with Rockstar and GamePro magazine, a special #0 of the Oni comic-book will be included in the March issue of GamePro.