Jaffe: fixing scoring gap reason for Calling All Cars delay

by Ross Miller { Apr 5th 2007 at 4:55PM }

Insomniac Games (Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank series) interviewed David Jaffe (God of War) for the second episode of their new podcast, The Full Moon Show. Of note is Jaffe's explanation for the delay of his upcoming PlayStation Network title, Calling All Cars.

Jaffe said that during playtests people were enjoying themselves more when the scores were close, rather than when the scoring gap was wide. He talked to some industry vets who had worked on a few Midway titles to see if they had any code that could be used to narrow that scoring gap, and sure enough they had some code.

"We certainly don't want to go into and put in tons of that, but we've gone in and added just a little bit," he said. He continued to say that his hope is folks who are within 20% of each other's skill levels to have very competitive matches. Jaffe also explained that this was the reason for another playtest, and if the code's effects are noticeable then they will take it out.

Jaffe noted that they are still planning for a release during the month of April.

The interview starts 21 minutes into the 2-hour podcast. Jaffe also talked about his frankness in discussion, his love of playtests (the fifth one is coming up) and his ambitious, now on permanent hiatus, PSP tearjerker Heartland. The podcast also includes updates on Resistance: Fall of Man and the upcoming Ratchet and Clank Future.

[Via Aeropause]

Tags: calling all cars, CallingAllCars, david jaffe, DavidJaffe, insomniac, insomniac games, InsomniacGames, jaffe, playstation network, PlaystationNetwork, pod cast, PodCast, psn

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jake @ Apr 5th 2007 5:05PM

So they are trying to say people enjoyed competitive matches more than blowouts. NO WAY! Good thing they did that study.

Ian Von Porter @ Apr 5th 2007 5:16PM

Oh GOD, i hope it isnt the automatic lightning you get when you're in 8th place in MarioKart.

pete @ Apr 5th 2007 5:21PM

didnt you guys just report this the other day.!?

John @ Apr 5th 2007 5:57PM

Yeah, I hope this isn't Mario Kart-ish where skill has no bearing on who wins.

jason @ Apr 5th 2007 6:25PM

this game has been tuned, polished and delayed to the point where nothing short of perfection will be consiodered a failure....its just a friggin arcade title for christs sake why cant he just release the damn thing

but then again this is the producer of God of War so i have to give the man the benefit of the dooubt and assume that if hes putting this much work into it it is something great

Rubang B @ Apr 5th 2007 7:03PM

Haha, suckers. Suck on the Mario Kart treatment. Pretty soon you'll change your story to the "Hey, it does make it more competitive and thus more fun without making skill obsolete." If you have any online leaderboards, you will see that the top players aren't constantly switching places.