Added: 15.12.2014 15:00 | 0 views | 0 comments

"Ambition's kind of a funny word to bandy around when you're talking about Total War," says Creative Assembly studio director Tim Heaton. "It's fair to say that some of our most ambitious titles have also courted the most controversial reception and some of the most divisive opinions."

Heaton is speaking to a roomful of press members, outlining what the Total War teams have been up to and where they intend to go. As it happens, the series had already expanded into the mobile space with Total War Battles, but Creative Assembly clearly has eyes on other markets as well, and the free-to-play realm on the PC in particular. And thus was born Total War: Arena, a streamlined multiplayer take on the series' strategic formula that pits two teams of 10 players each against one another, and gives players a handful of squads to lead into battle. The idea of a scaled down, free-to-play iteration of a deep, beloved strategy series is the kind of one that inspires waves of pearl-clutching among PC enthusiasts who worry about the murder of big strategy games in the name of accessibility and audience appeal.

Added: 14.12.2014 19:47 | 0 views | 0 comments

Whether or not you know the name Koji Kondo, if you're reading this on GameSpot, you definitely know his music. The Nintendo composer is best known for creating the iconic Mario and Zelda themes. But the prolific creator continues to work crafting melodies and helping raise up a new generation of musicians at Nintendo.

He's currently working as the composer for

Since your job has evolved a lot of over the years, do you prefer taking a more supervisory role, or do you still like to get in and create the music yourself?

I do like being in a role of giving direction; it is a lot of fun. Because I have a staff that really reaches out and creates music that I personally wouldn't have imagined or stuff I wouldn't have created, it's really interesting to hear what they come up with.

I have to say that while creating music is fun, and I do like doing that, it's also tough work. There are times when it's really difficult and not all that pleasant. As someone who gets to listen to what others have created, I get to escape from having to endure some of that hardship myself.

Speaking of creating music, for something like working on Mario Maker, does that involve a lot of original composition, or do you use more tunes that bring about the memories of previous games?

Basically, you're looking at three different types of music for Mario Maker. When you're in the gameplay mode of the original game itself, you've created your stage and you're playing that, you're going to hear the original music from the original game. In the editing mode, when you're working on something that was present in the original game, you're going to hear a re-imagining of that original music. So we have the original music, we have some re-imaginings of that music. And where there are portions of the game that are completely new to Mario Maker, that's brand-new.

As someone who's supervising the direction of the music, I try to put myself into the player's shoes and I ask myself, "Does this music fit with what's happening? Does it do what the game wants it to do?"

Are you working on the next Zelda theme as well, or is that coming from a separate team?

I'll be supervising and looking over that, but I'm not actively composing for the game.

My final question, when you're working as a supervisor on something like that, when do you know when it's ready for the game? When do you let it go?

We look at whether the music has achieved its goal. Whether the music's designed to emphasize a certain action on screen or if it's designed to entice vocal songs or something like that. We just have to look at what the music is designed to do within the game.

Sometimes the creator has a tough time doing that. Because they're so close, they're so deep into the music themselves, they're unable to look at it from the player's point of view. So as someone who's supervising the direction of the music, I try to put myself into the player's shoes and I ask myself, "Does this music fit with what's happening? Does it do what the game wants it to do?" But the composer is still concerned with the music itself. So I try to look at it and give advice from that viewpoint. Whether or not it's achieving the goal, and whether or not that's clear from the player's viewpoint.