Dear Reader:
You are viewing
a story from GN Version 4.0.
Time may not have been kind to formatting, integrity of links, images, information, etc.
Former RARE employee on Killer Instinct's old name, Conker's edge, sequel squashed
E: What was it called before it was called Killer Instinct?
Chris Seavor: Brute Force was the original codename. It was Martin Hollis who came up with the name one day, and everyone went, oh, that's good! We'll never get that. Somebody will already have that. And then we checked it and it wasn't. It was like, okay, yeah, that will do.
E: Conkey was a bit out there for a Nintendo game.
Chris Seavor: It was. It was quite a brave move I thought. I was surprised when they said yeah, okay. There are some bits in it where I look back now and I go, oh god, I don't know how we got away with that. I think Live & Reloaded was more dumbed down than the original Nintendo one, which is ironic.
I was quite happy with what it sold. But at the time other games at Rare were selling upwards of five, six million units, and you were being compared to that. So you get a game that sells a million, which by nowadays standards I'd say is pretty good, back then it was like, oh, it's only sold a million. Christ! We were up against stuff like Diddy Kong Racing, which sold immense amounts. Even Perfect Dark. So it got eclipsed a little bit. But the fan base was really strong. My name became associated with the character. Within that community it was quite a good thing.
We did a few other prototypes that didn't come to much, and I did some graphics work on the side just within the company, because that's what I started doing, it wasn't design. And then Microsoft came along and said here's a load of money, we're going to do stuff now. And somehow we ended up doing Live & Reloaded. I'm still not sure how that happened. I'm still not sure that we shouldn't have done Conker 2. In fact I'm certain we should have done.
E: Why do you feel that way?
Chris Seavor: I started designing it and we were going to do it. They just wanted it quickly. It was coming to the end of the life cycle of the Xbox, and there was talk of them going, look, can we just shift this over to the 360, which was a year away? I was really against that because I just couldn't face spending another two years on a game we'd already spent a year and a half on. So I guess it was probably my fault.
Now, I would have gone, absolutely. Let's take a step back and make the graphics look as good as we can. It would have done all right I think. From the amount of messages I get every day saying please make Conker 2 I'd say it would have been a better move, but hey. There you go.
Full interview here
Chris Seavor: Brute Force was the original codename. It was Martin Hollis who came up with the name one day, and everyone went, oh, that's good! We'll never get that. Somebody will already have that. And then we checked it and it wasn't. It was like, okay, yeah, that will do.
E: Conkey was a bit out there for a Nintendo game.
Chris Seavor: It was. It was quite a brave move I thought. I was surprised when they said yeah, okay. There are some bits in it where I look back now and I go, oh god, I don't know how we got away with that. I think Live & Reloaded was more dumbed down than the original Nintendo one, which is ironic.
I was quite happy with what it sold. But at the time other games at Rare were selling upwards of five, six million units, and you were being compared to that. So you get a game that sells a million, which by nowadays standards I'd say is pretty good, back then it was like, oh, it's only sold a million. Christ! We were up against stuff like Diddy Kong Racing, which sold immense amounts. Even Perfect Dark. So it got eclipsed a little bit. But the fan base was really strong. My name became associated with the character. Within that community it was quite a good thing.
We did a few other prototypes that didn't come to much, and I did some graphics work on the side just within the company, because that's what I started doing, it wasn't design. And then Microsoft came along and said here's a load of money, we're going to do stuff now. And somehow we ended up doing Live & Reloaded. I'm still not sure how that happened. I'm still not sure that we shouldn't have done Conker 2. In fact I'm certain we should have done.
E: Why do you feel that way?
Chris Seavor: I started designing it and we were going to do it. They just wanted it quickly. It was coming to the end of the life cycle of the Xbox, and there was talk of them going, look, can we just shift this over to the 360, which was a year away? I was really against that because I just couldn't face spending another two years on a game we'd already spent a year and a half on. So I guess it was probably my fault.
Now, I would have gone, absolutely. Let's take a step back and make the graphics look as good as we can. It would have done all right I think. From the amount of messages I get every day saying please make Conker 2 I'd say it would have been a better move, but hey. There you go.