DEATHROW

Deathrow is a brutal fighting sport where the fastest, toughest players are victorious and the slow and weak are defeated. It combines the lightning-fast gameplay of third-person action games, adrenaline rush of fighting games and the cooperative team play and gritty roughness of rugby, offering a unique gameplay experience. The object of the game is to win matches however you can, either by scoring as many points as possible before time runs out, or by severely injuring your opponents and removing them from the field of combat.

Game Chronicles goes inside this exciting new combat-sports game with an exclusive interview by John Carswell.

GCM: Please start by telling us a bit about yourself and SouthEnd Interactive.
Magnus: SouthEnd Interactive was started in May 1999 by 5 friends, Lenny Olsson, Anders Jeppsson, Peter Ekstrand, Daniel Jeppsson and me, Magnus Bergholtz. There are currently 8 people working at our office in Malmö, in the southern parts of Sweden. I'm involved in the artistic side and have been working with creating the arenas for Deathrow.

GCM: What lead SouthEnd to make Deathrow for the Xbox and will we be seeing the game making its way to other system?
Magnus: Our main concern was, as a new developer, to come up with an idea for a game that wasn’t too big but still had a lot of potential to become a great game. We came up with the idea of deathrow and at first glance it seemed like a game fitting a team of our size. We were of course totally wrong, and the game became a lot bigger than we initially planned for... but that's another story...:)

About any plans of another platform, we don't have any at the moment. For now, Deathrow is an Xbox exclusive.


GCM: What do you feel will sell Deathrow to the gamer who usually avoids sports games? Conversely, what does Deathrow offer to the sports gamer who is made nervous by the game’s fighting and action aspects?
Magnus: The way I see it, Deathrow takes the best from two totally different genres and mixes them into something new. I remember a guy at E3 who was standing next to me looking when I was demoing Deathrow. I asked him if he wanted to try it, but his reply was "I'm not into sport games". I said "It's not a sports game, you should really try it!". After some time he did try it and after that he wouldn't let go of the controller. He just loved the game. So to everybody who thinks less of Deathrow because it's doesn't fit into their favourite genre I’ve just got one thing to say: Don't... Try it out, and be ready to love it!!!!

GCM: How does one "score" and is the disc as lethal as it appears to be?
Magnus: You score by throwing the disc through the opposing teams goal which is a round hole at each side of the arena. You could of course call knocking someone out for scoring to since you can also win by knocking all of the opponents out.

The disc can be charged up and thrown at people to knock them out. This is called a deathrow, (Death + Throw = Deathrow). Using the deathrow move is a great way to knock out the opponent goalie, but it is not without risk, as you will notice when you try it!


GCM: Will there be "Seasons" and stat. tracking?
Magnus: There will be something called a conquest consisting of 13 teams. You start out in the bottom and as you climb the ladder you can upgrade and buy new players as well as boosting them with drugs. You'll also get missions when playing through the conquest.

Every player in the game has unique stats and during the conquest the players can be trained boosting these stats to make the player better. There are stats for strength, speed, stamina, agility etc that will all play an important role when you select your starting line-up. They also gain new fighting moves when they train.


GCM: What sort of offensive moves, both single attacks and combos, will the player have at their disposal?
Magnus: Kicks, punches, tackles, slides, grabs, throws and combos are all things a player can perform. So there are plenty of attacks to choose from when deciding how to knock out a player:) All teams are really different, both because of their overall difference in stats, but also because of their repertoire of moves, which means you have to adapt your tactics depending on which team you play and which team you play against!

GCM: In terms of both blocking incoming attacks and defending the goal, what moves does Deathrow give the player?
Magnus: If you stand still and press the evade button the player blocks incoming attacks. If you block and press a direction you can perform quick evades and hopefully miss the inbound boot to the chin! When defending the goal you just try get in the way of the disc to catch it and pray that it's not a Deathrow coming towards you:)

GCM: How will things like camera control and aiming (both at the "goal" and opponents) be handled?
Magnus: There are 2 camera modes, the traditional sports mode with a top down mounted camera following the player and the 3rd person camera.

The aiming, shooting as well as passing, is represented by two lines snapping to either a player or the goal. The goal line is faster or slower locking to the goal depending on how good the player is. These aiming lines are only present in the 3rd person camera mode. The pass line enables you to run in one direction and make side passes quickly and efficiently. Playing the 3D action mode can at first seem like you don’t have enough overview, and it is really hectic, but believe me, once mastered you have 100% control, and the level of immersion really sucks you into the game making you never want to leave.


GCM: I understand that Deathrow is to feature "unique characters" but how individualized are they? Is this simply a matter of different character models or does it go deeper?
Magnus: It certainly goes deeper... All characters have unique stats, names, looks, and animation sets. Allowing each player to feel and react differently upon any given situation. Although there are differences between players within in team, the big difference lies between the teams. The variation in teams covers a whole range of different combinations between strength, agility, speed, aggression, energy, passing and shooting skill etc. making Deathrow feel like you're meeting real human opponents.

One of the really cool things about the AI is that it has a built in “emotion” system that makes aggressive players really want to take out their frustration on players that score too much or mess with their team mates. You even see players, in especially the Demon or Convicts team, fight with their own teammates! If you are playing a weaker team you might not want to make your opponent too angry by hitting them a lot! Wait for them to miss a shot or intercept the disc and then pass a lot. Playing defensive really pays off for some teams!


GCM: Please describe Deathrow's player upgrade system. Will it be possible to save your upgraded teams to a memory card to install and use on a friends Xbox?
Magnus: During the conquest you can train your players. When you want to train a player you view the stats and in the stats you can see how much better and in what areas a player can improve if you train him another level. Besides the stats you also get new animations when upgrading such as kicks, punches and grabs.

And yes, you can download your user profile to a memory card holding your team and bring it to a friend to play with that team.

However, the training aspect only applies to the conquest mode. Once a team and a player has been unlocked by your earned unlock credits, they will be fully trained in single match and network mode!


GCM: How many different arenas will Deathrow include and could you please provide a few examples of their layout?
Magnus: There are 14 arenas designed specifically for the 3rd person camera mode, 14 arenas designed to work in both the top down mode and the 3rd person mode and another 4 bonus arenas also designed for 3rd person viewing. So there are a total of 32 arenas to play in.

Many arenas have small ledges, ramps and other obstacles you can use to evade your opponents or get in a great position to score. There are also jump pads in some arenas that let you take quick short cuts or score from high above! Depending on the team you play the arena will be more or less suited. Something to think about when you battle your friends in a split screen match or over LAN!


GCM: As for multiplayer, how many players are supported and will there be multiple game play modes available?
Magnus: There can be up to 8 players playing in the game at the same time using system link. You can play up to 4 players on one Xbox using split screen. There will be one additional game play mode top unlock in the game besides the Classic blitz mode.

GCM: Graphically, how well do you feel Deathrow takes advantage of the Xbox hardware?
Magnus: Considering the size of our team was 9 people in average, while developing Deathrow, we're proud that we managed to get that many Xbox features into the final game. We feel that the looks of Deathrow are among the best on Xbox and we did push the hardware quite far, but there's almost always room for improvement and we will push it even further during our next game!

GCM: Thanks for your time. Any thoughts you'd like to end us on?
Magnus: If you’re tired off the same old games coming out year after year, give Deathrow a chance! I promise you, you will love playing with your friends in either co-op, against an amazingly fun and “live” AI, or play against each other to really test your skill!

Check out more amazing screen shots in Game Chronicle's ongoing coverage of this exciting game.