We are honoured to bring you the interview we conducted with the developers of Die Hard Vendetta. In this interview they shead light on Die Hard's gameplay, weapons, options, and of course we have also talked to them about the company behind the game, Bits Corp.

We have spoken to Foo Katan, Bits Corp CEO, and Mario Aguera, the Producer on Die Hard: Vendetta. Enjoy reading the interview!


This interview is © Copyright GameCube Europe 2002. It may not be reproduced in its entirety without express consent by the owners of GameCube Europe. All partial reproductions of this interview must give proper credit to GameCube Europe, the source of the interview.


C-E: Can you tell us something about Bits Corp and about the people working there?

Foo Katan -

We’ve been making games for over 15 years and have always made great efforts in developing games that are fun to play. Obviously, we’re gamers as well who appreciate great game play, justified by titles such as Warlocked on the GBC, perceived as one of the best RTS games on any handheld system.

C-E: You have made the gaming community wait a long time for the first Die Hard information and screens. Could you tell us the reason for this? And do you think in the end it was worth it?

Mario Aguera –

Well we didn’t want to show anything about the game until we were confident that we could achieve what we had originally planned, it is one thing having a demo running in emulation, its another having completed locations running on final hardware. Another thing is we want to pace ourselves with regards to releasing info on Die Hard Vendetta; and this is just the start. Over the coming months our publisher will start to make more of what we are doing available. Expectation is a good thing but too much exposure too soon does nothing but harm the game; that said though we are all confident that we are making something special here.

Mario Aguera –

Thank-you. The response we’ve had has been really positive which is obviously very pleasing; it’s always nerve-racking when you show the outside world what you’ve been working on. But for me the really good thing is that, in my opinion, these first screen shots released are among the weakest we’ve taken of the game, the best is definitely still to come :). One good thing about releasing these screenshots is the feedback we’ve got from them; we have actually altered a couple of things as a result of comments that we’ve received. All feedback, no matter where it comes from, is very important to us.

C-E: Will you be including a multiplayer mode, possibly co-operative and if so, what kind of modes and features will be included?

Mario Aguera –

We are actually working on the multiplayer game at the moment, and at this point I cant really say much about it, all I can say is we are building unique environments specifically for the multiplayer games.

C-EQ: Will you be concentrating on stealth or a lot of gun blasting, possibly both?

Mario Aguera –

We’ve designed the game with the Die Hard films very much in mind. This may sound obvious but what I mean by that is we haven’t just slapped a license onto a first person shooter. In the movies John McClane isn’t superhuman, a lot of the time he creeps around picking off the bad guys one by one to try and even out the odds, yet occasionally he produces some incredible sharp shooting. The same can be said of Vendetta, by all means you can play it by running in guns blazing but that might not always be the best approach. Many times using stealth is you best option to safely progress, live to fight another day so to speak.

C-E: With so many First-Person Shooters on the market, how are you trying to prevent Die Hard from just becoming "just another shooter"?

Mario Aguera –

As I said previously, we’ve built the game from the ground up with the Die Hard movies in mind, not only that but with consoles (and their controllers) in mind. The control system on any game is probably the single most important thing and I believe we’ve come up with some clever solutions for the disadvantage of not having a mouse on a console. The other aspect that separates us from the norm is the attention to detail and level of interaction available within our world. We have a very good story for Vendetta and the atmosphere generated by it and events that occur in the game makes a very involving package.

C-E: What are your personal favourite bits about Vendetta?

Mario Aguera –

Well my personal favourite bits in Vendetta I can’t tell you about yet, sorry. But I can say we have some very cool and original scenarios in the game. On a more general level, I love the level of interaction we’ve achieved with other characters in the game. The fact that you can go up to and talk to virtually any character in the game and get unique and relevant replies is excellent and this just adds to the believability of the experience of being John McClane.

C-E: Why did you make the decision to have Vendetta exclusive for GameCube? And will this game definitely be exclusive for GameCube, or will it be semi-exclusive. I.e. could it be that you will be releasing an X-Box or a PlayStation 2 version, depending on the success of the GameCube game?


Mario Aguera –

This is mainly an historical reason, as we originally started development on the Nintendo 64. When Nintendo first approached us, about Project Dolphin, we looked at our ambitions and the spec they were promising and decided to switch platforms. As for other versions, you can never say never, however for me right now my focus is on making Die Hard Vendetta a great Gamecube game.

C-E: How faithful is Vendetta to the trilogy, if at all?

Mario Aguera –

The story of our game takes place some five years after Die Hard with a Vengeance, so it is a unique chapter. However we have numerous characters that you will know from the films and these characters will reference events that occurred in the movies. We are very respectful of the Die Hard universe.

C-E: How many weapons are there, could you name a few and are there any innovative special ones?

Mario Aguera –

Okay, deep breath, at the moment we have 18 different weapons, on top of this you then have the gadgets :)

Mario Aguera –

We are aiming for fourth quarter 2002.

C-E: What do you think of the GameCube, is it an easy platform to work with and how pleased are you with the results? How was Nintendo's support if you run into any?

Mario Aguera –

We’ve been really impressed with the Gamecube, it’s is a lovely piece of hardware and certainly more friendly to work with than the Nintendo 64. The results we’ve achieved so far is very encouraging and I’m sure there is a lot more to come as developers become more familiar and dig deeper into the machine. Nintendo’s philosophy has been if they make a machine that is easy to programme then developers can concentrate their effort on making the game-play right.

C-E: Does Bitscorp have any other GC games in the pipeline? If so, what will they be like? have you already started working on them?

Mario Aguera –

Sorry, no comment.

C-E: What's your personal favourite console? And why?

Mario Aguera –

Well all the new generation of consoles have the potential for becoming my favourite as they all have some fantastic games on them and ultimately great games make the console. However for me personally I really loved the Sega Dreamcast. Basically it’s a great piece of hardware capable of producing some lushious crips graphics, and it had some of the greatest games on it, Soul Calibur, Virtua Tennis, Ferrari F355

C-E: You are also developing for the GBA. Jet Riders and Wizards are two games currently in development by Bits Corp. Are you excited about their release? Could you maybe in short tell us why people should buy these games?

Foo Katan –

As a games developer we’re always excited about the release of our games. For the project teams especially, there’s nothing better than seeing a game you’ve worked hard on being released to the gaming public.

Wizards is an RPG/RTS game which is generating a lot of excitement amongst the Press and gamers alike. It’s a sequel to our highly acclaimed GBC title, Warlocked but we’ve added a lot more action elements, think RTS with button bashing arcade blasting.

Jet Riders is a top down jet ski racer that really focuses on game play. There’s tons of cool features in it like stunt challenges, different jet ski’s, riders, world locations, realistic jet ski movement and up to 88 challenges. It’s definitely a game with great replay value.

Both games feature 4 player multi play with just one cart, which is something we really focussed on. In short they are both great fun to play.

C-E: Has Bits Corp got any plans to develop more GBA games?

Foo Katan -

We’ve got an excellent GBA development team with a proven track record of great games so, yes.

C-E: Thank you for the interview. We are looking forward to give Vendetta a try ;)

Thank you.


This interview is © Copyright GameCube Europe 2002. It may not be reproduced in its entirety without express consent by the owners of GameCube Europe. All partial reproductions of this interview must give proper credit to GameCube Europe, the source of the interview.