GameCube Europe sat down with Tom Crago, CEO of Tantalus, and Steven Bennetts, Project Director of MIB 2 - Alien Escape. Below you can see Tom on the left and Steven on the right.

I was recently hired by Tantalus as a senior programmer. I started the Men In Black II GameCube conversion as the lead programmer and project director.

TC: I'm the CEO. I organise our development deals and generally try to keep the Tantalus ship sailing in the right direction. The games industry is a fairly tough business, so that's enough to keep me busy.

C-E: What is the goal of the company?

TC: Like most developers, we want to make great games. That's all that motivates us. It's a hard objective to measure, but really we want to make quality titles that people will have a good time with. It's nice when they sell well too.

C-E: Recently it was announced that MIB2 will be coming to the GameCube which is under development by Tantalus. With no GameCube games in your portfolio, how did you guys get a hold of that order to produce this game?

TC: The first thing we should say here is that MIB2 on GameCube is a fairly faithful conversion of the PS2 game by Infogrames. That PS2 title was developed by Infogrames 'Melbourne House.' Those guys work just around the corner from us. In fact, Tantalus was founded by a few guys from Australian game development pioneers 'Beam', who later became Melbourne House. So we've always had a very close relationship. We did 'Space Race' on PS2 with Infogrames and they asked us if we could help them out with MIB2. We were all very keen to get onto the GameCube so it made perfect sense.

We'd love to do more GameCube titles. We've found it a fantastic platform to develop for. There also seems to be some great new games coming out.

C-E: With this being your first GameCube game, was it difficult developing for the Nintendo Console?

SB: Actually, the GameCube was a very friendly platform to develop for. Not only is their software development kit well designed, it is also very well documented.

C-E: If you don't mind I would like to ask some questions on your upcoming game MIB2 Alien Escape. How closely does the game reflect on the film?

SB: The team at Infogrames Melbourne House did the game design for the PS2 version, and I think that they came up with a good story that complemented the film nicely.

There is speech in the game, but it was not done by the actors from the movie.

C-E: What is the main objective of the levels and style of the game?

SB: Men In Black II is what I would call a traditional "shooter". The objective is pretty much to destroy everything that comes your way. The story and the moment-to-moment game play are what carry the game.

C-E: Most film licenses that are made into games seem to be poor, or, at best quite average. What are you doing with MiB II to try and prevent this?

TC: The Men in Black films lend themselves to a video game experience far better than most movies. Basically, the game is about blasting aliens. The player characters are very cool, the weapons are a lot of fun, and the aliens themselves make for first rate cannon fodder.

This was a straight port of the PS2 version. The only real difference is that the image quality on the GameCube is much better than the PS2.

C-E: Do you have any other GameCube games in development?

TC: Nothing at present, but we're keen to continue to work on GameCube.

C-E: Anything in store for the GBA in the near future?

TC: We have a lot happening on GBA. Check out our website at www.tantalus.com.au for all the details. We've just released ATV Quad Power Racing, and we have Woody Woodpecker in Crazy Castle 5 coming out this month. Next in line is Flintstones in Dino Disaster, then Top Gear Rally early next year. We're also working on a couple of original titles based on our own ideas. More than half of our development studio is working on GBA.

C-E: Thanks for taking the time sitting down with us. We are looking forward trying MIB2!

The Tantalus team: