Ok guys, I was going to post a fully detailed of the walkthrough, but after reading Sparky's recap, it would be quite redundant. As such, here is his in its entirety. I edited it a bit and added some tidbits here are there, credit goes to Sparky, the original doc/url can be found here: http://www.alexromo.com/?p=11#comment-345
Enjoy!
"Please remember all information mentioned regarding Call of Duty: World at War are from demo levels/footage shown to us which are subject to change in the final product.”
Event Information
Day: Friday June 13th, 2008
Location: Treyarch, Santa Monica, California, USA
Hosts:
Josh “JD” Olin (TA Community Manager)
Mark Lamia (TA President)
Hank Keirsey (CoD Military Advisor)
Robert Taylor (ATVI Jr. Publicist)
John Lenaway (Step 3)
Treyarch Staff/Employees
Attendees:
Rudedog (FPS Admin)
Brandon (Total Call of Duty)
StrYdeR (ModsOnline)
Matt (Planet Call of Duty)
Jeremy (Xbox)
Sparks (.MAP)
Arriving At Treyarch
Upon arriving at Treyach, we were all guided to a meeting/cinema room where we were introduced to Mark Lamia (Treyarch Studio Head), Noah Heller (Activision Senior Producer), and Rich Farrelly (Treyarch Creative Director).
After a brief introduction by each, Mark Lamia began telling us about their goals with this new title. Mark said the team’s goal is to step up and create a Call of Duty like no other. He hopes they can show the community they’ve got what it takes to make a memorable game. He acknowledged that the PC community might be a little concerned since Call of Duty 3 wasn’t for the PC, but he says the team plans on interacting with and supporting the various platform communities in the future when they get their own forums up and more info on the game comes out.
Mark sounded really passionate about Call of Duty: World At War, and for the entire studio tour that followed he was with us every step of the way answering most of the questions that came up directed at the various developers we met. If he hadn’t been introduced as the Head of Treyarch, I could have been easily fooled he was a Designer of some sort. It was great to see a development studio’s head not only take time out of his day to give the tour, but to also know so much technical behind-the-scenes information about the game being worked on, it showed a good sign.
After Mark’s speech, they loaded up Call of Duty: World At War.
Level Demo 1 (Xbox 360)
Noah Heller would be demoing this level by himself in the singleplayer campaign. The first level we saw is the one you’ve probably read about in the leaked magazine scans, “Makin Raid” (a working title for the level which can change they said).
The level begins with the player as POW witnessing his friendly soldiers get tortured. A nearby friendly refuses to talk, and is sliced on the throat. I was expecting a fade to black as Infinity Ward usually does to cover up violence, but there were no barriers here as you saw a blood splat hit the wall and your friendly die. As the executioner is walking towards the player to execute him, a quick distraction begins in the back and the executioner is taken out. Friendlies have come to rescue you.
As you make your way out, you appear to be on some sort of island near the beach with a squad of friendlies. The water is fluid and the best I’ve seen in any Call of Duty. The atmosphere of the beach and nearby jungle is eerie and realistic, detailed to the brim with FX, ambient sounds, and level design as I’ve never seen before. It was quite an immersion.
Battle chatter is definitely back as you hear your friendlies giving you warnings and directing you. You start making your way across the beach and through beach huts. You eventually see a hut on fire, and as you make your way around it an enemy on fire pops out and attacks one of your friendlies. The enemy on fire is burning up, and you can see his body and uniform turn to ash, the effect not being 100% scripted to happen just at that moment as we saw it happen later in the second level in real time.
As the player makes his way through the jungle, you can hear various animals and sounds from Mother Nature all around you. The sound is unique and plays at varying volumes, tempos, etc., based on which direction you’re facing, how far you are from the sound, and if there is anything between you and the sound… Call of Duty: World At War has now introduced sound occlusion to the series!
Eventually the player makes his way through the jungle to an area where dead enemy soldiers are laying about. A short dialogue sequence takes place… and up goes a blinding flare. The player’s screen becomes disorientated and flashed, and when you come to your senses, the bodies that were lying on the floor are up and ambushing you.
And it was at this point the demo for this level ended, “To Be Continued…” scrolled across the screen.
Discussion On New AI Behavior + Military Research
Rich Farrelly (Treyarch Creative Director) and Hank Keirsey (CoD Military Advisor) jumped in to explain to us how these Pacific enemies aren’t just German soldiers in Japanese uniforms.
Hank gave us a quick review on the Pacific Theater, and how it differed from the European Theater and even Modern Warfare. It was explained that Pacific enemies presented different challenges to soldiers compared to that in the European theater. In the Pacific Theater, enemies tended to abide to Bushido Code which was a way of dying for the Japanese soldiers, taking out as many US soldiers as possible. They would fight to the last breath refusing to be taken hostage.
Japanese soldiers used techniques such as pretending to be dead, waiting for a US soldier to walk over to them, and would then pull out a knife and take out the soldier. We saw this battle technique first-hand in the “Makin Raid” level. Hank also explained how Japanese soldiers would hold live grenades to their chest in hopes of taking out US troops before dying. I didn’t explicitly see this myself happening in the demo levels, but that’s not to say it didn’t happen as it would be a subtle attack technique. It was also mentioned how Japanese soldiers would hide in trees and in the grass waiting, and waiting, for the perfect opportunity to ambush a US soldier.
Rich jumped in to build upon with what Hank had described to us - how the AI logic has been reworked to suit a new kind of enemy. One of the examples he used was how enemies would (and do use in the game as we will see in the second level) use underground tunnels and fire out of small openings that were hard to hit. US soldiers would then need to send soldiers up armed with flame throwers to flush out the holes, but the Japanese were smart enough to pick up on this and project their main fire at soldiers with flame throwers. In addition, the holes or bunkers, were set up in a grid fashion where they could provide covering and suppressing fire to the bunker under attack from the outlaying positions. That way, if the enemy approached a bunker, others behind it would have a clear line of sight to mow down the opposition.
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