GT Interactive Interview for the Animorphs Video Game

This is my GT Interactive page, I've decided to make Transcript page for it. The link for the Interview is still up, you can try it if you have Real player, the only reason I made this page was for those people that don't have Real player. Anyway here is the transcript and article info I recieved from Morphz, all images for game here have also been used here from Morphz, and of course GT Interactive. So here it is:
Click here to see the Interview in Real Audio.

Article and Game Console

Animorphs
Platform: PC and PlayStation® game console
Developer: SingleTrac for the PlayStation® game console, Gigawatt for the PC
Release Date: March '00

Perhaps you're one of the 28 million + people who have picked up one of the Animorphs' books. Or perhaps you're one of the millions of people hooked on the Animorphs TV series which airs Sunday nights on Nickelodeon Prime Time. In any case, all Animorph fans have reason to get excited this E3...

If you've never heard of Animorphs, you've obviously been living under a rock for the past few years. Anyway, we won't hold it against you. Here's the scoop on the series: it's about five teenagers on a hoeroic mission to save the world from ruthless alien brain-invaders. Empowered with the ability to transform into any animal they touch, the five "Animorphs" must battle and outsmart the evil aliens...before it's too late.

So how, you ask, will this premise translate in to great gameplay? Read on...

Travelling through the game's enormous, gorgeously rendered environments, Players will step into the minds and morphs of the key characters. A series of conflicts with alien Controllers from across the galaxy will culminate in the ultimate showdown with the leader of the invasion: Visser Three.

If you think this will be just another 3D action-adventure game with a big license, think again. GT has tasked one of its top production houses with the development and production of the first Animorphs game; you can be sure they'll deliver an experience that does justice to this fantastic series. Without giving awsay too many of their secrets, the developers confirmed that the game will feature a proprietary "morphing" technology to bring to life a number of teen to beast transformations.

With this amazing technology, awesome story line and appealing characters, Animorphs will undoubtedly be at the top of everyone's "must have" list when it comes out next year. Keep a sharp eye on http://www.gte3.com/gtgames over the course of the coming days for an EXCLUSIVE interview with a member of the team responsible for making one of next year's biggest games. And, as always, be sure to bookmark both The Official Animorphs Site and http://www.gtgames.com for more info on Animorphs in the coming year.

Transcript Console

Host: Chris Manning, Zack here at E3. I'm in the "Animorphs" booth. This is an upcoming GT game and I'm talking to Matt Copeland, he's the art lead on this. The game is really in its early developmental stage, and we wanted to bring this to you to let you know what's happening. Welcome to GameTime.

Matt: Oh, thanks, good to be here.

Host: You've got a presentation here about Animorphs. Who don't you tell everyone a little bit about it, 'cause it's got a big following with the kids level.

Matt: Definitely. Animorphs is about five kids who are given the ability to morph into any character that they can touch, whether it be creatures, animals, other humans, if they can touch it, they can get the DNA and then morph it, which gives them a lot of power. The reason they've been given this power is that they're fighting an alien invasion. The aliens are these kind of slug-like creatures that climb into your ear and takes you over, it's pretty nasty.

Host: Sounds exciting.

Matt: Yeah, what they're doing is they're trying to fight this invasion, through the combination of acquiring different animals and trying to take out the bad guys.

Host: Now this is books, and it's on TV, it's got live action and we see this stuff over here, and here's some books over here, so this has got a built in audience, to tell you the truth.

Matt: Yeah, it's huge. it started with the books, there are 34 million books in print, there are 29 in the main series, 5 more (something) books, the television show is number one rated on Nickelodeon, it's top-rated throughout the international community, the toys are going like hot cakes. There is barely any marketing going on, they're just now starting to do marketing, and now everything has completely taken off. There are thousands of fan websites out there (You'd better believe it!), we're based in Salt Lake City and there's an Animorphs fan club there based in Waldenbooks and they get about 75 people a month that show up. The place is just going crazy with Animorphs.

Host: So what can you tell us about the game?

Matt: The game itself, we've really tried to stay close to the Animorphs universe and make the fans of the Animorphs universe really happy. (All right! Matt, you rock!) We've tried to include just about 20 different morphs they can morph into, everything from cockroaches to spiders to Hork-Bajir to elephants, and all the levels are customized based on what you're playing. Even playing as human you can run around trying to find morphs to acquire and stuff like that. Most games only put about 10 to 15 enemies to fight with, but the Animorphs universe is so huge we couldn't stop at that, so we put 20 different enemies in. It should really be exciting, we've got a lot of stuff we're putting together right now.

Host: Is this going to be a first person game where you're running around looking through the viewpoint of the person who's morphing?

Matt: No, it's third person, kind of over the head, 45 degree angles.

Host: Like Lara Croft angles?

Matt: Yeah, a little higher though, but it changes depending on what level you're in to make it appropriate for the game. There is a wide variety, depending on what you're doing. Some of it's exploration, some of it's combat, it's a race against the clock kind of thing because you've got a specific morph time you can stay in, so hopefully we'll make it a really great game along with a great liscense to go with it.

Host: Do you want to show us some of the slide-shows we've got here?

(a series of really cool slides show here as Matt explains what they are; look below to see the screenshots)

Matt: Here’s some concept art for the different aliens. Up here is the Iskoort, it’s going to be one of our minions, the Jubba Jubba, he’s one of our bosses, the Helmacron, another one of the minions, and this is the Lerdethak, it’s going to be one of our bosses. We've gone really hardcore, reading all the books to make sure we can research this thing as much as possible. We're getting as nuts as the fans are, trying to be.

Host: Is this for the PC, Playstation...?

Matt: We're doing the Playstation version. Our history was doing Jet Moto and the Twisted Metal series... Our engine wasn't exactly what we needed, so what we did was scrap our engine and started over just for this game. So they should be in for a real treat, we're going to crank up the visuals and the gameplay there and have Animorphs along with it, so we should have a really rocking game when we're done.

Host: When do you think we'll be seeing something on the streets?

Matt: We've got demos scheduled to come out this Fall, and then we're scheduled to come out next Spring, Spring of 2000.

Host: Any idea about working with the Playstation 2?

Matt: We're still working on it, we've got to get the Playstation 1 game out first.

Host: Okay, great. Anything else you think our fans would like to know about this, is it going to be based more on the books or the TV series?

Matt: We've tried to go straight from the books, they seem to be the authority on everything, so we're religiously going through the books and since the TV show is kind of an interpretation of the books, we're going right back to the source and getting right out of the books. So we're hoping the fans will be happy.

Host: So next Spring we'll be seeing Animorphs for the Playstation.

Matt:Right.

Here are some of Pictures from the Interview.