henke on 3/4/2011 at 19:34

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(http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/03/30/the-secret-history-of-volition.aspx) The Secret History of Volition

Really interesting documentary about Volition and their games. Lots of candid insight from the developers about what worked and what didn't for the company's various games. Plently of interesting history about how they got started, like that the main dude, Mike Kulas, worked briefly at Looking Glass, on the Car & Driver game before starting Parallax Software, and later Volition. The doc also features a great deal of cringe-inducing 90's adverts(Rodney Dangerfield endorsing Descent hahaha) and clueless newsreports(NBC reporter explaining how multiplayer gaming works hahaha).

In part 3 they talk about a game called Underworld. Which is a third person stealth game in which you play a modern day thief with a wide array of hightech bankrobbing-gadgets, and from the gameplay footage it looks like it could've been good. Unfortunately however, it got canceled after a year in development. Instead they made The Punisher, which I loved personally, but sadly they don't talk much about it. Part 4 is mostly about Saints Row and RF:Guerilla and at the end they even talk a bit about RF: Armageddon.

A lot of what is discussed I think is true not just for Volition, but for most developers. Like how the team has grown and changed over the years from being a few multiskilled individuals to being a huge group of people with their own little area of expertize. And they also discuss the pitfalls of taking on new genres and gamingsystems.

So check it out! :)

R Soul on 4/4/2011 at 17:02

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A nice bit of nostalgia at 7:55:


Back when the Internet was special and rather mysterious.