While not a total surprise, Aspyr Media announced at Macworld Expo New York this past July that they would be publishing the Mac version of Tomb Raider III with Westlake Interactive porting the title. The duo has already successfully launched both Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider Gold for the Mac, and the relationship was only strengthened with this latest title.
One of Westlake's original members, Ken Cobb, headed the project with not only a knack for programming but years of industry experience developing titles for the Mac. We had the opportunity to ask Ken some questions about his past, his thoughts on recent developments, and, of course, Lara Croft's upcoming adventure on the Mac.
MacGamer's Ledge: How did you get your start in the games industry?
Ken Cobb: I started working with at Techworks about 10 years ago, back when they were
doing contract Mac programming, including game ports. There was this
youngster fresh out of school who also worked there, named Mark
Adams. I wasn't working on any games at that time, but Mark and I worked
together on other projects and became friends. Eventually Techworks stopped
doing game ports and Mark decided to go on his own to continue working on
games. I stayed, but Mark and I kept in touch and he would always keep me
updated on his projects. About five years ago, Mark told me he was going
to work for Looking Glass, and wanted me to help him start an Austin office
for the company, doing Mac ports of their games. It just so happened that
Techworks was getting out of the software development altogether at that
time,
so I agreed. We initially did the ports of System Shock and Flight
Unlimited.
MGL: What made you decide to help found Westlake Interactive?
KC: I had worked at Lion Entertainment for only a few weeks when the company
shut down. With Lion gone, we knew there were very few people doing Mac
ports. Even though the Mac market was in a depressed state at the time, we
felt that we should be able to get plenty of work. And besides, game ports
is what we really wanted to do, so we decided to go for it. And it was very
scary. I'm the old married man of the bunch, with three kids and a
stay-at-home wife, so it was a big gamble for me. But it has turned out
very well.
MGL: Can you detail for us your position, and current projects?
KC: I am a VP along with Phil Sulak. I'm currently working on Tomb Raider III,
with part-time work on Madden 2000 and Unreal Tournament.
MGL: What does your programming system look like and where is your office
space?
KC: I work at home, where I converted a small bedroom into an office. My main
machine is a beige G3/266, 128MB RAM, with a Rage128 and a Voodoo3, and two
17" monitors. I also have a Rev B iMac (for the kids) and an older 6500 I
keep for compatibility and speed testing. I also have a PC, a Celeron/333,
128MB of RAM, also with a Voodoo3. And then I have an Ethernet hub that
connects most of them. I also have a cable modem for Internet access.
MGL: What is the current status and what is left to do on this port?
KC: TR3 is very close to beta. Right now I'm finishing up the Setup app and
trying to fix some final visual glitches in the Glide and OpenGL renderers.
The game itself is basically done, but there are still many tiny details
that need attention.
MGL: Has the port of TR III been as "easy" as the ports for TR Gold and TR II?
KC: Yes, "easy" is a relative term. Compared to some other arduous and
time-consuming projects (which will go nameless), the Tomb Raider games are
a breeze. TR3 is a bigger game than the first two, and the rendering is
quite a bit different, but there are enough similarities to make this port
go fairly smooth.
MGL: What are some of the significant aspects of gameplay that have changed from Tomb Raider II to Tomb Raider III?
KC: The gameplay is really not that different in TR3. You have some new weapons
and new moves (crawl, dash, monkey bars), new vehicles (quadbike, kayak, an
underwater propulsion thing), you have some choice over which location to
play next, but the gameplay is basically the same. The biggest change has
been in the visuals, which are much improved. Colored lighting and new fire
and particle effects really make it look a lot better.
MGL: Suellen has said publicly that Tomb Raider III will support both OpenGL
and Glide. Has the transition to OpenGL been smooth for Westlake or a real
pain in the neck?
KC: No, the OpenGL support was actually quite painless to put in, according to
Mark (he was the one who did it). The PC version supports Direct3D only,
but once you start looking at adapting the code to OpenGL, it becomes very
obvious that D3D used OpenGL as a model. There's a surprising amount of
correspondence between the two.
MGL: Are you experimenting with Velocity Engine (AltiVec) code in Tomb Raider
III or any of Westlake's other projects?
KC: No, not at the moment. Working on three projects at the same time, all for
pre-Christmas release, doesn't leave much time for experimentation,
unfortunately.
MGL: In what games does it make sense to implement Velocity Engine code and in what games does it not make sense?
KC: That's a very good question, and I'm not sure I have a definite answer on
that. I looked at the AltiVec specs and instruction set about a year ago,
but I really need to brush up on it again. All games will benefit from the
G4's ability to simply move data much faster. Coordinate transformations in
3D games could get a big boost, if their code is written to take advantage
of the parallelism offered by AltiVec. Interestingly enough, I think 2D
games with 16-bit color may benefit most of all.
