Now that the excitement of the WipEout competition is over (congratulations once again to the winners) we return to the final part of Keith Stuart’s interview with Adam Gascoine. Read on for more on Quantum, Craig and Kojima…

How enthusiastic was Daniel Craig about the game? Is he a gamer?

Yes, he’s a gamer. The first meeting we had with him, he kept us waiting thirty minutes because he was playing Guitar Hero. In fact there were two stages to his involvement – the first was ‘I don’t want to be involved with a licensed game’ that’s literally what he said ‘I’m not interested in doing it – this is a new movie for me, I don’t want to be involved in a crappy game’. But after he played the game – we had to send him a build - he agreed to it. He said, ‘okay I like what you’re doing here, I’ll be a part of it’. And since then he’s been very involved. I mean, it’s difficult because he’s doing a movie so we don’t have full access, but he reads the script, he gives us feedback… there have been times he’s fought for things in our script that the movie producers didn’t want…

Can you give us any examples?

The ending. And that’s all I can say. A movie goes through a lot of changes – they may have one element all the way through and then at the last moment make a slight change to it, but a slight change to them is a huge, dramatic change to us, because we spend months and months on the development of each level. So there were some things he was involved with that really helped us sculpt the end of our game.

It seems there are a lot of different audiences you’re going to have to please – hardcore gamers, Bond fans, casual console owners. Which are the most important?

I know who I want to please, and that’s the hardcore gamer – because I’m a hardcore gamer! The truth is, though, we do have to remain accessible to casual gamers, which is why we made the AI so flexible. If you play our game in Easy or Normal, you’ll be able to get through, no problem. But as soon as you turn it up to Hard or 007, which is like the Veteran mode from CoD4, it’ll appeal to hardcore gamers.

In terms of the narrative element, there are games that keep the story telling to a minimum, and there are others that really go all-out for cut-scenes – things like Metal Gear Solid, for example. Where does Quantum fall?

Kojima came to our studio!

How did that come about?

I don’t know. I think he’s looking into working with a developer, possibly in the US, and we were one of the studios he wanted to look at – you can imagine my team, they couldn’t wait to meet him.

What did he think of the game?

He really liked it!

Okay, so how much of a focus does plot get in the game?

Well, there’s a lot of story to cram in – I mean, Bond movies are complicated. But we’ve found a way to do it that’ll hopefully please both sides. The loading movies actually use something called smart wall, which is directly from the movie – we have one over there… you touch the surface of a table, and objects will move around on that table… So we’re using that technology to tell the story while the next level is loading. We kept cut-scenes to a minimum – we’re not Metal Gear Solid.

Will you be following up the release of the game with downloadable content?

Definitely. That’s the nature of the industry. There will be new content, new maps. And for us, this is the start of a new dynasty – a new Bond, a new game, we’re huge fans of the series, we live and breathe this stuff. We really see this as a starting point…