A Visit to Torus

Studio Tour from Samo - Wednesday, 25 June 2008 @ 3:05pm

I work a lot of hours in my job. Full time, 6 days a week. Because of this, work gives me a day off every now and then. I love my days off, it's a great opportunity to get things sorted out while shops are open and then to lounge around and get some solid hours in for my current review title. Which I need to do a lot of because Yug just sent me Lost Odyssey. Wow, that is a long game. I still can't figure out why they need four discs though.

Anyway, on Yug's big trip to Melbourne a few months ago he decided that he'd use one of my days off to go on a studio tour. Considering that at the time I was yet to start playing Lost Odyssey, I thought it would be an excellent idea and the day started at about noon where I found Yug on reconnaissance around the BBQs of the south bank of the Yarra.

We made a quick detour past Yug's hotel to pick up some essentials:

Fancy new digital Dictaphone: check

Questions for the interview: check

Sexy groupies: check

After spending much too much time with the groupies, we were running late so what was meant to be a relaxed café lunch turned into a grub-and-go at Clifton Hill Maccas.

Alright, alright, maybe I lied about the groupies but the bit about being late is true. Local knowledge knows that there are no fixed cameras on the Eastern, so after a quickish trip to Mitcham we were standing in front of the aqua-blue-green building that Torus calls home.



Quick step inside, sign the visitors book and the NDA and we're escorted to a big boardroom table laden with a Wii, an Xbox 360, water and mints. Ah mints, this is the life.

We're then treated to a demonstration of Monster Jam, Torus wildly successful monster truck racing title which is released this week here in Australia. It is already a huge hit in the States, Monster Jam was Activision's third biggest selling title in the last Christmas period only beaten out by Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3. No small feat. Especially when it was explained to us that the game was created; engine, assets and gold on multiple platforms in a measly 6 months. That's nothing short of very impressive indeed.

After enough random objects has been smashed with the monster trucks a couple of cables were switched to boot up the Wii so we could have a look at Torus other current release title Indianapolis 500 Legends. Legends is an accurate historic representation of classic Indy 500 events through the '50s, '60s and '70s. This means real classic stuff including Aussie racing legend Jack Brabham. I loved the historical aspect, Yug clearly less so, greeting the news with 'Who's Jack Brabham?'



After Dave (QA) had his fun showing a few laps, he handed the Wiimote over to Yug and I so we could get some hands on time with the game which has been released in America but is still unconfirmed for Aussie stores. The Wii control was really intuitive and the cars responded just right. Torus has really found a great balance between sim sharp sensitivity and arcadey dullness in the control. It's not too sensitive, not too slow. I did find it difficult to play with the Wiimote without any feedback as to what the car is doing though, getting a feel for understeer and oversteer is easier with a stick or feedback weel. The Wiimote was a tad tricky in our short sitting but hey, it's probably just me who's not used to this new control scheme. I can see how Indy would have a limited market here in Oz when you consider the left-turn-only Indy 500's main following is in the US. Australians tend to be reasonably intelligent and I doubt there are many gifted Derek Zoolander 'I can't turn left' types down here.



After our little gaming session we got up to have a look around the Torus premises. The current and soon to be vacated studio is a building of two halves. One side houses the offices and the general game making business and the other side is a very large warehouse space, in which a server room and some sound recording studios were tucked into corners, most of the space being occupied by the Torus café, a rather cool coffee area and gaming tables. Some workplace!!



Upstairs, the nerve center. Looks like a pretty normal office really, except for all the Shrek and Family Guy posters around the walls. Try as I might, we couldn't get a glimpse of any other upcoming games, the designers and programmers knew we were coming so all the secret stuff was kept well under wraps. Bugger.

So, tour completed, we made our way back downstairs past some concept sketches and posters to the entrance. We just had to get a photo with the full size Torus man in the large entry area before departing to head back to the city for a nice coffee.