Let's Talk Games

[Kyle-BBY Retired: Senior Social Media Specialist]

Join us for a live developer chat and speak with the talent behind Prototype 2!

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Who: Radical Entertainment

• Ken Rosman, Studio Head
• Matt Armstrong, Design Director
• Dave Fracchia, Studio VP
• Paul Pawlicki, Senior Producer

See below for full bios!

What:  Live Developer Chat

Where:  Here! Best Buy's Community Forums.

When:  Monday 4/23/12 from 6-8 p.m. CT

How:  http://bbyurl.us/Prototype2DevChat <-- Click for chat transcript!

Join the chat via the link above which we will update to direct you to the chat when it goes live on 4/23 at 6 pm CT.

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Mark your calendars and bookmark this page!

Pre-order here: http://www.bestbuy.com/prototype2

Team Backgrounds/Bios

Ken Rosman, Studio Head, Radical Entertainment

Ken Rosman has spent equal parts of his past 18 years in the video game industry on both the developer and publisher sides of the business, working at companies including Looking Glass Studios, Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Black Isle Studios, Vivendi Universal Games, Sierra Entertainment and Radical Entertainment. Ken began his relationship with Radical in 1995 while working at Virgin, and then again with Vivendi in 2004.  Ken has been a part of the internal team at Radical since 2006, and in 2010 stepped into the role of Studio Head – overseeing the development of PROTOTYPE 2. 

Fun Fact: Stuck with only one game to play for the rest of eternity, Ken would still choose M.U.L.E. for the Commodore 64.  However, if that’s too old a title for people to remember, his more recent game of choice would be Batman: Arkham City.

Favorite food while gaming: Ken claims that seedless grapes or dry cereal are his favorite: but we know better. He is usually found with a burrito in one hand and a glass of sangria in the other (playing with his toes, obviously). The grapes and cereal are only by his side as a ruse so he has something ready to throw into the eyes of his competitors when they least expect it.

Role as a gamer: “Subtle, peaceful and passive”: These are words that do not reflect Kens aggressive, kick in the door, run in with guns blazing, shoot-em-in-the-face style of play. There is a softer, sweet side to Ken however; as he often chooses strong female avatars that he customizes to look like his wife.

Matt Armstrong, Design Director, Radical Entertainment

Matt Armstrong began his career in the video game industry over 13 years ago working on the seminal classic Final Fantasy 7…as a QA Tester.  A few short weeks of this was enough to convince Matt that his future lay more in the creative arts, and he soon found himself working as a 3-D modeler, texture artist and animator before eventually finding himself drawn into the world of game design.  Since then, Matt has worked in senior design positions at Blitz Games, Rockstar Games and Radical Entertainment, culminating in his current role as Design Director for PROTOTYPE 2.

Fun Fact:  Matt has a serious and disturbing obsession with the Mass Effect games and is into double figures for the combined number of times he has completed them.  Matt is bravely weaning himself away from this addiction by sticking to a strict, doctor-prescribed regimen of fine Canadian beer.

Favorite food while gaming: 5 words: Death Rain Habanero potato chips. Blindingly hot, but awesome!

Role as a gamer: Matt prefers to use his swiftness and cunning during his long gaming sessions, often choosing rogue style character classes. He is also prone to choose a female avatar for the simple reason that there is nothing sexier than a sneaky lady assassin.

Dave Fracchia, Studio VP, Radical Entertainment

Dave Fracchia actually started his career as a professor of computer science.  After successfully achieving tenure and a luxurious lifetime position in academia, he promptly left for the world of CG animation, spending the next 10 years working at Mainframe Entertainment (creators of ReBoot!). Prompted by layoffs, he joined the more “secure” world of video games.  Dave joined the Radical team in 2007 as VP of Technology, and is transitioning into the Studio VP role, happily enacting Studio Head Ken Rosman’s evil bidding.

Fun Fact:  Dave is known to brew up a mean batch of grappa (Italian moonshine).  You’ll know if he likes you, because he’ll offer you a shot.  If he doesn’t like you, he’ll offer you two shots.

Favorite food while gaming: Dave is the sophisticated type: Chocolate covered coffee beans with a little grappa on the side. Ok, ok, a few grappa’s on the side.

Role as a gamer: A huge open world, FPS and RPG fan, Dave most often chooses the evil path when given a choice. And, for a guy who is usually found tanking as a warrior/brawler style character, who’s going to argue? Dave’s job involves so much thinking he likes to just be able to get into the mix and bash in some heads in his down time.

Paul Pawlicki, Senior Producer, Radical Entertainment

Paul Pawlicki first started his games career in 1995 as a tester at Sony for the original PlayStation console, and after earning his stripes he moved on to Fox Interactive in 1997 and then became an Assistant Producer in 1999. During this time he worked on the successful platform game Croc 2, 2001’s critically acclaimed first person shooter fan favorite Alien vs. Predator 2.

Promoted to Producer in 2004 Paul worked on the critically acclaimed tactical first person shooter SWAT4 and the expansion pack SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate. In 2006 he made the move away from publishing to join Radical Entertainment to begin work on the developer side of the games industry as a Producer for Prototype 2. Paul was made the Senior Producer after the original Prototype was released in 2009.

Fun Fact: Paul is one of the nicest guys you could meet in real life, but that all changes when the controller hits his hands. He likes to get his inner demons out by always playing the ultimate bad guy, so watch out!

Favorite food while gaming: Even though he’s forced to drop his controller, Paul can’t get enough chips and salsa while he’s in front of a screen. Salsa day at Radical is his favorite day of the week.

Role as a gamer: Drawn mainly to single player games, Paul loves any chance he has to play a magic or ranged character and has a particular fondness for playing Mages. He absolutely loves playing as a Vanguard in Mass Effect.

Jonathan Lim, Producer, Radical Entertainment

Jonathan Lim, or Jono – as he’s more commonly known as around the world, started his career at Electronic Arts and moved shortly thereafter to Radical Entertainment where he's been ever since.  After 10 years with Radical, Jono has worked on a number titles in various capacities, including Simpsons Road Rage, Simpsons Hit n' Run, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Scarface, the original PROTOTYPE, and now PROTOTYPE 2.

Fun Fact:  In his spare time when he’s not busy stuffing his face full of chicken, Jono can be found stuffing his face full of beef.

Favorite food while gaming: Nuts. Unshelled Peanuts to be precise.

Role as a gamer: RPG’s and Action adventure games are Jono’s staple; He’s typically drawn to the heroic, good path in most games, finding it incredibly difficult to even pretend to be unpleasant. These days he will usually chooses a healer class when he can, preferring someone else take charge and lead him into battle. Between work and family, he says it’s nice to be able to take a break from making the hard decisions once in a while!

Adam Badke, Community Manager, Radical Entertainment

Since beginning his gaming career, Adam Badke has provided developer support for high profile studios, including Electronic Arts, Propaganda Games, Smoking Gun Interactive and United Front Games. After all that, he landed a highly sought after testing role at Radical Entertainment on Prototype 2 where he helped ensure the high quality of RADNET Events and friend-vs-friend score challenges. However, Adam was not satisfied with ending his involvement with the Prototype franchise there. Fearing he would start reporting uninvited to Radical Headquarters, the team chose to appoint him as their Community Manager. This ensured he could spend his days talking all things Prototype with the rabid Prototype Army – leaving the rest of the team undisturbed long enough to finally get some work done.

Fun Fact: Adam is usually the last guy hanging out at the Radical Social Friday mixers before the tiki bar is locked shut. Every week, he offers to safeguard the keys so the supervising management can go home early, but so far his offers have (wisely) fallen on deaf ears. He remains ever optimistic, however.

Favorite food while gaming: Even though they aren’t available in North America, Adam frequently has his family and friends ship him care packages of the Natural Confectionery Company's "Sour Squirms" from his homeland of Australia.

Role as a gamer: Adam loves FPS and RTS games, particularly anything with a multiplayer component, such as Counter Strike, Left4Dead, Team Fortress 2, Star Craft 2 and MW3. He believes every player needs a microphone and he loves being his teams' leader and strategist -- which might also explain why he’s also utterly addicted to Civ5.

Radical Entertainment

Formed in 1991, Radical Entertainment is one of the world’s premier developers of open world action games. We’ve developed over 40 titles across Sega Genesis, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, Playstation, PS2, Xbox , Wii, PS3 and X360. With over 30 million units sold, we continue to keep it simple… create great games, learn and have fun!

Our studio is located in beautiful Vancouver, BC. With just over 145 amazing, talented, hard working and experienced employees, we are working on Prototype 2, sequel to 2009’s Prototype 1.

Fun Fact: The unofficial team mascot is a rooster, which started years ago as a studio in-joke. “Nice Rooster Team!”

Foods available in the kitchen:

Fresh breads, a salad bar, chocolate pudding, a sandwich bar, pasta, soups, theme lunch days (salsa day!), donut and pastry days, bagel days, salsa days, canned foods, a large selection of spreads and dips, a tiki bar (complete with 2 beers to choose from), frozen foods, nuts, granola bars, cookies, chips, a pop machine set to ‘free’, a huge juice fridge, a cereal bar and most importantly, a coffee station.

Games available:

Radical has a large and ever expanding library of video games of all platforms accessible to their staff. The lucky team also gets to request any new games they would like to have added to the library, and the whole system is facilitated by an easy to use electronic library system made specifically for the purpose. The studio also holds pool tables, table tennis, tabletop bubble hockey, several arcade cabinets (complete with the latest street fighter, of course!), massage chairs, musical instruments, a jam space and gym facilities.

Edit 4/19/12 - Senior Producer Paul Pawlicki had a scheduling conflict and will not be attending but we've added Producer Jonathan Lim.

Edit 4/23/12 - Added picutres for Paul Pawlick and Adam Badke.

Edit 4/23/12 - updated http://bbyurl.us/Prototype2DevChat to link to chat transcript

[Bumcats]

Question about this developer chat. Is it just chatting or is it like showing off the game and having people ask question?

[Kyle-BBY Retired: Senior Social Media Specialist]

Good question!  This is a text-based chat with no video component.  You'll have the opportunity to queue up a question for the developers to answer and see the answers live.

[gamerdude11]

Will it be all the developers or just a spokesperson

[Kyle-BBY Retired: Senior Social Media Specialist]

All of the developers listed in the original post will be present (with the exception of maybe Paul Pawlicki who may have a conflict) and fielding questions as they relate to their responsibility on the project.

[gamerdude11]

is this it? has it started?

[Mariel-BBY Retired: Community Connector]

It has started! Come on in!

[yugioh901]

nice is everyone there

[Mariel-BBY Retired: Community Connector]

I believe everyone but Paul and Matt are in the chat. Join us!

[rabidminimoose]

Um...so this is the chat right?