GameSlice: That being said, it really seems like Red Alert is a robust product and a worthy addition to the C&C line.  You actually started development on the game before Tiberian Sun shipped, right?  How did that feel?  Did you change any of the design decisions after seeing the fan reaction to TibSun?

Mark: Yes, Brett [Sperry, Westwood's Chief Creative Officer], Harvard [Bobin, Producer] and I met early in the spring of last year, about five months before T-Sun shipped, and discussed the idea for RA2 in great detail. We knew we would have a working code base from T-Sun, so we allowed ourselves the luxury of focusing on design.

We always listen to our fans, and before T-Sun shipped we spent time reviewing and researching all of the fan reactions to the original Red Alert. With this data in hand and our own ideas about what the game should be, we pretty much set the vision for RA2 before T-Sun shipped. We did, however, continue to hone RA2's design after hearing our fan’s reactions to T-Sun. 

GameSlice: A year ago Tiberian Sun received some heat for not sporting cutting edge 3D technology.  Here we are a year later and Red Alert II is still using the Tiberian Sun engine.  Did you ever consider going to 3D for this game or was the idea always to use the TibSun engine? 

Mark: We always knew that we would use the T-Sun engine although at one point we seriously considered rewriting it to have 3D graphics. At the end of the day though, we realized if we went 3D, we would have to drop RA2 down to a “squad based game," closely zooming in on a few polygon units walking around a constrained 3D environment. This didn’t sit too well with us because Red Alert is about armies fighting armies. Additionally, we wouldn’t have been able to get the visual details we wanted in our cities or environments. A low-poly 3D White House wouldn’t have been very impressive to look at. 

Lastly, RA2’s style is fast and fun game play. For RA2, we think we picked the right graphics for the game play we wanted. Going forward, we’re looking into how 3D technology can be used more effectively in an RTS.

GameSlice: I know for a number of you this is your first Command and Conquer game and I’m sure it’s every developer’s dream to work on a C&C game.  Now having spent upwards of a year working on C&C, was it everything you expected?  What surprised you about the way a C&C game comes together - are these games as fun to make as a developer as they are to play as a fan?

Mark: For me, RA2 was incredibly fun to build because I was a huge fan of the first one. It sounds like a PR line, but the first Red Alert was, and still is, my favorite game of all time. Of course, there’s a huge amount of pressure when it comes to following-up a legendary game like Red Alert. But that’s a good kind of pressure. 

One of the really cool things about this development cycle is the fact that we have a great team of people working on the product. The team has a passion for Red Alert and it shows.  I really believe that the game is a reflection of the team and I can see the passion and drive of the RA2 team showing up in our game. The development cycle has been long and hard, but hey, we’ve been playing Red Alert 2 for 6 months now…and we're still having fun!