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MikaRMD

06-13-2006, 08:16 AM

Kahr

06-13-2006, 02:29 PM

I translated the Norwegian article about Alan Wake, so someone else translate this story. :p

Uisor

06-13-2006, 02:36 PM

A nice story about Remedy in today's Helsingin Sanomat (Finland's largest daily news paper). Naturally the story is in Finnish, so sorry about that. I'm sure someone will translate the main points soon. Check out the journalist's blog, as well.

Damn, you should have mentioned about this yesterday so I would been able to check it out in work last night.

Kahr

06-13-2006, 02:41 PM

I'm not sure when it was originally posted, but I noticed that it was awaiting validation today. So if this "news" is actually older than from today, I guess it's something the Forum Moderation should take the blame for.

MikaRMD

06-13-2006, 02:57 PM

Kahr

06-13-2006, 02:58 PM

Ah, hehe. Lucky thing I ventured into the validation form then, and found it on the day of arrival. ;)

Good to see Remedy making appearances on the board. Let's just hope someone take the next leap and translate this story for us. :D

pepsimax

06-13-2006, 02:59 PM

Could somebody take a picture of that article...?

Onjoo

06-13-2006, 10:09 PM

Well there isn't much new info in the article, but its nice to read about gaming industry in the biggest newspaper we have here in Finland.

There are also some additional info with alan wake pics at
http://blogit.hs.fi/ahlroth/?p=149 ( in finnish )

Dremel

06-14-2006, 12:08 AM

Phew! I saw through all the trouble and translated the article for you guys! It took about 3 hours or so but it was good practise since I'm going to travel to America this week. I'm in the 1st grade of highschool so don't mind my bad english... I think couple parts suck in my translation but I hope you enjoy :cool: :

---------------------------

As the car curves to suburban of Espoo (a city next to Helsinki) a suspicion comes to my mind. The top entertaiment exports of finland aren't made in a basement of row house, are they? The car turns from a corner and a bluish building stands ahead. There are only two doorbells: Remedys and sauna sections. This is more like it...the scale seems to be correct.
The two Max Payne videogames made by Remedy Entertaiment have sold seven million copies. That's approximately as much as finnish bands HIM, Nightwish and The Rasmus have sold together. And one game costs as much as three CD's together.
Now Remedy is finishing their next project. The game's name is Alan Wake and it's published by Microsoft, the biggest programming company in the world. Alan Wake is one of the eight so called showcase games by Microsoft which Microsoft is going to market really greatly. It's an indication of the new superb Vista operating system. Truly an great achievement from a finnish company.

Creative leader Petri Järvilehto welcomes us to a stylish building. The company composed of thirty people moved here year and a half ago.
We go on a little tour. There's a real motion capture studio in the basement where scenes can be shot with an real actor and use them in the game. In the open balcony of the second floor there are couches, big TV screen and all the game consoles on the market. In the shelf next to us there are loads of games. "This is our research area" says Järvilehto with a smile on his face. "Rarely playing games in a company is really researching".
Of course everybody don't have the time to play all of them. Some of us have the job to complete the games and make memo out of the most interesting features. Then the others can read them. Besides games there are DVDs, books and comics in the shelves. Keeping an eye on the popular culture is an essential part of the job.
We move to some sort of assembly room. One wall is covered by screen. On the opposide wall there are magazines in frames. They are cover stories of Remedy in the gaming magazines of the world. Quickly counted there are forty of them. Some wait on the floor to be framed too. There "can" (I would say will) be same amount of them more in the couple of next years after Alan Wake is released.

Järvilehto and Remedys main storywriter give us a presentation of the game. There plays a bit over ten minutes mix of trailer and the presentation version of the game on the screen. They apologise and explain that it has to be made in english as they usually do.
It doesn't matter at all. It's great to hear it in the language that Microsofts Peter Moore heard it in the year 2005 E3 fair in California. Because of this performance the co-operation with Microsoft became true. The show is stunning. Remedy calls Alan Wake an "psychological action thriller". The views look simply amazing.
Alan Wake is really different style of game than Max Payne which is filled with gunfights. Alan wake is an horror writer whose dreams have strange relationship to reality. When Wakes bride disappears mysteriously he starts to have problems with sleeping. Wake ends up in a clinic in small town called Bright Falls which is located in the state of Washington. Then things begin to go wrong in a scary way.

Max Payne was tightly up-to-date. In the game bullet time from the movie called Matrix was used. In bullet time the time is slowed down and the picture is composed by many cameras surrounding the character. Remedy let the gamers try that themselves. "Max Paynes Matrix style was then topical" says Remedys AD Saku Lehtinen. The company is yet again up-to-date with Alan Wake. "TV series are now in fashion".
"In Max Payne we combined John Woo style action with film noir movies style." explains Sami Järvi (for those who didn't know: Sam Lake's real name is that and järvi means lake). "But in Alan Wake the inspiration is the structure of TV series. Movie is kind of short. The form of one season in TV series is much more better."
In Alan Wake the rythm of the game is about changes from day to night. They form about an hour lasting period which always end with some kind of cliffhanger. The contents of the popular culture shelves have been studied industriously. "DVD culture has affected to Alan Wake. TV series works so fine with DVD."

When Remedy started to function in the mid 90's gaming branch was really different from today. The first game of the company was made by six people which was pretty common those days. The company got bigger with the branch.
"The whole package is renewed every three years - everything what we can actually do. Now we can rotate the sun around the whole world of Alan Wake and everything in the game reacts with it. With this we can create a new kind of more dynamic experience." Järvilehto tells proudly.
The big change hit in the time of Max Payne. The project lasted four and a half years. In the beginning there were ten workers in the company but in the end there were 24.
"But in the end credits of the game there are the names of a couple hundred people. In 1995-1998 it was possible that the company made a game by itself. Nowdays only a core is made and the rest of the job is done somewhere else." says Lehtinen.

Järvi by his own words is "probably the only humanist in the company". Max Paynes script was with him when he applied in "Theathre university script section for adults" (I bet this isn't the right word but I don't know the right word for this...you'll get the picture ;)).
Järvi's teacher Pentti Halonen is even today the drama consulter of Remedy. Järvi reviews all pages of the script with him. "Pentti is always thinking the drama side of the story. That's a good remark."
Järvi remembers himself that making a modern videogame is about teamwork. "This combines many forms of arts and sciense."
"This is truly about teamwork. Here the ball bounces form corridor to corridor and with every lap we invent something more. That's a game that looks like a team." confirms Lehtinen (he says it with a slight dialect).

---------------------------

Thanks for my cousin Ile who helped me with couple of problems in translating and of course Helsingin Sanomat for making this article for all the gamers interested in Alan Wake and finnish game industry. ;)

EDIT: Here's a link for the picture of the article I scanned: http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/5941/hsalanwake1kp.png
half is missing but the picture is only interesting part of it :D

Kahr

06-14-2006, 12:14 AM

Great work, Dremel. Thanks a bunch for translating and posting the article. It means a lot to us of the Alan Wake community. ;)

Morry

06-14-2006, 03:34 AM

Great translation, Dremel. Thanks for that.

I'm interested to hear just how popular Remedy is in Finland. It seems that are doing better than any other forms of entertainment.

Coak

06-14-2006, 10:24 AM

Real nice, thank you :)

ADM

06-14-2006, 10:53 AM

Thanks Dremel, much appreciated.

billerr

06-14-2006, 06:11 PM

Good job, Dremel. I mostly liked the description of Remedy's headquarters. I always liked to know how is the place where these guys create their masterpieces.;)

Coak

06-14-2006, 06:24 PM

I mostly liked the description of Remedy's headquarters. I always liked to know how is the place where these guys create their masterpieces.;)
Yeah, same here. Remedy should just put a secret level "Remedy Offices" in one of their next games ;)

pepsimax

06-14-2006, 08:54 PM

http://game.chosun.com/img5/remedyoffice.jpg
Remedy

Kahr

06-14-2006, 10:42 PM

I could live there. :cooler:

Dremel

06-14-2006, 10:56 PM

That is a one damn cool building :eek: ! According to the description that the newspaper gave us you can't even imagine how good it actually looks :D

PetriRMD

06-15-2006, 06:40 AM

That is a one damn cool building :eek: ! According to the description that the newspaper gave us you can't even imagine how good it actually looks :D

It's a really nice office. I think Pelaaja magazine also printed a bunch of photos from the inside last year in their Alan Wake article, so anyone who has a copy can take a peek.

tEd

06-16-2006, 01:03 AM

It's a really nice office. I think Pelaaja magazine also printed a bunch of photos from the inside last year in their Alan Wake article, so anyone who has a copy can take a peek.

no kidding

looks very cosy

Mariamus

06-17-2006, 12:21 AM

well, now I know where to aim when I take the bus from Helsinki. I'll just head for the place that is blinding me the most! :p
such pretty windows, mind if I just stand there and glare at them for a while?:giggle:

Morry

06-17-2006, 01:11 AM

pepsimax

06-17-2006, 07:47 AM

One black window was broken when I last time walked by (2 months ago).

JmM

06-18-2006, 08:37 PM

The actor who has given his face to Alan Wake is called Ilkka Villi.

There he is, in a Finnish movie called 'Lupaus'
http://www.lupaus.fi/kuvagalleria/lupaus017.jpg

Morry

06-19-2006, 09:38 AM

The actor who has given his face to Alan Wake is called Ilkka Villi.

There he is, in a Finnish movie called 'Lupaus'
http://www.lupaus.fi/kuvagalleria/lupaus017.jpg
Certainly looks close. Do you have a better photo of him?

PetriRMD

06-19-2006, 09:39 AM

How much would it take to repair one of those windows? There was a place in my city that had a revolveable glass door broken by some hooligans and it took ages to fix due to the effort they had to go to in order to find a replacement.

Heh. After moving, we found out that each section of the glass has individual curvature, and replacements need to be ordered from Germany. They seem to do ok job with the delivery though, so it's not a big deal.

Pyyhekumi

07-11-2006, 06:27 AM

Yeah, same here. Remedy should just put a secret level "Remedy Offices" in one of their next games ;)
Yeah! That would be fun to watch that glass shatering into millions of... quite expensive pieces :hyper:

satan

07-11-2006, 04:21 PM

There's a real motion capture studio in the basement where scenes can be shot with an real actor and use them in the game.

Tell me you are kidding.:eek:

BTW, great work on translating. I wish I could be a RMD staff someday. Thing is I know I never could.:cry:

Remedy should just put a secret level "Remedy Offices" in one of their next games ;)

That's quite much possible in AW only. They should put the building in a very remote and hidden place on the terrain. And there will be many goodies like ammos, weapons etc ..... like the SOF2 room in Max Payne. To avoid complexity, they should lock the doors with a sign-board hanging written "Busy till it's done". :D

Dremel

07-19-2006, 08:24 PM

Hehe the motion capture equipment and all that stuff must be quite expensive O_O But I think Remedy can afford such things :p

And the pleasure was mine translating that article. I wanted to do something for the community and used this opportunity to do so :lol:

Corner

09-10-2006, 09:36 AM

Quoting::
EDIT: Here's a link for the picture of the article I scanned: http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/5941/hsalanwake1kp.png
half is missing but the picture is only interesting part of it :D[/QUOTE]
::End quote

That guy in the middle looks like Alan Wake..:hyper: Probably used his face...

Mariamus

09-10-2006, 06:20 PM

The guy in the middle is Petri Järvilehto. He's the lead game designer. (And a real handsome devil. :D)

remade

09-14-2006, 11:09 AM

The guy in the middle is Petri Järvilehto. He's the lead game designer. (And a real handsome devil. :D)

But,the coolest guy from Remedy is definitely charismatic Sam Lake alias Max Payne http://www.3drealms.com/gallery/4583-2/img_4316.jpg

Mariamus

09-16-2006, 09:49 AM

But,the coolest guy from Remedy is definitely charismatic Sam Lake alias Max Payne http://www.3drealms.com/gallery/4583-2/img_4316.jpg

You mean this guy?
http://www.mariamus.dk/mystuff/022_22b.jpg
never heard of him. :D :giggle: