Jim Galis, Executive Producer for MI: Operation Surma

Another game being released this crowded holiday season is Atari's Mission Impossible: Operation Surma. A console title (also appearing on the GBA) being developed by Paradigm Entertainment, it combines action and RPG elements to reflect the spirit and style of the original shows, as well as the recent spat of Tom Cruise vehicles.

Today, we managed to get ahold of Jim Galis, Executive Producer at Paradigm Entertainment, and got him to answer some of our questions about Mission Impossible: Operation Surma. Included throughout this interview, you'll find some cool new shots from both the Xbox and the PS2 versions of the game.

Warcry: Mission Impossible: Operation Surma is the most recent product announcement for Atari. It looks like the development team on this product is Paradigm. Can you give us a short pedigree of the developers involved on the product?

Jim: Paradigm Entertainment has been developing video games for nearly 10 years, originally for Nintendo64 and now for all three major console manufacturers. Some of Paradigm's more popular games include SpyHunter (on PS2), Beetle Adventure Racing, F1 World Grand Prix, and PilotWings64.

Warcry: While the PR doesn't explicitly say under which genre of game this title falls, we can probably assume by the subject matter that it's a mixture of Action and RPG. How far away from reality is that guess?

Jim: It's actually a pretty good guess. The game combines stealth action with hand-to-hand combat, weapons, and gadgets. The player assumes the role of Ethan Hunt, one of the Impossible Mission Force's top agents. Ethan, along with his hand-picked team, must infiltrate locales throughout the world in an attempt to eliminate SURMA, a shadowy international conglomerate that serves as a front for the ambitions of Simon Algo. Algo is a brilliant and ruthless ex-intelligence agent who has assumed control of Yugaria and is planning on extending his control over the entire Balkan region. The Yugarian mastermind is using a highly advanced virus known as the Ice Worm to bypass even the most advanced security systems in order to steal military secrets and weapons research from the west. The IMF becomes involved when one of their well-planned operations is sabotaged and they discover their own ultra secure database has been hacked. Faced with an opponent who has access to their deepest secrets, Ethan and his team must track down and defeat Algo as well as recover the Ice Worm technology.

Jim: Game development can be a risky business, but we've combined a few good men and women with a lot of hard work. Based on recent intelligence, the minority report indicated Ethan Hunt can indeed handle the truth and deliver the top action stealth games for this holiday season.

Warcry: You advertise Mission Impossible: Operation Surma as having "Open Ended Game play". This, according to your PR, means that the player has many decision paths they can take to arrive at a goal, and it depends on their preferred style of play as to which they would choose. Do any of these paths cause the game to actually follow a different story line, or are they all a means to the same end? What kinds of challenges faced the development team in construction a game with so many options available to the user?

Jim: The story is linear, but there are a number of plot twists and dynamic objectives to keep the game play interesting. Each mission can be solved in an almost infinite number of ways. For example, I can choose to play the game as a shooter, but then the other NPCs may hear my gunfire. If I stay in the shadows and use stealth kills, I have to make sure to hide the bodies to avoid tripping the security cameras or being found by other patrolling guards. Of course, I could always combine the two tactics by using the silenced tranquilizer gun, but them I have to manage my inventory very carefully.

Paradigm designed a lot of gadgets and puzzles that never made it into the final game. In the end, the design team selected the most useful, coolest, IMF-style gadgets and refined those to allow the player the maximum interaction with the environment. Some levels - such as the airplane infiltration with the jetpack - are pretty obvious on which tactic should be used, but most levels allow open-ended game play. One of the cool things about watching people play the game for the first time is to see how they combine tactics to solve the missions in ways we never imagined.

Warcry: As fans of the Mission Impossible movies, what kind of subject matter can we play in the game that we might have seen on the big screen?

Jim: The designers and scriptwriters were heavily inspired by the big screen productions. There is action, adventure, teamwork, and a solid story with a few twists and a little romance, but most important are the game play's "Mission Moments." Ethan Hunt is known for his crazy stunts and we wanted to make sure the player could experience these moments firsthand. Every mission includes at least one over-the-top stunt that only Ethan would attempt, from repelling to a moving helicopter to jumping out of an airplane...without a parachute!

Jim: Viacom Consumer Products offered tremendous insight into the license and helped keep the game play and story line true to the Mission: Impossible universe. We were fortunate to get the voice and likeness of Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell. Luther and the rest of Ethan's team are in almost constant contact with him to help complete his missions.

Warcry: In what I've read of the game, you mention that players will get a chance to use classic IMF weapons and gadgets. Can you describe one such "cool gadget" for us here?

Jim: There are so many cool classic and new IMF weapons and gadgets in the game that it's tough to pick just one. One of the new and unique gadgets is a Sonic Imager that allows Ethan to "see" through doors using sound waves that present the player with a sonic map of the area behind the door, including threats, such as guards. A preview of some of the other gadgets is available on the game's website at http://www.mi-game.com.

Warcry: Mission Impossible: Operation Surma is featured to be released on 4 different platforms, including the Game Boy Advance. What kind of content and visual sacrifices had to be made to port it to the portable platform? With all of the new portable gaming platforms coming out, as well as the seasonal release of new consoles, do you have any plans to continue to port it to new platforms? Will there be a PC version?

Jim: Paradigm uses its own graphics engine that provides for advanced cross-platform console development. Starting with this baseline, the development team's programmers and artists added content and features to take advantage of each platform's strengths; so fortunately, we did not have to sacrifice anything. Players on any platform can be assured they are playing a game tuned and optimized to provide the maximum gaming experience available for their platform. There are no plans to release a PC or other platform version at this time.

Jim: The game has been in production for just over two years. Fortunately, the game has been submitted for manufacturer's testing, so the team is enjoying a well-deserved break.

Warcry: This holiday season, the amount of console titles being released per week is phenomenal. In the deluge of available new games for console players, how is Atari pushing MI:OS as a unique title? Are you folks running any mainstream efforts for advertising (ala non-gaming print and TV) or are you sticking to the audience for the game?

TJim: he license is extremely popular and very well-known throughout the world. The game will be available in six localized languages, including voice and subtitles. There is a large print and TV advertising campaign designed around both the gamer and mainstream markets.

It's really not difficult to position the game...Mission: Impossible - Operation Surma is the only stealth, action, hand-to-hand combat, weapon, gadget-based game that allows you to take on the role of Ethan Hunt and infiltrate the Mission: Impossible universe. And that's cool!

Warcry: Since Mission Impossible 3 is currently in preproduction (according to IMDB), do you have any plans to retain the MI license for another game to come out in, say, a year's time?

Jim: A year's time doesn't allow for enough quality content development, but there are no plans at this time for and MI3 connection. We certainly have enjoyed working with Viacom Consumer Products and look forward to other opportunities to collaborate with them on future work.

A big thanks goes out to Jim for taking the time to answer our questions. With so many console titles coming out this holiday season, you're going to want to pay particular attention for where this one falls on the sales racks.

Note: The Images you see above are only a sampling of the large Image Gallery we've got posted on the hubsite today.