'Front Schweine'

[PC] [GERMANY] [MAGAZINE] [2000]

"Hogs of War was created by the founder of Gremlin Interactive, Ian Stewart. He was inspired by the film Babe and by the 1995 video games Command & Conquer and Worms. According to game developer Andrew Fox, the premise of the game was "Worms, except in 3D and with pigs". Development on the game began in 1997 and took 3 years to complete. This long development time was due to Gremlin Interactive being purchased by Infogrames in 1999. Two teams developed the game with a focus on different system versions. One produced the PlayStation (PS1) version and was led by Jacob Habgood, and the other for Windows was led by Fox. All sound and art assets were shared between both platforms while different 3D engines had to be made. The game drew inspiration from the black comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth that was also set in the First World War. The American military march, "The Liberty Bell", composed by John Philip Sousa, was added by Habgood as the game's theme tune. Habgood chose this music as it was in the public domain and fit the mood of the game due to its age and use in the comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus. The high draw distance and number of polygons that could be used, especially on PlayStation, meant that in order to allow the players to have range, the number of players and other assets had to be cut. The initial build of the game was described by Habgood as being "slow and hideous". It contained no gameplay elements and the pig characters were tall and humanlike. It was suggested to cancel the game, but the development team asked for more time. The next build was dubbed "Cubes of War" by the developers as it focused more on gameplay rather than graphics leading to simple cubes replacing the pigs. This was to demonstrate that the gameplay was fun before another build added in graphical improvements for the pigs. Gremlin Interactive was taken over by the French company Infogrames in 1999, which was a benefit to the game as it provided more time for development. Following the takeover, Infogrames supported the game and continued its development. The company decided they wanted to hire French comedians from the show Les Guignols to voice act in the French version of the game while for the English release Rik Mayall and Marc Silk were hired. Each language version of the game was localised in terms of the comedy, voice work and puns. Hogs of War was released for the PlayStation in the United Kingdom on 16 June 2000 and in France on 25 August 2000, with a North American release following on 29 September. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in Europe on 3 November the same year. In October 2003, the now-named Atari sold the assets of Gremlin Interactive, including Hogs of War, to Ian Stewart's Zoo Digital Publishing. The company shortly afterwards reissued Hogs of War under the "Zoo Classics" budget label. ~Wikipedia