Strike Force going pro
The most popular first person shooter on the net today is not Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 Arena, but Counter-Strike, a free user-made add-on for the two year old Half-Life. With these "mods" now attracting more attention than ever, it's hardly surprising that the more promising ones are being contributed to by professional designers.
One of the most interesting looking mods at the moment is another realistic team-based game, Strike Force for Unreal Tournament, and according to producer Michael "Optimizer" Hamlett the team now includes several designers moonlighting from other companies. "One of our main coders on SF works on tank simulators in Sweden. Our new player model designer manages a team of 25 animators in Europe and does motion capture for various commercial games. We have people contributing maps that work on other commercial games in the industry."
To find out more about the mod and why it is attracting so much attention from gamers and developers alike, read the interview with Optimizer over on GameSpy.