NEWS    Current / Submit    Archive    HELP    Walkthrough    Cheats    Editing    COMMUNITY    Forums    Fan Fiction    Fan Art    Links    FILES    Game Demo    Patch    Editing Tools    Community maps    Movies    Music    Submit    UNDYING    Game Info    Features    Requirements    Screenshots    Characters    Enemies    NPCs    Weapons    Spells    Inventory    Macintosh    Playstation2    FAQ    JERICHO    Game Info    SITE    Site Info    Contact Email Standing Stones Interview with Mark Adams Mark Adams is the president of Westlake Interactive, the development company behind many famous PC-to-Mac ports (such as various Tomb Raiders, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex) and also heavily involved in the PS2 version of Deus Ex. It was announced not too long ago that Westlake would be porting over Electronic Arts Los Angeles' critically acclaimed hit Undying to the Mac. Mark was kind enough to answer a couple questions about this. [O] Interview: Mark Adams of Westlake Interactive When is the port generally expected to ship? We are shooting for sometime towards the end of Summer or Early Fall. Is it simply a matter of porting the code straight across, or will there be any asset changes or additions? Will the editing tools, already released for the PC, also be ported? Mostly it will be a straight port. The Mac version will support OpenGL, but the content will remain the same. The editing tools won't be ported, since the Unreal editor never made it to the Mac. Does Westlake pretty much just work on whatever is brought to them, or do you guys ever actually pursue porting of certain titles? How did the Undying project come about? We are approached by publishers sometimes and other times we recommend a game. With our previous experience on Unreal games, when we heard about Undying we immediately asked Aspyr to look into it. They were able to get an early build of the game, and we played it for a while and were very impressed. After that it was just a matter of Aspyr working on the legal details with EA. Despite powerful critical acclaim from both gamers and media, Undying apparently tanked in retail. Since this was enough to convince EA to halt the series and kill off the PS2 port which was in full swing, why would they greenlight a Mac version? Since they were allowing it to published by a Mac specific publisher (Aspyr Media), there was not much investment or risk to do the port. And we're hoping it will still do well in the Mac market, where there isn't a glut of FPS-type games. It seems a little strange that EA, a publishing giant itself, isn't actually publishing Undying for the Mac. Care to speculate, just for general interest, on why that is? It actually a pretty natural deal for EA. The Mac market is very different than other markets, and it takes a publisher that is very familiar with the market to do well. By licensing the game to Aspyr, EA makes sure the game will be ported well, marketed and distributed correctly for the Mac market, and has the best chance of success.