Were there any particular films, art, music, novels or games that had a strong influence over you and your team during the development of both Fear Effect games?

There were so many. Visually, a lot of us were heavily influenced by the look and feel of films such as Blade Runner, Bubble Gum Crisis, Akira, Ghost In The Shell, The Matrix and all of John Woo’s movies. I drew heavily on the masterful photographic works of Ryuji Miyamoto’s Kowloon Walled City for moods, camera angles and lighting. Script wise, I like the sharp characters and engaging dialogues in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Also, From Dusk Til Dawn, the film in which he collaborated with Robert Rodriquez has a nice mix of reality meets fantasy—a lot of what we do in Fear Effect.

Hideo Kojima has often said that the Metal Gear series carries an anti-war message and the Sons Of Liberty sequel is about the effects of digitization on society. Does the Fear Effect series try to convey any messages, or is there any predominating theme?

My take on this subject is quite different. There are numerous "messages" within the Fear Effect series. Some are quite in-your-face obvious while others are more subtle. Regardless, the messages are not there to persuade the audience to see my point of view. Rather, I am merely bringing these issues to light so that people can talk about it and form their own opinions. There are many subjects that are considered taboo within our society. The biggest damage we can do to ourselves as a culture is to keep it bottled up or to simply ignore these issues and pretend everything is just peachy keen. In my opinion, there are no right or wrong views to the messages within Fear Effect because nothing is as simple as black and white. All that matters is that we don’t disregard these issues and hope that they will somehow magically disappear on their own because they never do!

Be a little more specific. What are some of these "taboo" issues that are brought to light?

Well, the most obvious one being the whole sexuality thing between Hana and Rain. It completely boggles my mind how the ad agency and the media had made such a huge deal out of that, when in the opening cinematic alone, we had genetic manipulation, artificial insemination, prostitution, drug abuse, alcoholism and cold-blooded murder. It kind of gives you a good sense on how deprived our society truly is!

Fear Effect 2 is not only one of the hottest games in the market right now, but also one of the most controversial due to the sexually risqué content. Did Kronos Digital consciously decide to "push the envelope" of sex and violence in videogames? Why not stick to more mainstream family-friendly fare?

(Laughs) Where I grew up in Hong Kong, this IS the "mainstream family friendly fare!" I was exposed to these kinds of subject matters on a daily basis ever since I was a child. Back then, no one really paid any attention to the rating systems in Hong Kong. I can pretty much walk into any theater and watch any film I wished to see. I think I saw The Story of O with a bunch of friends in the theater when I was 12 (hope my dad is not reading this). In the evening, my family would have dinner together and watch Chinese Kung Fu soap operas, which is full of violence and death. I used to come home from school in the afternoon and for hours sit and watch these extremely violent yet funny kid shows and animations from Japan. I remember them so vividly, Ultraman, Kikaida, and Rydeen to name a few. My favorite is the Kamen Rider series. Unlike the watered-down American animation and children shows, the Japanimation and action shows don’t hold back on anything. They’re full of awesome fight scenes and all kinds of interesting and violent death sequences. After I moved to the States, I used to watch G.I. Joe in the afternoons. I remember how I would laugh my ass off every time someone got shot down by a missile, because they would always insert that stupid parachute sequence afterwards to show that it’s all just make believe and no cartoon characters were hurt during the production. It was ludicrous.

As much as I was exposed to these subject matters deemed unsuitable by the Western culture in an early age, I guess the difference is that I was raised in a very traditional and straight environment. My parents to their best abilities taught me the basics of what’s right and wrong, what’s real and what’s not (although my dad’s belt and my mom’s slipper did a good job keeping me in check!). So when I saw the Masked Rider rip off this guy’s arm and jump off a 20-floor building, I didn’t go out and try to do the same thing!

I find it extremely amusing how Retro Helix became such a controversy. Every situation, every idea that I put into the game is within the context of the story. The story is about four hardened mercenaries. They do what they have to in order to survive. They live life to the fullest everyday because there may not be a tomorrow for them. They don’t care what people think of their actions, and they don’t make excuses for their choices. Is the game really that sexually risqué? Come on, The Little Mermaid is only wearing seashells and Bugs Bunny cross-dresses on a whim! Have you ever noticed where the cockpit is for the robot in Zone Of The Enders, the shape of it and what it does when he flies? Retro Helix is not for everyone because it was not made for everyone! I didn’t want to dilute the experience for the intended audience. I wanted to create a mature, intelligent and a little twisted game for adults and I was not willing to compromise that vision.

Who was responsible for the T&A lesbian chic ad campaign? Was the marketing an internal decision from Kronos Digital, or was it out of your control and entirely in the hands of the publisher, Eidos?

The original image of Rain straddling Hana was done in house for... inspiration purposes. Then the marketing department at Eidos got a hold of the image and ran with the idea. In general, Eidos is exclusively responsible for all marketing related to the Fear Effect series. Their ad agency comes up with the ideas, and we are responsible for generating the content they require.

I found it to be a little ironic that a game with such a witty script, incredible voice acting, and an intelligent narrative was targeted at such a lowbrow audience. Do you agree with that sentiment and are you happy with the way Fear Effect 2 was marketed?

Hmmm... a double-edged question! First, let me say that I am extremely happy we got any kind of marketing at all for a game that came out at the end of the PlayStation’s glorious lifespan (thank you Eidos). My opinion is that I didn’t mind the T&A ads in the beginning to stir up controversy or what not, I just wished that they would have followed up with ads that portray the actual game itself. Either way, I’m glad that we didn’t get another commercial which made us look like a Resident Evil clone.

How did you feel about the way the game was perceived by the media and public both before and after its release with respect to the goals you had for it?

I was pretty amazed by the amount of good press we got before the game was out, especially with the looming PS2 release. I thought for sure no one would care about a sequel game for the aging PlayStation. So far, except for David Smith’s childish, completely irresponsible and unprofessional so-called review at psx.ign.com, we’ve been getting exceptional high marks from both the media and public. I don’t mean to bag on David Smith, but it was extremely obvious from reading his review that he either did not play the game or he was simply unwilling to give us a fair and unbiased professional assessment. There were so many errors and false information in the original version of his review. After numerous complains from his readers citing his inaccuracies, his revised review was still extremely biased and misleading. Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all! (Smiles)