One of the more unique aspects of Bad Day LA is its visual style, which eschews hyper-realistic settings and meticulous polygon sculpting in favor of a more colorful, cartoonish look. We chatted with McGee to talk about the game's unique visual style and how it came about.
GameSpy: Alice was a pretty dark game in a fantasy setting; Bad Day LA is a pretty colorful game set in modern Los Angeles. What was the inspiration for doing something so different?
American McGee: Well, you could say that Bad Day LA is also a pretty dark game in a fantasy setting. Dark in that it plays off everyone's greatest fears of widespread destruction and mayhem, fantasy in that Los Angeles serves as its surreal backdrop.
Both games were inspired by epiphanies: Alice by the Crystal Method song "Trip Like I Do," and Bad Day LA by a Department of Homeland Security billboard. Both ideas came to me while I was driving. And in both situations I already had a number of thoughts in mind about creating "different" games before the final concept was reached. For instance, I was thinking a lot about the lack of "proper' female action heroes in video games and the lack of art-driven games during the time when Alicewas conceived. When she popped into my mind I knew she was the right answer to those problems.
With Bad Day LA I had been thinking a lot about several "wants"… humor in video games, mass market games, games with a deeper message, non-hero type heroes, surreal and irreverent action storylines, and games that would appeal to and be entertaining for people who had never played games before. It may seem odd that a billboard which asked "Biochemical Terror Attack… Are you prepared?" would present the answers to all these questions, but it did. When I was listening to that Crystal Method song way back when at the moment that Alice was inspired, I clearly remember the dark mood of the song and hearing the world "wonder". From there my brain just sort of began running… wonder, wonderland, Alice, etc.
That "Biochemical Terror Attack" billboard contained a number of triggers... the politically correct nature of the design for one. It had that classic "rainbow of people" featuring a Hispanic woman, an African American woman, a white guy, a Chinese guy, and some variously colored children. They all looked solemn and almost distrusting… "Are you really prepared?" they seemed to ask. Well, no. But then wait a second, who are these people? Where on earth do people like this actually get together in such perfect proportions and colors and sexes? Don't even get me started about the question they were asking.
So the idea started to form. A lot of it is already out there "on the shelf", as it were. We have a main character closely resembling the comedy styling of guys such as Dave Chappelle, Ali G, or the Wayans Brothers. The disaster element is similar to the sort of action that you see in "The Day After Tomorrow" or are repeatedly warned about by our fear mongering media. Our main character represents a constant send-up to classic video game heroes, political correctness, and the fear in general. My hope is that these elements will come together to form something that is slightly more appealing to non-gamers and the mass market than say, trolls riding dragons (not that I personally have anything against trolls on dragon action!).
This concept art gives an idea of the kind of carnage in Bad Day LA.
GameSpy: Did you know from the beginning you wanted to do a game with this brighter type of art style, or was it just something that evolved out of the overall game concept?
AMcG: The art style only came into the picture once the story and theme had been established. First there was the concept, then there was the main character, then there was his story and all the people, places, and things that flow out of that. As all of this was coming together I began to realize that the art style was going to have to work really hard to communicate that this game was different than your standard action title. The really big challenge is how to sell the concept of a disaster spoof. Simply put, you've got people being killed left and right by man made and natural disasters. How do you couch that in such a way as to allow people to laugh?
The first indicator of the mood of the product that people are going to get is its art style. From across a room they can look at the action on the screen and think, "Hm, that looks like a cartoon, which should be funny, but that Mexican guy just killed a zombie with a chainsaw…" In this sense I think that something like Southpark is a good example of adult comedy made to look like (and starring) children where you can deal with topics of violence, sexuality, culture, and so on, and its OK because it never hits you over the head with overt realism. The reality is in the message more than in the delivery mechanism.
