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[h0l211]

Gamasutra has an article up called 'Interview: Rodney Greenblat, The Mother Of Sony's 'Almost Mario', talking with the graphic designer for Parappa and Um Jammer Lammy:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050705/hawkins_01.shtml

Some extracts:

"In the case of Chop Chop Master Onion, he was just supposed to be a karate teacher. I came up with lots of designs of what a karate teacher might be, but the onion thing they just loved, so they changed the whole thing so he was the onion master. It just worked out perfect. I don't think they had an idea of what the driving instructor might be, and I just thought it would be so funny if she were this big moose, and I was thinking of Queen Latifah in a certain way."

Regarding Um Jammer Lammy:

"And designing the main character is the hardest part; the main character is the logo basically. [I had done many others but] they went through four official Lammys that were approved but rejected later on. [The final design was] so far from my original plan that I was a little disappointed, because it's supposed to be a lamb. I had a curly haired, lamb-looking character. And then the whole Natalie Imbruglia thing came, the Australian pop star, where they wanted it to look like her."

 

[dock]

Cool interview! Thanks for sharing!

 

[pjberri]

Just read it, really cool, thanks. I think I'll check out some of his other work tomorrow.

 

[john tv]

I just thought it would be so funny if she were this big moose, and I was thinking of Queen Latifah in a certain way.

Haha. Ouch! I know he didn't mean that in a bad way, but still...

 

[john tv]

Just read it. Great interview, and a sad story. A shining example of how clueless some Japanese companies can be. :/

 

[BuddyC]

Good read, thanks.

 

[jenov4]

Great read! I liked this quote:

So I got to go to this top-secret lab, almost like a movie, and saw the guts of PlayStation blasting out 3D models onto a screen. I remember it very specifically; a T-Rex's head rotating around. You couldn't do that on a computer at the time!

Teh T-REX Demo! It must have been so damn amazing seeing that for the first time back in '94.

 

[FortNinety]

The one question which I forgot to ask, which I'm still kicking myself about, is the changes in UmJammer. From what I understand, she goes to hell in one level in the Japanese original, which was changed to, of all things, Hawaii in the American release.

I've yet to reach the hell stage cuz I find the game way too hard. But yeah, at least Greenblat feels the same exact way.

 

[belgurdo]

No. I basically decided to retire from games after the television show

Thanks, Japan

 

[Porridge]

Greenblat's PaRappa designs are pretty classic in my opinion

thanks fer the link

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I'm still wondering about the Run Lola Run /Unjammer parallels.

 

[the year 20XX]

The one question which I forgot to ask, which I'm still kicking myself about, is the changes in UmJammer. From what I understand, she goes to hell in one level in the Japanese original, which was changed to, of all things, Hawaii in the American release.

I've yet to reach the hell stage cuz I find the game way too hard. But yeah, at least Greenblat feels the same exact way.

It's kinda strange. In the US version, you go to... "an island." An island where you perform for a crowd of skeletons... who get zapped when you perform poorly. So, you know, just any old island.