Chris Chamberlain: Test Lead

"Nothing makes me feel better than punching a Troll up into the air as Pummel Weed, smacking him with a few rocks from Rubble, freezing them with an ice spear from Chilla, and then watching them shatter when they hit the ground."

Chris Chamberlain has worked at Mircrosoft for nearly six years, first as a tester, then as Test Lead. He has a B.S. in Business Administration and has taken many Computer Science classes as well. In 1980, he picked up his first video game and began a lifelong, loving relationship with games on many platforms.

Chris's first games job involved testing on Destruction Derby at Looking Glass Studios in 1999. He moved on to work on Crimson Skies at Microsoft Game Studios. He says with a smile, "My dad always wanted me to be a pilot, so testing a flying game was a good compromise."

We managed to stop Chris long enough to get him to answer some questions for us about his career, and specifically, about his contribution to Kameo™: Elements of Power™.

What other titles have you shipped?
After Crimson Skies, I went to San Jose to help Bungie finish up their anime action title Oni for the PC, Macintosh, and Playstation 2.  I then got to help with the original Halo on Xbox before becoming a Test Lead and shipping Blinx the Time Sweeper with former Sonic Team member Naoto Ohshima and his company Artoon.  I’ve helped to ship several other titles since then like Phantasy Star Online from Sega in addition to Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live & Reloaded from Rare. 

When MGS first joined forces with Rare in 2002, I volunteered (and pleaded) to work on Kameo.  I had lots and lots of fond memories playing Rare titles as a kid (Battletoads, R.C. Pro-Am, Wizards & Warriors, Spider-man, etc.) and REALLY wanted to work with them, so I was thankful when I moved onto the title.

How long have you been working on Kameo?
I’ve been working on Kameo since Microsoft joined up with Rare in 2002, so that makes it about 3 years.  The team at Rare originally moved the game from Gamecube to Xbox where we worked really hard on it for several years.  The Xbox version was approximately 80 percent complete before we moved it over to Xbox 360® and rebuilt it from the ground up—adding the Badlands level, tons of new quests, co-op play, fully voice acted characters, day and night cycles, and a fantastic score by Steven Burke, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and King’s Choir.

What were the biggest challenges getting Kameo ready for release?
Learning the new Xbox 360 hardware has probably been the biggest challenge!  Many of the tools we had for testing, automation, and development on the original Xbox were not available or ready yet on 360.  A lot of things we had to either re-learn or create new tools entirely. The scope of the game also increased immensely when we moved from Xbox to Xbox 360, so we had to hire more people to help test everything.

What is your favorite part of Kameo?
I think the game as a whole is fantastic package—there really is something for everyone in there; action levels, a scoring system that will let hardcore gamers unlock some really neat stuff, an adaptive hint system that helps newer or younger gamers, some unique questing in the towns and villages, fantastic graphics, and a brilliant musical score!  If I had to pick my favorite thing from the title, it is that the game contains 11 different characters that you get to play as.  Each Elemental Warrior and Kameo control and play completely different and it is the combination of quickly switching into various Warriors and pulling off chain attacks that I enjoy most.  Nothing makes me feel better than punching a Troll up into the air as Pummel Weed, smacking him with a few rocks from Rubble, freezing them with an ice spear from Chilla, and then watching them shatter when they hit the ground.

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