Tom Bramwell
12:32 (BST)
29/11/2007
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Blacksite dev admits to rushed product
"This project was so f*cked up," says Smith
Midway's Harvey Smith has admitted that relatively low review scores for Blacksite: Area 51 are "no surprise", admitting to various problems during development.
Speaking at the Montreal International Game Summit 2007, Smith pulled no punches: "This project was so f*cked up," reports Wired.
Smith said that he wasn't all that enamoured with the Area 51 property when he first came onboard, but a rush to completion became a bigger problem as development went on.
"It took eight months to get one thing working," he said. "With a year to go, the game was disastrously off rails." It even "went straight from alpha to final," leaving virtually no time to spend play-testing the game.
Asked why he was being so honest about all this - and his belief that they "deserved" a critical hammering - Smith said: "I believe in personal accountability."
The comments won't please publisher Midway. Area 51: Blacksite is due out on PC and Xbox 360 tomorrow in Europe, with a PS3 release also on the way.
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