It's not every day you hear honesty like this -- speaking with Wired, Midway designer Harvey Smith is candid about what went wrong with the recently released first-person shooter, Blacksite: Area 51. Smith says he wasn't surprised by the mediocre reception to the game, saying "We got hammered so hard, and we deserved it."
"Everyone was forced to share tech," he says of the development. "It took eight months to get one thing working."
These technical problems set the team back significantly, and "with a year to go, the game was disastrously off rails." Once the game was finally playable, "it went straight from alpha to final." But Smith takes heat for the problems, and says he "believes in personal accountability."
Smith's honesty is refreshing, if not a complete nightmare for Midway PR. In defense of Smith and the game, I'll say this -- don't let the 65 average Metacritic rating scare you off. Blacksite is a relatively fun shooter, but far from perfect. If anything, Smith's ability to sack-up might make you want to pick it up as a weekend rental.
Contest:
9:16 AM on 11.29.2007
| 
Some of the gameplay was kind of fun, but mostly, it was just boring stupid crap.
Harvey Smith was invlolved in the development of the original Deus Ex.
Unfortunately, he was also involved with the Deus Ex sequel, Invisible War.
Sadly, even Invisible War is a better game to be working on than Blacksite: Area 51 for Midway. It just bothers me when good designers seem to fall through the cracks like Harvey Smith, because I bet he still has many more unique ideas for games that likely will not be implemented.
points for honesty. sadly, honesty doesn't make good games
I'm a broke ass college student so I might pick this up if it ever gets super cheap. I'm a sucker for cheap games...I own Serious Sam.