According to studio director Martyn Brown, developer Team 17 should be evaluated based on its latest release -- a downloadable Worms title -- instead of Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. A novel idea considering how dreadful Team 17’s continuation of the classic adventure series was.

“I'll be open as anything. Larry didn't turn out great,” Brown told VideoGamer. “There are reasons why it didn't turn out great. I'm not going to rattle on about excuses. It's one of those things. You're only as good as your last game. Hopefully the new Worms on LIVE Arcade, other than a couple of bugs that went unnoticed on, not our testing unit but a testing unit, which we're fixing -- I think the Metacritic on that is 84, 85 per cent.”

Brown doesn’t believe that Team 17 has lost any fans because of Box Office Bust and hopes that Alien Breed, a self-published downloadable title, will show that the studio has talent and the ability to make good games.

“Certainly with Alien Breed, if anybody's got any grumbles about what we can and can't do, they'll see the amount of effort and care put into a product where we're unbridled by any nonsense we had to deal with in the Larry project.”

“Yeah, hands up, it wasn't great. At the end of the day people don't have to buy anything. They go on reviews, they go on demos and everything else. If people make that decision that's unfortunate. It's not something we're worried about.”

The bigger question here, left unaddressed and unasked, is why Leisure Suit Larry still exists. There are a ton of worthy and more compelling adventure series -- King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest to name a few -- left untouched. Let's roll the dice with one of these, eh Activision? Nothing can be as bad as Box Office Bust. Nothing.

Worms enjoyed an exclusive period of time on Xbox Live Arcade before gracing other digital platforms with its presence, and Team 17's other big revival, Alien Breed: Evolution, appears to be doing the same thing. Of course, with third party exclusivity comes emotional fanboys making wild accusations of treachery and conspiracies, which Team 17 has put down quite emphatically. 

"Obviously we'd like everything on every platform day one," explains studio boss Martyn Brown. "The LIVE Arcade thing … we get accused of being bribed or we've took Microsoft's money, and it's all bollocks.

"The reason is that we've got a long relationship with Microsoft's first party unit. We get on great with them. In exchange for exclusivity we get a lot more promotion. We've got a closer deal with them. That's just how it is. It's unfortunate. That's just how we work. I appreciate PS3 owners getting pissed off because it's not on their platform immediately, but that's up to Sony I guess to address that.

"They've [Sony] got their own exclusives. You look at Super Stardust, which is exclusive to PS3. It works the other way round. For people complaining, at the same time, people on LIVE Arcade can't play Super Stardust or PAIN or a bunch of titles. It's just the way the world works really."

I didn't realize PS3 fans were getting that pissed off at Team 17, but it just goes to show that console loyalists will find anything to get distraught over. I suppose that's what happens with teenagers (or adults with the minds of teenagers) continue to live in idealistic dreamworlds facilitated by the fact that they live with their parents and don't understand that people need to make business decisions. A fair few members of the gaming community really should learn how to be realistic and understand that if the world ran their way, nobody would have any money.

Team 17 made quite a few people happy when it announced that Alien Breed Evolution was bringing grub-splattering fun to a new generation of gamers. However, at least one side of the console wars will be happier than the other, with this new Alien Breed coming to Xbox Live Arcade before it hits the PSN. Team 17 explains why -- they're simply better friends with Microsoft.

"I think XBLA still leads PS3 in terms of user base and probably the amount of people buying the thing," explains Team 17's Martyn Brown. "Plus we have a relationship with Microsoft that’s pretty close -- a first party publishing relationship.

"They showed a lot of faith in us early doors and that’s kind of kept going really. I think they’ve got the same kind of games on there: it’s the same kind of audience really. I’m not suggesting the PS3 is any less than that, but we just feel that’s the market for the game. It will come to PS3 and it will come to PC as well, but initially it’ll be Live Arcade."

Can't fault the guys for sticking up for their friends. Either way, it really doesn't matter to me. XBLA or PSN, I'm downloading this one as soon as I can, no questions asked.