Speaking to blog Game|Life, Harvey Smith, lead designer at Midway, revealed that his latest game, Blacksite: Area 51 has lots of faults. In short, Smith said, "This project was so f*cked up."
A few reasons lead to Smith’s disappointment with the game; one reason hinted at the team facing technology problems while developing the game. Smith said, "Everyone was forced to share tech. It took eight months to get one thing working."
Another reason was that Smith wasn’t simply interested in the game. He said, "I wasn’t excited about this Area 51 game." During Blacksite’s development, the lead designer had to oversee another project, which led to rushed development and lack of polish.
"With a year to go, the game was disastrously off rails. It went straight from alpha to final."
In contrast, Smith was lead designer for Deus Ex, a critically acclaimed FPS, which was developed back when Smith was with ION Storm Austin. During Deus Ex’s development, the team spent six months just playing the game to make sure everything was alright.
