Producer Clint Worley Reviews Field Commander Reviews

When Field Commander for PSP hit the battlefront, we were bombarded with reviews from online gaming sites. Hey, a reviewer at QJ gave it a big fat 8. The game garnered an average review score of 81% over at GameRankings.com. But what comes after reviews? Well, what else, but a review of the reviews. That’s right! It’s something out of the ordinary, but interesting nonetheless. Next Generation has given Field Commander producer Clint Worley a chance to respond to specific game review comments and criticisms made by IGN, Gamespot, EGM, GamesRadar, etc. It’s a great way to better understand why the game turned out to be a huge hit (or a big embarrassment, depending on who’s reviewing).

Worley commented on both the positive and negative reviews and offered some explanations on some of the issues on 3D design and the game causing the PSP to mysteriously crash and reboot. He’s not denying that the crash really happened but he says that the team hasn’t been able to duplicate it internally.

On the division issue, Worley admits it’s an actual bug that made it out in final version. It’s one of those things that got away from the internal testing department. He said, “It is a situation that doesnÂ’t happen frequently but we do admit that it can happen and when it does the player will be in a situation where he either has to press the HOME button or reset the system.” He hopes that the oversight will not negatively impact the players impressions of Field Commander.

While GamePro’s 3.5 out of 5 rating may not be a low score, GamePro made a less than positive remark: “But in the process of making Field Commander appeal to a more hardcore audience, Sony Online Entertainment also made the game far blander than it should be. Unit design is purely uninspired and the story and accompanying dialogue are as trite as the next game.”

Worley has this to say, “I actually think the larger problem we had was the visual scale of the game. Since it is a strategy game we wanted to show the players as much of the battlefield as possible. That meant pulling out the camera. Outside of the technical issues of simply displaying more, we ran into a unique visual problem. Now the units, terrain and buildings all seemed to have less detail since they were further away from the camera. We were able to help the situation by pulling the camera in closer during battle but the combat was quick and didnÂ’t really sell the personality of the units. We also found that the majority of the players in our focus groups played without the combat animations on.”

Via Next Generation

When Field Commander for PSP hit the battlefront, we were bombarded with reviews from online gaming sites. Hey, a reviewer at QJ gave it a big fat 8. The game garnered an average review score of 81% over at GameRankings.com. But what comes after reviews? Well, what else, but a review of the reviews. That’s right! It’s something out of the ordinary, but interesting nonetheless. Next Generation has given Field Commander producer Clint Worley a chance to respond to specific game review comments and criticisms made by IGN, Gamespot, EGM, GamesRadar, etc. It’s a great way to better understand why the game turned out to be a huge hit (or a big embarrassment, depending on who’s reviewing).

Worley commented on both the positive and negative reviews and offered some explanations on some of the issues on 3D design and the game causing the PSP to mysteriously crash and reboot. He’s not denying that the crash really happened but he says that the team hasn’t been able to duplicate it internally.

On the division issue, Worley admits it’s an actual bug that made it out in final version. It’s one of those things that got away from the internal testing department. He said, “It is a situation that doesnÂ’t happen frequently but we do admit that it can happen and when it does the player will be in a situation where he either has to press the HOME button or reset the system.” He hopes that the oversight will not negatively impact the players impressions of Field Commander.

While GamePro’s 3.5 out of 5 rating may not be a low score, GamePro made a less than positive remark: “But in the process of making Field Commander appeal to a more hardcore audience, Sony Online Entertainment also made the game far blander than it should be. Unit design is purely uninspired and the story and accompanying dialogue are as trite as the next game.”

Worley has this to say, “I actually think the larger problem we had was the visual scale of the game. Since it is a strategy game we wanted to show the players as much of the battlefield as possible. That meant pulling out the camera. Outside of the technical issues of simply displaying more, we ran into a unique visual problem. Now the units, terrain and buildings all seemed to have less detail since they were further away from the camera. We were able to help the situation by pulling the camera in closer during battle but the combat was quick and didnÂ’t really sell the personality of the units. We also found that the majority of the players in our focus groups played without the combat animations on.”

Via Next Generation