MO sold well because people were expecting a brilliant game from the makers of Abe’s Oddysee and Exoddus, and had heard great things about it all through its development. Had they taken their time, they’d have fallen out of favour with their publisher and technical support, a huge no-no. Lorne expected to be able to recycle the game engine to continue the story of Munch, making up for the gameplay and plot cuts to the Oddysee, but found that the A.L.I.V.E. 2 engine was not able to take full advantage of the Xbox’s capabilities because it had been designed to run on the PS2.
To financially justify making yet another game engine, he had to make sure the game was going to sell, so he went back on much of what he said about muscle-bound characters and FPS gameplay to appeal to the greatest gaming demographic. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling EA kids.
We all know Lorne went back on his word, did what he said he’d never do. I’ve even quoted what he said about never making an FPS or muscle-bound hero in my sig in protest. But in the end he made SW so great while still being infused with all the essence of Oddworld, all he did was expand what Oddworld could cover and accomplish. I say we let him off. All he did was change his mind.
Wow, wasn’t expecting that to be an epic.
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