Just scanning the net, and found this interview.
The Phantom Menace - the developer's story
I'm Ray West, the 3d artist/animator for Big Ape Productions, the team that produced Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace for Lucasarts. I wanted to thank you for an incredibly well-balanced and fair review. A lot of the reviews we have been receiving for the game have been from hardcore gamer-types who were hoping for another Jedi Knight FPS, and thus they review the game only wishing that it was something else. Yes, we have quirks and bugs, but all in all the game turned out to be what Lucasarts told us they wanted - an easy-to-learn game that casual gamers can play, and enjoy their own trip into the Star Wars universe.
I also wanted to comment on the problems you mentioned, because you point very specifically what is missing/wrong. This is far more useful to game developers than a 'This feature sucks!' which is so prevalent in many of the reviews today. Our AI problems were an incredible pain in the rear, and while we were able to fix a good number of the 'straight line follow' problems, in some cases our deadline had to come first. As for the low-poly characters...we had to walk a fine line between having good detail on our models and still be able to run at a decent framerate with between 10-15 other characters onscreen at the same time. We kept our main characters at a fairly low poly count mainly to be certain that we could still handle some of the heavy-duty combat sections.
All in all, while we would never be able to satisfy the hardcore gamers, we felt like we produced a game that Star Wars fans could have fun with. Not perfect, by ANY means, but I'm glad that some reviewers take the time to get to know the game before reviewing it.
Ray West, Big Ape Productions
Zanzibar, is this real or another kid playing a prank?
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