Hayden Blackman was interviewed by MTV Multiplayer and spoke of the critical and consumer feedback The Force Unleashed is receiving. He admits that the game isn't necessarily perfect (what game is?) but is surprised that the storyline in general didn't seem to factor into the critical scores.


From Blackman:

“We were surprised by some of the negativity in some of the reviews and how much some of those [gameplay complaints] dragged down the perception of some of the reviewers and how little, to be honest, the story seemed to affect the reviews in reverse. The games industry and reviewers, in particular, talk about the importance of story, but at the end of the day it didn’t count much in the reviews we got. There would be one paragraph that would talk glowingly about the story but it didn’t necessarily move the needle in terms of scores. That’s definitely not what we’re seeing in terms of consumer feedback.”


Click here for part one of the interview and here for part two in which Hayden discusses the pulling down of a Star Destroyer.

HB: "That’s one of those things which, when we tested it and play-tested it, the reaction was very different. I think we were [hearing in play tests] earlier that [the game] felt too repetitive, and by adding some of those moments it actually broke it up. The feedback was positive on that particular moment. … It’s a hard question to answer. Had we spent another year on it, we would have done something even better, obviously. I was in creative writing class in college and there was always this saying: “Stories and poems are never finished; they’re abandoned.” As an artist you always feel that no matter how long you work on something, you always want to polish more. But, to be honest, that wasn’t at the top of our list to spend more polish on, because it had tested well and served its mission to break up the gameplay and provide this big over-the-top moment. In context, it kind of made sense in the story."