Of the original Amiga one? Or X2? Well, for the original, we wanted to recreate the feeling of Nemesis/Salamander on the Amiga, which had never had a similar game. Technically, we wanted to kick ass, too and make it look/sound better than any other shoot-em-up, I think we weren`t far off. With X2, we felt that the PSX was the machine to really make it look the dogs bollocks and get back the energy we felt all shootem-ups lack on the PSX/SATURN. Too many PSX games are novel and just don`t feel good. We`re all getting older and we all remember the good old games, there's no real reason why we can`t have next-gen audio-visuals with 80's solid, fun, action-packed gameplay.

What was your role on the Amiga original?

Producer on all aspects. Creative input throughout.

What did you think of the original criticism of the Amiga version being too hard?

In hindsight, yes it was. In our mitigation I`d say that it was collectively only our 2nd product (the first one I was involved with throughout) and that we were all too close. In those days, we didn`t have time nor resources to fully test the product anywhere near the amount of time it should have done.
Therefore the first 2 levels were roughly ok in terms of difficulty, but the last 3 were silly.

What steps were taken with the original and what steps are being taken on the sequel to ensure that the difficulty question doesn't happen again?

We are older, wiser and vastly more experienced to make the same mistake twice. Obviously with a decent game-debug/editor in there and a whole troop ,of testers, including 25 at Ocean, we should be okay.

How much creative and directorial input do you have on X2? How much do you use it?

I had a fair bit early on, but the team and I have worked together for 6 years and we know how each other works very well - actually it`s almost psychic. We throw ideas around and we all know what each other wants and demands, so it works well. My personal strength is perhaps little ideas hereand there, small tweaks and touches and deciding upon the combination of sound & graphics to provide the overall "feel".

In your opinion how is the game shaping up so far?

It`s shaping up well, and it`ll get better - much better. There are no real strengths applicable to the weapons and aliens and the "playability" is required.
Fortunately, Andreas has coded a very easy to use game editor so we can continunally tweak it without his intervention until we feel it`s right. Sound is an important issue and the speech will start going in very soon - this will have a dramatic impact on the atmosphere of the game. Visually, it looks gorgeous, and it doesn`t slow down !

You said earlier that one of your strength's lay in little ideas here and there, small tweaks and touches and deciding upon the combination of sound & graphics to provide the overall "feel". It's those precise tweaks and touches that contributed so heavily toward the success of Worms. I know it's old ground, but what was it about Worms that made you take the risk and put it on a Next Generation platform like the Playstation or Saturn? Much of the specialist press derided the move. What did you think about that?

Simply because the game was so much fun, so playable. We certainly didn`t believe that just because the game had 16bit roots, it wasn`t at home on the next-gens - besides there had been - and still is, to a large degree, a dearth of PLAYABLE games on next-gen consoles. The specialist press were foolish, but most quickly changed their minds after playing it for a while.

How did the success of Worms, despite the 'professional' criticism aimed at the game make you feel - vindicated, relieved, happy, smug?

Simply pleased. The game deserved to be a success and it was. I suppose I was a little smug with one or two of the unbelievers, but that`s only served to make the idiots in question even more bitter and twisted than before.

When interviwed in the early nineties about the aim of the original Project X, you mentioned that technically you wanted the game to 'kick ass'. What features of Project X2 are going to kick ass on the Playstation?

Well, it`s in true colour, boasts stacks of objects, weapons, lighting effects, scaling, rotational fx, transparancy fx, a gorgeous 3D based (!) front end, smart fmv - cool music, the works. Compared to ANY other blast on next-gen, it gets a piece of ass and kicks it solidly around the room for a few hours.

Why are these features going to impress a hard core Playstation gamer whose head might be full of polygon counts, frame rates, and tri-linear texture mip mapped interpolated graphics with anti-aliasing.

Technically, X2 uses PSX hardware to the maximum to do this style of game - there are lots of polys being used and technically, if we want to get anal about it, all the objects and sprites actually are flat texture mapped polys! Oh and it doesn`t... no, not ever.. SLOW DOWN. It doesn`t drop a frame.

What are Project X2's closest rivals in the arcade and on other consoles, and why will X2 be superior?

Theres no close rival on console - they`re all kak, we`ve played them all. X2 will be explosive, exciting and the feel/atmosphere will be just right.

It's probably been answered earlier, but why can Project X2 give credence to the claim of being the ultimate arcade shoot-em-up?

It`s a mixture of fx, action, audio-visuals, atmoshpere, ever-changing gfx, enemies, the playability all combined. No one special feature, just the overall production I feel.

Could you sum up what you think of the pedigree of the people - excluding yourself - working on the team. Any strength's and attributes worth particular note?

The team is very strong, we`re all good friends and problems are rare. Rico is probably one of the best graphics guys anywhere in the world and Andreas codes without really having to think about what the rest are after. It`s a brilliant combination. Now with the added talents of Danny Hansen (intro) Cris Blyth & Rory Gallagher (FMV), Mark (Saturn) and Bjorn, the team just got much better.
Credit is also due to Craig Jones, whose enthusiasm and love for the game has carried things along. At the end of the day, we are still enjoying producing games and still enjoying producing them with the same, if a little expanded, team. We`re very lucky.