Portfolio

In 1999 I joined Rebellion to work on an AvP game and, in 2007, I finally got that chance.

The biggest challenge faced making AvP was ensuring that all three species felt unique, yet similar enough for players to be able to jump between them.

As the Alien only has itself as a weapon and the Predator has oversized wrist blades we focussed a lot on making sure that the close quarters combat was engaging and fun. And, crucially, making it work in multiplayer where lag can be a huge factor.

The rock-paper-scissors approach we took for the combat filtered across all elements of the game, and was core to creating a balance for three wildly different creatures.

As the Lead Designer I was responsible for overseeing the core mechanics, the campaign structure, managing the design team and ensuring the vision for game was realised.

Towards the end of development I was also involved in the press campaign of the game, working closely with the Sega marketing team, demoing at E3 and being an active voice in the online community.

Putting 4 games (3 single player campaigns and multiplayer) in one box was a challenge like no other and I'm very proud of the work the team did to create one of the stand-out games of 2010.

To date the game has sold over two million copies.

Rogue Trooper is a gem of a game, primarily because we managed to make a fun 3rd person action game that doesn't take itself too seriously. This is backed up across the internet where the comments from players are nearly always positive, even though the reviews had mixed opinions.

So why the disparity? (And why haven't you heard of it?)

It came out towards the very end of the main cycle of the PS2, and it's a 3rd Person action game set in the future on a planet that isn't Earth. It came out a few weeks before Gears of War, also a 3rd Person action game set in the future on a planet that isn't earth, which came out on Xbox360.

When we were making Rogue we thought we were going to be in competition with Gears, and in some way we were. It was only after that we realised that we could of used Gears of War to our benefit as Rogue Trooper does everything Gears does and more.

Its biggest flaw is that is too easy and, because of that, players don't need to use all the abilities we gave them access to. This was a hard lesson to learn and one we rectified to some degree when we made the Wii version later on.

Of all the games I've made, Rogue Trooper lives strongest in my heart. The story, mechanics, audio and feel of the game work beautifully together to create a really fun game.