After making the rounds on the Three Red Lights Podcast, Sierra Online's Ross Erickson has popped up on the Major Nelson Podcast, discussing their recent and upcoming XBLA games!
On Lost Cities:
"Possibly 3 weeks out [before release, maybe]"
On Assault Heroes 2:
"Bigger Badder, Better, Bolder. A lot more enemies, lot of weapons. [...] Playing with the camera for different opportunities, hijacking weapons.."
On Aces of the Galaxy:
"Pure Adrenalin Space Combat, a cross between Starfox 64 meets the original Warhawk on PSOne."
On upcoming games:
"We have roughly a dozen titles in production for the XBLA right now, we're very committed to the platform."
On the quality of games:
MN: "Recently there has been some Buzz on the internet with the quality of games on the XBLA. That's got to hit you right below the belt!"
RE: "Well it kind of does in two ways, number one I'm responsible for identifying and fighting for some of these games to come to the XBLA and that covers a wide variety of game experiences and types for different kinds of users, and you're also talking about games I'm publishing right now.
I can appreciate when people - particularly hardcore gamers who have their favorites talk about their favorite game. I think the situation is that gamers are very wide and diverse these days. I like Astropop but I don't think many people pay attention to it much.
Some categories on XBLA on the original vision was diversity and something fun for everyone. I can't get my wife to pay Assault Heroes for instance, and I like N+ and Commanders but they're very different kinds of games."
On bringing classics to the service:
"There is a lot of buzz around Bionic Commando and the fans of that, and we're looking at some of our old franchises and not just figuring out how to quickly put a coat of paint on it, but how to reinvent the franchise without turning it into another franchise.
A lot of our franchises at Sierra have been known as retail 50-60 dollar games and here we are with Sierra Online and seeing how we can bring IP we own to the online space, so it's a challenge but a lot of fun too!"
There is also a great discussion about just how much Erickson loves Lode Runner, and his difficult time in trying to find just who owns the rights to the franchise. A great interview.
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