Interview with The Agency's Lead Designer, Hal Milton

[Martuk]

You may or may not have heard of The Agency, Sony's upcoming spy-based MMOG soon to be making its way to the PC and Playstation 3. If you haven't, it's time to come out from under that rock. This week MMORPG.com got the chance to interview Hal Milton, the Lead Designer for The Agency about the games process, content and how Sony plans to balance the play between the PC and console crowds.

Hal states something I happen to agree with. Developing a game such as this on the PC provides a much better option for development than the consoles due to the limitations of screen resolution and the controller. The console systems just haven't reached a level to compete with the MMOG PC market. This may change in the future, but right now the ol' mouse and keyboard still trumps the controller in these kind of games.

“Game systems are game systems,” he added, and then noted that the goal of a game should not be complexity. “Instead you should be trying to create something that’s relatively easy to get into. Something that naturally reveals itself to you.”

The smaller screen resolution of a Playstation 3 game, for example, forces the developers to work harder on a UI. Sometimes, with the now ridiculous resolution many of the latest gaming rigs run at, it’s tempting to just throw a million buttons on the screen. Thanks to the PS3, they cannot fall for that trap with The Agency.

You can read the full interview here.