DICE on Medal of Honor: "The controversy did affect some reviews"

Seems like just about everyone - old or young, smart or in love with their caps lock key - has an opinion about EA's newest entry in its Medal of Honor franchise.

More interesting, however, is the range of opinions about those opinions.

First we had EA Games VP Patrick Soderlund chalking up a tepid reception to unmet quality expectations. Then EA CEO John Ricitiello asserted that, ultimately, a "narrow demographic of reviewers" can rant and rave all they want, but the game wasn't made for them. And now, DICE's Patrick Liu has contributed his two cents, explaining that the last-minute Taliban nip-tuck may have been responsible for some bad blood.

"The controversy did affect some reviews," he told Eurogamer. "It stirs a lot of feelings, just the setting. And that does affect people's judgment."

"But otherwise, this is a reboot of a franchise. It's an investment for EA as a company. We need to build upon what we have achieved so far and improve and build up the franchise again from scratch, basically."

Of course, controversy's not solely to blame for Medal of Honor's occasional visits to some of the review scale's seedier locales. Liu continued:

"It's partly because we're in a very competitive genre. We're also competing with ourselves. Obviously we're competing with Call of Duty. It's a very tricky situation to be squeezed in between those giants."

"Either the reviews are favourable, or they're not. There's nothing in between. It's polarised opinion about the game."

More through the link.