Activision shuts down Bizarre Creations

[Monkeyspill]

Brings back memories, it was the little touches that really added to the game like the radio DJs, if you went into a tunnel the radio would fade out and also using the Dreamcast's clock to have the real time of day in each city.

I used to keep changing the internal clock to change the time of day to daytime. Some of the night time courses looked pretty, but it was harder to see anything. I had the bugged version that you could still finish by losing all the races.

[footle]

I used to keep changing the internal clock to change the time of day to daytime. Some of the night time courses looked pretty, but it was harder to see anything. I had the bugged version that you could still finish by losing all the races.

Quite. It was a feature that sounded good till you only ever played the Tokyo tracks at night.

There was a period where I'd count which MSR/PGR cities I'd visited. Made orientating yourself easier.

London, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Yokohama, Paris, Las Vegas...

[Ketchup]

Msr helped me to learn central London pretty well. I've said it before a million times but there is something about msr that to me makes it look better that any of the pgr games. Maybe it's the lighting or the resolution giving it a slight grittiness. I'm not sure but to me it still looks wonderful and even feels different to say pgr4.

Actually the city's feel more real than in pgr 4 even with it's crowds.

[son_of_helvetica]

That's the spooky thing - I've been to some of the real-world locations in the games and feel a very spooky sense of Deja Vu. I then realise I've virtually driven around those locales and it makes sense. Edinburgh on PGR2 was an especially cool moment, figuring out I was walking up my most favourite road. "This road is ace to bomb down at high speed!".

[Major Britten]

If it's a choice between Microsoft buying them and Bizarre disappearing completely, I'd take Microsoft.

Oh for sure but MS apparently isnt the only interested publisher who are looking to buy them out. Microsoft are about as short term minded with their franchises as Activision are (as in if its not a blockbuster success first time round then that is it). Hopefully we will hear soon what has happened with the studio.

[SeanR]

Msr helped me to learn central London pretty well. I've said it before a million times but there is something about MAE that to me makes it look better that any of the pgr games. Maybe it's the lighting or the resolution giving it a slight grittiness. I'm not sure but to me it still looks wonderful and even feels different to say pgr4.

Actually the city's feel more real than in pgr 4 even with it's crowds.

I was at st. thomas' hospital today, and even though my grandma has stopped eating and wants to go home (to die), I found myself reminising about racing an Opel Astra NPC down lambeth palace road, into royal street, upper marsh, and back onto the LPR for the roundabout.

The roundabout's not there anymore...

[edit]

so I thought I'd check that I recalled some 1v1 battle in a videogame from about 10 years ago correctly and found myself an FAQ... written by a "John Peat". D'ya think he's the real John Peat?

http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=25375&rid=24070

Edited November 28, 2010 by SeanR

[ryodi]

Quite. It was a feature that sounded good till you only ever played the Tokyo tracks at night.

There was a period where I'd count which MSR/PGR cities I'd visited. Made orientating yourself easier.

London, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Yokohama, Paris, Las Vegas...

There was a cheat you could unlock pretty early on that allowed you to fix the time to whatever you wanted. I did moat of my races with it set to midday.

I really need to pick up PGR4. It was the game I bought my 360 for but I ended up getting forza 3 when that came out instead. How is pgr4s single player?

[SteveH]

I really need to pick up PGR4. It was the game I bought my 360 for but I ended up getting forza 3 when that came out instead. How is pgr4s single player?

PGR4 is still my favourite racing game of this gen. I even deleted my save game a while back so that I could play through the single player again. And it still looks fantastic.

There was something about the London tracks in MSR though. I think it is because they still had the central reservations/bollards etc.

[Swallow]

Wot Steve said. PGR4 is brilliant.

[Dudley]

But you're wrong about that too. The game is designed to be played without the mods. The game progression actually takes those mods away when you legend. You're not doing badly at the game because of the mods or cars that are locked away from you. Your skill level is simply not good enough. It's proficiency at the game you need - not the mods. A better player at the game will beat you when they are level 1 - even if you're level 50.

If you don't like the game - fair enough. But don't blame the structure of the game - which you quite clearly don't understand.

They have access to something I do not, therefore not a fair race. That's a failure in the structure of the game which I understand perfectly well thank you. And I wasn't doing badly either, but an online game lives and dies on it being a fair fight. Blur isn't.

Of course a much better player will beat me, but an equally good player at L50 has an artificial advantage over the guy just starting out and that's wrong for an arcade game.

[Jack Walsh's coffee shop]

Given that some people today are all over this animator's showreel like a cheap soup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWmdk9h5XWA

It that it shows scenes from what looks like a pretty polished (though very Sam Fisher and Bourne Conspiracy like) segments Bond game, that may have been partially developed at Raven.

Was there some sort of weird, ongoing internal competition within Activision? Is this a new Bond game due for next year? Was Blood Stone a title that Bizarre were held to the fire on, in that it HAD to be released the same time as GoldenEye 007 and it couldn't slip until 2011 because then it would conflict (and maybe cause confusion) with another Bond game.

[AlfromSleep]

Edinburgh on PGR2 was an especially cool moment, figuring out I was walking up my most favourite road. "This road is ace to bomb down at high speed!".

The Edinburgh stages in PGR2 are possibly my favourite set of races in any game, it used to leave my mates speechless when I'd park up outside Burger King on Princes St, the grafix were amazing back then

[Yoshimax]

Microsoft are about as short term minded with their franchises as Activision are (as in if its not a blockbuster success first time round then that is it).

That's common sense - if you spend millions making something and it tanks you're hardly going to repeat the process.

[Dom B]

They have access to something I do not, therefore not a fair race. That's a failure in the structure of the game which I understand perfectly well thank you. And I wasn't doing badly either, but an online game lives and dies on it being a fair fight. Blur isn't.

Of course a much better player will beat me, but an equally good player at L50 has an artificial advantage over the guy just starting out and that's wrong for an arcade game.

This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've seen about Blur! Moan that its too hard in single-player by all means, or that the multiplayer has too large an element of luck, but seriously? You quit playing the game because a level 50 has the tiniest advantage over a level 1 player? I mean, you're correct, but its such a minor thing. And like has been mentioned, it goes in cycles when you legend up you lose your mods and then YOU have the advantage over that lvl 50 bastard.

This is how much advantage is provided by mods at lvl 50:

[--]

This is how much advantage is provided by skill and/or experience of getting to lvl 50:

[-------------------------------------------------------------]

So getting in a huff and giving up because of that make you a bit of a whiny baby, frankly. Man up!

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Given that some people today are all over this animator's showreel like a cheap soup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWmdk9h5XWA

It that it shows scenes from what looks like a pretty polished (though very Sam Fisher and Bourne Conspiracy like) segments Bond game, that may have been partially developed at Raven.

Was there some sort of weird, ongoing internal competition within Activision? Is this a new Bond game due for next year? Was Blood Stone a title that Bizarre were held to the fire on, in that it HAD to be released the same time as GoldenEye 007 and it couldn't slip until 2011 because then it would conflict (and maybe cause confusion) with another Bond game.

"Cheap soup"? What is this, Meals on Wheels?

[Major Britten]

That's common sense - if you spend millions making something and it tanks you're hardly going to repeat the process.

Well yeah but it depends, if you have a game that sells reasonably well and shows potential to be a franchise in the future then it makes more sense to make a sequel and build on the foundations already made. Nintendo is probably the best example of a studio that does this.

[Velse]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/36797/Breaking-Activision-recommends-Bizarre-closure

[Wiper]

[Kayin Amoh]

'Right you guys, you're working on Blur from now on. Oh, it didn't sell? You're getting shuttered.'

[moosegrinder]

[vladtepess]

How sad.

[Bobbi Champagne Jr]

Man, that's fucking terrible. They had a few misses, but their hits were solid gold. I can't believe they're not getting the chance to build and expand on Blur, the core of the game was fantastic.

[Rushy]

[layten]

"You will never see a proper PGR5"

[Petrousgyre]

Something wrong with the games industry - there's a seemingly endless array of developers churning out the same lukewarm shat, glorified fetch-quests and joyless combat with inept story tacked on yet a genuinely talented developer like Bizarre, who make actual games is getting shuttered. Very sad.

[Philly]

Easy solution, Microsoft employs all the ex-staff of Bizarre, and creates a new in-house studio cheaply (no buying of Bizarre)

They get Bizarre back at no cost.

Race TeamX

[Karzee]

I'm finding it a very weird feeling that my Game of the Year 2010 (Blur) has caused the closure. It's like the world's gone mad.

[Mortis]

It will be funny to see how often Blur turns up as one of the best racing games in the big lists of GOTY 2010 - not that it'll change anything. Lets hope the folks working for Bizarre all get absorbed into a new studio and go on to make something that sells bucketloads - if only to piss off Activision.

[tcharliel]

Blur really is a top notch racer, what a shame.

[Jolly]

Blur is indeed fantastic, and one of my 2010 GOTYs, but I think the greatest loss to the gaming world here is Geometry Wars. Number two was probably the best twin stick shooter ever made, which when you consider how long Robotron held that crown, dethrowning it was a considerable achievement.

Really gutted. A very talented studio.