Ah but first some context:
Studio tour of Bizarre creations working on their new IP Blur.
I like to think that my post sent to them once upon a time inspired the name of the game at least, and the focus on power ups.. but not like this.. god no.. not like this at all. Nintendo should sue.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/bizarre-creations-blur/62633
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/bizarre-creations-blur/62637
I appreciate what Bizactivision is trying to accomplish by Blur, but Disney is going to hit them hard.. in the sales department. Blur's nifty and noisy, for sure, but it lacks in the business end of game play (this isn't burnout even though it wants to be), and surely isn't burnout technically for the damage modelling and handling.
I mean why should Bizarre dump the slightly more realistic than arcade, as in Mario Kart, handling of their cars.. just so that they can rip off everything else that is mario kart without dumbing the car models down to pre-k playmobile levels.. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but looks like they aren't willing to forgo their tried and true car models... then aren't they just lazy? or is the game fully meant to be Bizarre?
1, they could have gone with future cars. Just push the game 80 years into the future.. if not just 18. You know like I Robot. the cars in that movie were slightly futuristic but totally next years retro styled audi. They have speed and all kinds of handling surprised because of the ball tires.
What do the Blur cars have? nothing. They're just cars. pfft, pass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-PCs8V7nLg
What if the game allowed you a choice of vehicles and you could get knocked off, or have to jettison your vehicle because it's too badly beat up. I'd love a chance to race on something like these even if it meant flying off and running around looking for another one while dodging certain death from other players.
But if the cars could hover, like Fatal Inertia, they don't have to fly, but just so that it makes sense to use that kind of super powered up gameplay. The vehicles, whatever they are have to be tough, and fast, cars aren't tough or fast. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth seeing the cars in blur flipping end over end and landing on their wheels without taking any damage. Like a bad video game or something.
2, As a franchise, if nothing else, meaning if the game doesn't outright fail, perhaps the saving grace will be inspiring other developers to embrace social networking in their racing games. It is after all so difficult to innovate in racing. -.- can't imaging anything that hasn't been done in racing that can't be done better.. >.<
Yeah, there would be room for Bizactivision to make sequels of the series that dump cars in favor of something more exotic, faster and more powerful.. and more vertical.
Indeed few racing games do vertical (flight) with physics (gravity), and power-ups... without resorting to silly hovercraft. Fatal Inertia managed it well and I commend them, not just because they are Canadian, but because they tried and did well but not well enough to penetrate the already saturated on wheels BS games that are done to death. With only Criterion innovating with insane amounts of FUN and pseudo crash physics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_lzCUwaWuo&hd=1
Where if you're going to rip off another franchise and call it your own.. Do it right. Rip off the champions and feed them their own hearts for breakfast. Which is what Disney plans to do with Split/Second.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oirFKi6Sfo&hd=1
Won't have the same impact as Burnout, but it at least tries for crashes and scale.
3, It has been this long, with Blur being hyped like most games have to be pre-sale, and I still can't tell if you take damage and can repair on the fly (with power-ups). One thing Carmageddon did so well besides its unmatched damage modelling.. was repairing on the fly. Although finding a repair spot (or tube of lighting) is a good way to do it, in a game like Blur you'd need to be able to repair your vehicle on the fly.. pausing would ruing the flow of the game. Given all the hype about social networking.. suspiciously minus the GothamTV aspect, I wonder if repairing shouldn't have been something like getting replies to your tweets. IF you send tweets about needing repairs, people would tweet back to you, while you're racing with a repair powerup on the track. So that it is fair it should be something available to everyone, not just the person tweeting out. They'd just get spammed with tweets from their friends. OR if they managed it any other way so that repairs on the fly could visually fix up your car. I could have respected the game if damage affected handling, which it doesn't. At least if you're driving wonky you'd car about repairs. When damage doesn't affect handling you don't need to do anything about it.
4, The sense of speed seems to be lacking in Blur. It may not be going for that since they are sticking with normal cars.. I'm hoping maybe they have DLC packs with concept/experimental vehicles. But that doesn't mean they'd have DLC packs with concept and experimental tracks either. Which is sad. I love the amount of work and detail they are putting into nearly real tracks.. but guys.. you've been emancipated from Microsoft Game Studios.. you can make futuristic and appealing innovative stuff now. It might be a leftover pang of stolkholm syndrom.. but I'm hoping it's just that and not something tragic like they actually don't want to innovate themselves away from their bread and butter Project Gotham Racing. The game needs to look and play like it to ensure the game appeals to those fans.. Microsoft should sue. Else it could be something even more tragic like Activision is worse about their creative freedom than Microsoft was.
FI and Burnout are about the only two racing games that actually have a visceral sense of speed. Plus FI went the extra mile with performance and visual mods. It required you to think about strategy.
It will be interesting to see any of these games though have more than token branching paths. Where a racing game CAN be like a death match multiplayer FPS if it has the right kinds of physical upgrades.
I bugs me to have bean imagining a Carmageddon racing game for 12... years.. holy christ.. that has real focus on racing but retains all the powerups AND upgrades. Oddly Halo is the best game to visually picture what such a racing game would be like. Where frankly just adding the right kinds of vechiles and shifting game play to vehicles with (weapon) mods and upgrades effectively is Carmageddon. It's simple premise was mayhem. Race if you want to, or obliterate your opponents if you want to, or just screw around and explore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6TVqtNZWBY
I mean you really have to be messed in the head to play something like that and enjoy it.. but if you can.. nothing else will ever be the same.
All Carmageddon was missing was being able to get out of your car and beat the crap out of the peds/zombies which would be the other players and NPCs. Something that Halo doesn't really have (NPCs that aren't trying to kill you). While Carmageddon lacked the vehicle variety but without fault since it was a racing game.. and DID actually have many vehicle types, just not many with weapons on them (they were weapons thanks to the best vehicle damage in any game STILL unmatched in over twelve years).. what would it have been like with flying vehicles.....
But looking at blur, so painfully devoid of any really innovative ideas about making a new and impressive racing game.. just pains me. It isn't likely for Halo Reach to have a vested racing mode.. but with it's open maps and powerups.. it's so very much closer to it than Blur or any Criterion racer.. other.. being what Carmageddon was and could have become.
The online battle race, combat racing game for Xbox and PC. While activision is all about owning all platforms, there's so much to be said about forgetting about Nintendo until they have hardware to run games and a real focus on developing their online community.. and Playstation ditto.
Perhaps discounting Sony isn't the best plan though.
Considering they are the platform that Koei TO chose for Fatal Inertia at least initially, and eventually got there.. and Full Auto.. Sony has mentioned they want to have games that people can play for free (demos) that degrade until you make a purchase.
What better platform for that than an online combat racing game? Initially you get several cars and tracks/arenas.. powerups and mods etc that degrade unless you buy the ones you like.
I wonder if Koei is busy these days with anything important. They've got the skills after all. Certainly FI 2 would be news considering what some companies are willing to pass off as combat racing.
Studio tour of Bizarre creations working on their new IP Blur.
I like to think that my post sent to them once upon a time inspired the name of the game at least, and the focus on power ups.. but not like this.. god no.. not like this at all. Nintendo should sue.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/bizarre-creations-blur/62633
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/bizarre-creations-blur/62637
I appreciate what Bizactivision is trying to accomplish by Blur, but Disney is going to hit them hard.. in the sales department. Blur's nifty and noisy, for sure, but it lacks in the business end of game play (this isn't burnout even though it wants to be), and surely isn't burnout technically for the damage modelling and handling.
I mean why should Bizarre dump the slightly more realistic than arcade, as in Mario Kart, handling of their cars.. just so that they can rip off everything else that is mario kart without dumbing the car models down to pre-k playmobile levels.. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but looks like they aren't willing to forgo their tried and true car models... then aren't they just lazy? or is the game fully meant to be Bizarre?
1, they could have gone with future cars. Just push the game 80 years into the future.. if not just 18. You know like I Robot. the cars in that movie were slightly futuristic but totally next years retro styled audi. They have speed and all kinds of handling surprised because of the ball tires.
What do the Blur cars have? nothing. They're just cars. pfft, pass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-PCs8V7nLg
What if the game allowed you a choice of vehicles and you could get knocked off, or have to jettison your vehicle because it's too badly beat up. I'd love a chance to race on something like these even if it meant flying off and running around looking for another one while dodging certain death from other players.
But if the cars could hover, like Fatal Inertia, they don't have to fly, but just so that it makes sense to use that kind of super powered up gameplay. The vehicles, whatever they are have to be tough, and fast, cars aren't tough or fast. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth seeing the cars in blur flipping end over end and landing on their wheels without taking any damage. Like a bad video game or something.
2, As a franchise, if nothing else, meaning if the game doesn't outright fail, perhaps the saving grace will be inspiring other developers to embrace social networking in their racing games. It is after all so difficult to innovate in racing. -.- can't imaging anything that hasn't been done in racing that can't be done better.. >.<
Yeah, there would be room for Bizactivision to make sequels of the series that dump cars in favor of something more exotic, faster and more powerful.. and more vertical.
Indeed few racing games do vertical (flight) with physics (gravity), and power-ups... without resorting to silly hovercraft. Fatal Inertia managed it well and I commend them, not just because they are Canadian, but because they tried and did well but not well enough to penetrate the already saturated on wheels BS games that are done to death. With only Criterion innovating with insane amounts of FUN and pseudo crash physics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_lzCUwaWuo&hd=1
Where if you're going to rip off another franchise and call it your own.. Do it right. Rip off the champions and feed them their own hearts for breakfast. Which is what Disney plans to do with Split/Second.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oirFKi6Sfo&hd=1
Won't have the same impact as Burnout, but it at least tries for crashes and scale.
3, It has been this long, with Blur being hyped like most games have to be pre-sale, and I still can't tell if you take damage and can repair on the fly (with power-ups). One thing Carmageddon did so well besides its unmatched damage modelling.. was repairing on the fly. Although finding a repair spot (or tube of lighting) is a good way to do it, in a game like Blur you'd need to be able to repair your vehicle on the fly.. pausing would ruing the flow of the game. Given all the hype about social networking.. suspiciously minus the GothamTV aspect, I wonder if repairing shouldn't have been something like getting replies to your tweets. IF you send tweets about needing repairs, people would tweet back to you, while you're racing with a repair powerup on the track. So that it is fair it should be something available to everyone, not just the person tweeting out. They'd just get spammed with tweets from their friends. OR if they managed it any other way so that repairs on the fly could visually fix up your car. I could have respected the game if damage affected handling, which it doesn't. At least if you're driving wonky you'd car about repairs. When damage doesn't affect handling you don't need to do anything about it.
4, The sense of speed seems to be lacking in Blur. It may not be going for that since they are sticking with normal cars.. I'm hoping maybe they have DLC packs with concept/experimental vehicles. But that doesn't mean they'd have DLC packs with concept and experimental tracks either. Which is sad. I love the amount of work and detail they are putting into nearly real tracks.. but guys.. you've been emancipated from Microsoft Game Studios.. you can make futuristic and appealing innovative stuff now. It might be a leftover pang of stolkholm syndrom.. but I'm hoping it's just that and not something tragic like they actually don't want to innovate themselves away from their bread and butter Project Gotham Racing. The game needs to look and play like it to ensure the game appeals to those fans.. Microsoft should sue. Else it could be something even more tragic like Activision is worse about their creative freedom than Microsoft was.
FI and Burnout are about the only two racing games that actually have a visceral sense of speed. Plus FI went the extra mile with performance and visual mods. It required you to think about strategy.
It will be interesting to see any of these games though have more than token branching paths. Where a racing game CAN be like a death match multiplayer FPS if it has the right kinds of physical upgrades.
I bugs me to have bean imagining a Carmageddon racing game for 12... years.. holy christ.. that has real focus on racing but retains all the powerups AND upgrades. Oddly Halo is the best game to visually picture what such a racing game would be like. Where frankly just adding the right kinds of vechiles and shifting game play to vehicles with (weapon) mods and upgrades effectively is Carmageddon. It's simple premise was mayhem. Race if you want to, or obliterate your opponents if you want to, or just screw around and explore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6TVqtNZWBY
I mean you really have to be messed in the head to play something like that and enjoy it.. but if you can.. nothing else will ever be the same.
All Carmageddon was missing was being able to get out of your car and beat the crap out of the peds/zombies which would be the other players and NPCs. Something that Halo doesn't really have (NPCs that aren't trying to kill you). While Carmageddon lacked the vehicle variety but without fault since it was a racing game.. and DID actually have many vehicle types, just not many with weapons on them (they were weapons thanks to the best vehicle damage in any game STILL unmatched in over twelve years).. what would it have been like with flying vehicles.....
But looking at blur, so painfully devoid of any really innovative ideas about making a new and impressive racing game.. just pains me. It isn't likely for Halo Reach to have a vested racing mode.. but with it's open maps and powerups.. it's so very much closer to it than Blur or any Criterion racer.. other.. being what Carmageddon was and could have become.
The online battle race, combat racing game for Xbox and PC. While activision is all about owning all platforms, there's so much to be said about forgetting about Nintendo until they have hardware to run games and a real focus on developing their online community.. and Playstation ditto.
Perhaps discounting Sony isn't the best plan though.
Considering they are the platform that Koei TO chose for Fatal Inertia at least initially, and eventually got there.. and Full Auto.. Sony has mentioned they want to have games that people can play for free (demos) that degrade until you make a purchase.
What better platform for that than an online combat racing game? Initially you get several cars and tracks/arenas.. powerups and mods etc that degrade unless you buy the ones you like.
I wonder if Koei is busy these days with anything important. They've got the skills after all. Certainly FI 2 would be news considering what some companies are willing to pass off as combat racing.