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RIP Bizarre Creations
Today, Friday 18th February 2011 marks the death of one of the UK's most renowned studios: Bizarre Creations.
Starting with the Playstation One with Formula One '97 and stepping up to the Dreamcast classic Metropolis Street Racer and continuing with Fur Fighters, they quickly showed what the Dreamcast was capable of. This obviously caught the interest of Microsoft, as most gamers reading this today will remember Bizarre for the Project Gotham Racing series. Project Gotham Racing 2 was widely loved for bringing a strong racing game to Xbox Live, with the BXB community fondly remembering games of Cat 'n Mouse and white-knuckle racing.
With Xbox Live Arcade coming into fruition on Xbox 360, the first cult hit was Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, a twin stick shooter of the old-school that got millions of gamers hungry for high scores. Even with full retail games out at the time, gamers were still playing Geometry Wars, a sign of a classic. It was later followed up with Boom Boom Rocket and Geometry Wars 2. Project Gotham Racing 4 was their last big hurrah with Microsoft Game Studios and is considered one of the best racing games of the generation. The great graphics and fantastic gameplay got gamers excited about what Bizarre could do now that they were free to pursue other projects.
Teaming with SEGA, The Club was born. A third person shooter about skills, kills and high scores. The gameplay took influence from the PGR Kudos system to try and breed a new and interesting kind of shooter. Sadly the game under performed but it showed that the studio was interested in making unique experiences. Then they were purchased by Activision. Some gamers were sceptical but promise that Bizarre remained independent and would only be financially supported displayed good faith that the Liverpool based team could flourish with the biggest company in the industry supporting them.
Blur was a racer of a different ilk. The notion of Mario Kart for men was a knee-jerk reaction that in the end under sold the concept of their arcade racer. The fairly long and expensive development cycle saw the game get mostly favourable reviews and the online infrastructure of levelling up and social network support gave the game legs that could see it amass a following for years to come like PGR did. Sadly it wasn't to be after poor advertisement support, it was drowned out by its opposition leaving it to sell an unimpressive 380,000 on Xbox 360. If at first you don't succeed, try again.
Activision assigned Bizarre Creations to the ill-faded James Bond franchise with Blood Stone. Originally previewed with positive response, it eventually released in an unimpressive state due to rushed development time and budget restraints. From there, it was easy to see the writing was on the wall. Activision put Bizarre on notice on November 16th when they claimed to be "exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business." Then on January 20th, it was finally stated that no sale was to take place and Bizarre would close its doors forever.
So this brings an end to one of the country's beloved studios. It's possible they will show up under a different name, but the Bizarre Creations name is gone. BritXbox hopes that everybody at the studio remains in the industry and hope to see you all again.
Rest in Peace.
Starting with the Playstation One with Formula One '97 and stepping up to the Dreamcast classic Metropolis Street Racer and continuing with Fur Fighters, they quickly showed what the Dreamcast was capable of. This obviously caught the interest of Microsoft, as most gamers reading this today will remember Bizarre for the Project Gotham Racing series. Project Gotham Racing 2 was widely loved for bringing a strong racing game to Xbox Live, with the BXB community fondly remembering games of Cat 'n Mouse and white-knuckle racing.
With Xbox Live Arcade coming into fruition on Xbox 360, the first cult hit was Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, a twin stick shooter of the old-school that got millions of gamers hungry for high scores. Even with full retail games out at the time, gamers were still playing Geometry Wars, a sign of a classic. It was later followed up with Boom Boom Rocket and Geometry Wars 2. Project Gotham Racing 4 was their last big hurrah with Microsoft Game Studios and is considered one of the best racing games of the generation. The great graphics and fantastic gameplay got gamers excited about what Bizarre could do now that they were free to pursue other projects.
Teaming with SEGA, The Club was born. A third person shooter about skills, kills and high scores. The gameplay took influence from the PGR Kudos system to try and breed a new and interesting kind of shooter. Sadly the game under performed but it showed that the studio was interested in making unique experiences. Then they were purchased by Activision. Some gamers were sceptical but promise that Bizarre remained independent and would only be financially supported displayed good faith that the Liverpool based team could flourish with the biggest company in the industry supporting them.
Blur was a racer of a different ilk. The notion of Mario Kart for men was a knee-jerk reaction that in the end under sold the concept of their arcade racer. The fairly long and expensive development cycle saw the game get mostly favourable reviews and the online infrastructure of levelling up and social network support gave the game legs that could see it amass a following for years to come like PGR did. Sadly it wasn't to be after poor advertisement support, it was drowned out by its opposition leaving it to sell an unimpressive 380,000 on Xbox 360. If at first you don't succeed, try again.
Activision assigned Bizarre Creations to the ill-faded James Bond franchise with Blood Stone. Originally previewed with positive response, it eventually released in an unimpressive state due to rushed development time and budget restraints. From there, it was easy to see the writing was on the wall. Activision put Bizarre on notice on November 16th when they claimed to be "exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business." Then on January 20th, it was finally stated that no sale was to take place and Bizarre would close its doors forever.
So this brings an end to one of the country's beloved studios. It's possible they will show up under a different name, but the Bizarre Creations name is gone. BritXbox hopes that everybody at the studio remains in the industry and hope to see you all again.
Rest in Peace.