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Ex-Bizarre Creations Staff Create Hogrocket

Sam Naylor — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:29:11 +0000

Three former Bizarre Creations staff have formed a new studio, Hogrocket, which will focus on “iPhone/iPad, PC, and Mac.”

Peter Collier, Ben Ward, and Stephen Cakebread were employed by Bizarre Creations until the company closed down. They’ve now formed Hogrocket, a new company which will at first focus on “high-quality games across multiple platforms, initially targeting iPhone/iPad, PC, and Mac.”

It’s great to see some Bizarre Creations staff finding their feet again- let’s hope the rest can do the same in the near future.

Via Dtoid

Bizarre Creations Cinematic Director Leaves Us With Heartbreaking Farewell Video

Dave Oshry — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:02:33 +0000

Eamon Urtone has been the creative director for all things cinematic at Bizarre Creations for over six years. Today, as the studio shuts it’s doors, Eamon has created this farewell video to a place he called home for the better part of a decade.

Enjoy:

Eamon had recently worked on PGR3, The Club, PGR4, Blur & 007 BloodStone.

Here’s another one of his videos that is far less depressing, yet equally as bad ass:

Farewell Bizarre Creations – you will be missed.

For a detailed look at the rise and fall of Bizarre Creations, please read this editorial by our own Bryce Wilson.

Bizarre Creations Officially Closes Friday the 18th

Bryce Wilson — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:23:54 +0000

After 15 years, 20 games, 200 staff and thousands of units sold, a titan in the racing game industry is finally closing its doors amidst poor sales and negative reception to its most recent titles.

Officially formed back in the dinosaur gaming days of 1994, Bizarre Creations first broke into the video game entertainment market with their Formula 1 racing title “Formula 1 ’97″ that quickly established their identity as a creator of high quality racing titles. However, after a number of AAA caliber titles and wildly popular arcade games – things strangely started going down hill for the developer.

You can read about the rise and untimely fall of Bizarre Creations in an editorial that I wrote titled “Was Bizarre Creations a Ticking Time Bomb?“.

Our thoughts go out to the staff from Liverpool that are unfortunately losing their positions at the pivotal developer, but we know they will be picked up in a hurry by other companies (Codies!). What are your thoughts on the Bizarre Creations saga?

Let us know or contact me via Twitter – @DrjftGaming.

Source: [Develop]

Activision Reccomends Bizarre Creations Studio Closure

Sam Naylor — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 15:07:35 +0000

Activision have recommended that their studio Bizarre Creations be closed down.

Coddy Johnson, Activision Worldwide Studios’ chief operating officer, said:

“I want to be clear, our first choice was to try and keep this group together and find a buyer for the studio.

“This decision comes after a few months of exhausted examination of a number of different options across the board.

“We of course care about this team. We’re offering the studio as many resources as possible, including counselling, external placement services and external career fairs.”

Johnson told Develop that the company had “explored a lot of leads… But unfortunately, so far we’ve not been able to find any interested parties. So we’ve made as a last resort, a recommendation to the team for closure.”

Blur’s disappointing sales were noted as a key fact in the decision. Ripten extends its sympathies to those employed at the studio should it close down.

Was Bizarre Creations A Ticking Time Bomb?

Bryce Wilson — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:29:23 +0000

When I grew up as a little kid I did so during the SNES era. The first game I ever picked up was Spiderman. Back then developers/publishers were things I didn’t understand or have any knowledge of, after all, I was only three years old at the time. Fast forward 16 years and that brings us to 2010. On November 16th, Activision announced that it was considering closing down and selling Bizarre Creations, a studio that had been running since 1994, only a few years after I was born.

Known for their expertise in racing titles and having the right to brag that Formula 1 went on to become the biggest selling European game in 1996, it looked like Bizarre Creations knew what they were doing. However, since ’96 a lot has changed in both the market and the studio. After the release of Formula 1 came Metropolis Street Racer, a Dreamcast title that was praised for it’s brilliant controls, amazing longevity, but most of all its near flawless gameplay and AI.

Bizarre Creations then went on to create Fur Fighters, another Dreamcast title set in a fantasy world populated by cute animal characters, yet even so it still retained cartoon based violence. The game was positively received and went on to be widely enjoyed by both critics and gamers the world over. Bizarre, obviously blinded by this success then decided to release Fur Fighters: Viggo’s Revenge, as a Playstation 2 port of the original Dreamcast game with updated features. Unlike the original, Viggo’s Revenge wasn’t as well received by critics, with IGN only scoring it a 4.5 out of 10, citing horrible camera issues and poor controls.

Project Gotham Racing 4

During 2001 a big player entered into the game console market; Microsoft. Their Xbox console was launched on November 22nd in the United States, and it looked to compete with long established console makers like Sony (Playstation 2), Sega (Dreamcast) and Nintendo (Gamecube). With any new console comes launch titles, and Bizarre was lucky enough to be one of the developers to get a shot at launching a new series on a brand new console. Thus Project Gotham Racing was born. Drawing heavily on features introduced by Metropolis Street Racer, Project Gotham Racing was a hit as it went on to become the second best selling game on the Xbox, coming second only to Halo: Combat Evolved. The ‘Kudos’ system that Bizarre borrowed from Metropolis gave players a chance to come in positions other than first, yet still not lose as long as they fulfilled numerous speed related challenges and drove well.

Project Gotham Racing was well received by critics with both IGN and Gamespot praising both the great gameplay and beautiful graphical prowess that the game was afforded at the hands of Microsoft’s new hardware. Although a number of it’s sales can be attributed to the fact it was an Xbox launch title, PGR went on to ship an estimated 2.15 million units, quite a feat for the day it’s time. Bizarre Creations carried the success of the original title throughout the next year as they worked on the sequel; Project Gotham Racing 2.

The lack of the sequel title being a launch title showed with the game only selling an estimated 1.59 million units, nearly 500,000 less than the original. Despite this, critics and gamers alike scored the game higher than the original with Bizarre refining the original experience and polishing the game a lot more. IGN scored it a 9.2 out of 10, awarding the title their Editors Choice, and Eurogamer scored it similar giving it a 9 out of 10, both citing another impressive round of graphics and even better gameplay. Project Gotham Racing 2 also enabled gamers to verse each other for the first time via Microsoft’s online gaming system: Xbox LIVE.

Blur

Microsoft swung their axe again and released the Xbox 360 on November 22nd of 2005. Once again Bizarre was at the forefront of a console launch with Project Gotham Racing 3, and as with the previous titles, the game once again saw success from critics and gamers. Unfortunately PGR3 failed to sell more units than it’s earlier brethren, only an estimated 1.41 million copies. However, this could be a testament to the high cost of the Xbox 360 at launch. Two years later Bizarre released the last game in their PGR series; Project Gotham Racing 4. Like the other titles PGR4 received positive reviews and sales with an estimated two million units sold. One review however suggested something, and something big. Team Xbox stated that PGR4 was more of “the same” and it was time for Bizarre to move onto bigger and better things.

Whether Bizarre took that advice, I don’t know, but they strayed from their tried and true success in racing titles to try something literally bizarre; The Club. The Club told the story of an underground group who played a gladiatorial-style deathmatch whilst a wealthy upper class placed bets on their outcomes. Players received extra points for headshots, ricochets and even killing people from afar. The Club also drew inspiration from racing games, pitting players against time attack events and giving players the chance to earn extra points for style. It seemed like Bizarre did try and branch into something new, but they still couldn’t let go of their early roots. Despite meeting with positive reviews and a small amount of hype, the game was a flop selling an estimated 420,000 copies globally, and that’s including Playstation 3 sales. Even as a multi-platform release, The Club sold only a quarter of the copies that PGR1 did nearly a decade ago. Bizarre now had their first title to sell less than a million copies in seven years – and it only went downhill from there.

James Bond: Blood Stone 007

After the commercial failure of The Club, Bizarre Creations returned to familiar roots as they developed the Mario Kart style racer Blur. Blur put players at the controls of a number of authentic and licensed vehicles as they raced at high speeds across a number of tracks. Players also had access to a number of powerups that could be used to enhance their vehicles and destroy others. It was too little and too late though, as Blur went on to flop as well, once again in the face of positive reviews. Bizarre had launched another muli-platform game, but Blur only managed to sell an estimated 560,000 copies between the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It was like deja vu as Bizarre Creations faced another commercial failure. They needed something and something good to pull them from their developmental rut, and sadly Bizarre didn’t find it.

During July of 2010 Activision confirmed that Bizarre Creations were working on the next James Bond game titled “Blood Stone 007″ to be released across the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and the PC. Mainly a third-person shooter with hand-to-hand combat segments, Blood Stone featured the likeness of current Bond Daniel Craig, and voice acting by actual cast members. Unlike previous games Bizarre had worked on, Blood Stone saw poor reviews and sales, only managing a Metacritic score of 66 out of 100, with a lot of the positive praise being for the driving sections of the game, Bizarre Creation’s true calling. If Activision had issued a sales or commercial ultimatum to Bizarre, then this was the final nail in the coffin. Even over the worlds three largest platforms, Blood Stone only managed to sell an estimated 260,000 copies worldwide. Sales were at an all time low since Bizarre launched their PGR series upon the world and it wasn’t long after that Activision announced they were looking to sell the developer and shut the studio down.

The two graphs below show just how greatly the sales and commercial gain of Bizarre’s titles dropped over the years, and it’s one of the saddest gaming industry falls from grace I’ve seen in my lifetime.

The bar graph (top) really shows that Bizarre had a brilliant thing going on with the Project Gotham Racing series, and racing games in general, yet when they tried to touch The Club, Blur and Blood Stone 007 things just went pear shaped. I can literally see why Activision would not be overly impressed with the sales of The Club, Blur and Blood Stone, three games, not even equaling the lowest sales in the Project Gotham Racing series.

Although Bizarre did find moderate success with their downloadable Geometry Wars series, if a “big name” developer can’t successfully produce big games under a publishing giant like Activison, then they will not last in this industry.

What do you think about Bizarre Creation’s fall from grace? What publisher would you like to see pick them up? Codemasters is very interested in acquiring the best of Bizarre to work on their future racing games and it has been rumoured that Microsoft is in talks with Turn-10 to develop the next Project Gotham Racing game, do you support that move?

If you’ve got an questions let me know on Twitter – @DrjftGaming.

Note: All sales figures were correct at the time of posting.

Codemasters Offer Potential Recruitment for Bizarre Staff [Update]

Sam Naylor — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:07:25 +0000

Codemasters will be running a recruitment event in Liverpool this week, with an eye to filling 100 jobs. Staff from Bizarre Creations may need this opportunity depending on Activision’s decision about the company.

This week Activision stated that “Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations, the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly. Although we made a substantial investment in creating a new IP, Blur, it did not find a commercial audience.”

As such the continued employment at the studio is in doubt- but luckily, Codemasters are running a recruitment event which offers a potential lifeline to these downtrodden devs.

“This is an open introduction to Codemasters, its studios, products, people and the opportunities we can offer in the market,” said Codemasters talent acquisition manager Simon Miles.

“The UK talent pool is amongst the best in the world and although this is a tough time in the industry, there are still great examples of UK achievements. Codemasters is one of the companies in a fantastic position to expand and build the AAA games for the future.”

[Update] RipTen met with Codemasters today and they stated that they are indeed very interested in aquiring the staff at Bizarre and would most likely have them work on future racing titles such as F1 2011. (A fine idea given their PGR experience) They also said they felt quite bad about what is going on at Bizarre, but that this is a great opportunity for them to recruit some AAA talent.

In a related story: Activision sucks and Codemasters is awesome.

Activision Reportedly Shutting Down Bizzare Creations

Dave Oshry — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:23:17 +0000

Apparently the moderate success of Blur was not enough to keep Bizarre from getting the axe from Activision – reports around the net today indicate that the 007: Blood Stone developer will no longer have it’s services needed by the big A.

Founded back in 1994, Bizarre got big after developing the Project Gotham Racing series on Xbox and Xbox 360 for Microsoft.

Activision then payed $67.4 million in cash to wholly acquire the developer in 2007.

Some other titles you may know from Bizarre are the arcade hit Geometry Wars and The Club .

However, the moderate success of titles like Geometry Wars, Blur and PGR has recently been overshadowed by the relative failure of 007: Blood Stone.

There is still no official confirmation of this closure – if this is true, roughly 200 people will be out of work.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Source

Bizarre Announces No Demo Planned for 007: Blood Stone

Bryce Wilson — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:40:16 +0000

During a recent interview with VG247, Jeff Lewis, the Game Director of the upcoming 3rd person shooter/driving game announced that there wouldn’t be a demo released prior to the games launch that was earlier confirmed to be November 5th.

Source: [VG247]

New James Bond 007: Blood Stone Combat Trailer Kicks Ass

Garrett Hartman — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:18:36 +0000

Check out the new combat Trailer for James Bond 007: Blood Stone…Daniel Craig kicks ass! The third-person perspective perfectly compliments the combat sequences.

The new combat system appears to be smooth and the cover system looks good. It’s still too early to tell, but designers Bizzare Creations might have a winner!

Expect James Bond to sneak in this November.

James Bond: Blood Stone Launch Trailer

Bryce Wilson — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:19:02 +0000

Well it’s a James Bond day it would appear. First we brought you nine new screenshots for Goldeneye on the Nintendo Wii, and now we have a brand new trailer for the recently announced James Bond: Blood Stone. I watched this trailer three or four times, and I was still pretty jaw to the floor over it.

The game reminds me a lot of The Bourne Conspiracy game that released for the Xbox 360. I’m pretty interested in this, although I hate being the person who goes “wow this looks good” based on one trailer. Let us know what you think below.

European Blur Adverts Seat Long Legged French Girls On Red Leather Couch Made For Racing

Chad Lakkis — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:48:50 +0000

Activision’s marketing squad doesn’t seem interested in pulling any punches in their effort to promote Bizarre Creations’ new racing title Blur.

Many of us have already seen the Mario Kart parody commercial for Blur that started airing a few days ago, but even that can’t compare to the go go dancing eight inch heel equipped “glass slippers” on the French girls in the following European spots shown below.

Think of the adverts as a game. If you can exhibit the will power required to ignore the barely clothed dancers/models and walk away with any actual knowledge regarding the game’s power-up system — you win!

Now I don’t know exactly how things work in France — maybe every girl runs around wearing mammoth high heels, but here in the States, the seriously jacked up transparent booties with ankle straps prominently shown on the French girls above are typically reserved for dancing on tables.

Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Does the Blur marketing campaign make the racing enthusiast in you want to rush out and pre-order the game, or would you rather cash out a stack of dollar bills and get directions to the nearest gentlemen’s club? Can’t you just picture the director screaming “Pull her hair around corner number three! We’ll sell more games!!”

Teaser Trailer for Bizarre Creations’s Blur

Demi Adejuyigbe — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:55:04 +0000

Bizarre Creations is famous for two games: Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars, both of which have the power to induce headaches with fast-paced gameplay. When Bizarre Creations announced Blur, we didn’t really know what to think or the game, because it sounded like an extension or sequel to Project Gotham Racing 4, but it looks like Blur will focus more on street racing than circuit racing.

Good for Bizarre for not straying from the formula. The PGR series is really fun, and I have a feeling they could strike another hit with Blur. The trailer doesn’t show much (if any, really) gameplay, but it definitely leaves a lot to be desired- literally. I want to know more about this game, but until Bizarre and Activision open up, all we have is the trailer and some screen shots you can see after the jump.

Activision Announces… Well, Pretty Much Everything

Demi Adejuyigbe — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:01:38 +0000

As if you didn’t have enough games backtracked to carry you into the New Year, today, at an event hosted by Massive Inc., Activision announced a shitload of new games, though they’re mostly sequels to old titles. Hit the jump for the full details.

As expected, Activision announced yet another game for the Guitar Hero franchise. Whoo. If you haven’t been keeping track, that’s the 9th announced Guitar Hero game from Activision. I mean, jeez, Harmonix only made three in the two years they had the series, and as of Q1 2010 (that’s two and a half years in Activision’s hands) the game will have twelve sequels & spin-offs. The franchise is going to die faster than [some 80's rap star]‘s career. Thank you, I’ll be here all night.

Surprisngly, Activision also announced a new Tony Hawk game — one that won’t use the controller and will probably use the rumored skateboard peripheral, along with a new Call of Duty game planned as a sequel to Modern Warfare. The last of Activision’s announcements included a new Bond game, probably based off of the 23rd Bond film in 2010, and an original racing game from Bizarre Creations, which they’ve described as ‘Mario Kart meets Forza.” If it allows me to shoot a blue shell from a Maserati, I’m all for it.

Source: MTV Multiplayer

Impressions: The Club

Adam Montgomery — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:30:47 +0000

Bizarre Creations’ perspective on the action genre made The Club an intriguing inclusion on the release schedules. They lack the genre-experience for this game to be conventionally interesting; it’s a new type of product from a developer known for racing and two-dimensional retro.

Yet between Project Gotham Racing’s time-attack, perfect-run appeal and Geometry Wars’ relentless assaults, there seems to be great potential. This tour of The Club suggests positively about Bizarre’s success in realising that potential.

You play a talented killer inducted into a sick voyeurs’ service: the world’s financial elite pay to see you, the gladiator, murder in the “best” way possible. It’s a third-person rampage; the action genre stripped down to an endearing purity.
The spectators are aloof, but you have your own cheerleaders: score and multiplier. Kill, and keep killing, to live in the Club. Finish an enemy and you receive a few points. Do it again and you’re multiplier grows. If you get a long chain then you can achieve the score target –something strongly familiar, so strongly Bizarre.

Style is at the heart of this secretive Club. As the introduction runs, you are treated to glamorous, chic shots of the “stars”, with the ambiguous Secretary commanding you from his high-class office. In a natural extension, then, stylish behaviour is promoted. Here, that means shooting for the head, breaking open doors, and demonstrating marksmanship with long-distance kills. A booming commentary on your action, with the visual recoil, brings a smile. Such detail can’t bring a deeper experience, though; it can only heighten the fast-paced reward of the game.

It’s impossible to tell now if the game will be a fleeting pleasure. The developer’s greatest games have a veil of simplicity covering a wealth of tactical deviations that lead to a long-term relationship. Here, with this limited scope, such depth of gameplay is only demonstrated as a possibility, rather then an actuality.

Bizarre is playing to their strengths. It’s the same system that requires the player to become hooked into a cycle of self-improvement. By now you should know how this suits you, and you’ll already know if The Club is right for you.

Note: This analysis is based upon the demo version of The Club, as released on Xbox Live, which, while likely having a resemblance, does not fully represent the final product.