Bizarre Creations finally finished?

johnny_ultimate

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

Must say I'm a bit saddened by the downfall of Bizarre. Two years ago they were riding high. PGR wasn't always my cup of tea, but I enjoyed its half and half mix of arcade racer and detailed simulation. Geometry Wars set the benchmark for downloadable games back when it wasn't anywhere near as commonplace as it was now, and they followed it up with one hell of a sequel. And Blur - despite its flaws - was an ambitious and often successful product. But on the back of that game's failure to sell and the critical and sales failures of Bloodstone, plus possibly The Club, they're now gone. Leaving Microsoft was clearly a bad idea, because it's said to see a talented group who were willing to move away from their two core and extremely successful franchises to experiment fall from grace so dramatically.

It's one of the more unfortunate studio closures, but at least we'll always have Geometry Wars 2!

Mr E

A massive shame. I really really wanted a new GW game.

calex71

Wow I would have thought Blur did ok Based on the amount of people on my friends list that played it.

Loved PGR and I'm not a racing game fan at all, would have paid the price of admission for an new one.

gizmo

But what happened in those two intervening years...oh wait.

Mr E wrote: »

A massive shame. I really really wanted a new GW game.

The IP won't go to waste knowing Activision.

Healium

Really sad, Blur was a great game and has so much potential

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

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

Must say I'm a bit saddened by the downfall of Bizarre. Two years ago they were riding high. PGR wasn't always my cup of tea, but I enjoyed its half and half mix of arcade racer and detailed simulation. Geometry Wars set the benchmark for downloadable games back when it wasn't anywhere near as commonplace as it was now, and they followed it up with one hell of a sequel. And Blur - despite its flaws - was an ambitious and often successful product. But on the back of that game's failure to sell and the critical and sales failures of Bloodstone, plus possibly The Club, they're now gone. Leaving Microsoft was clearly a bad idea, because it's said to see a talented group who were willing to move away from their two core and extremely successful franchises to experiment fall from grace so dramatically.

It's one of the more unfortunate studio closures, but at least we'll always have Geometry Wars 2!

As far as I understand, they never were a part of Microsoft, they were independent.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/30278/Bizarre-says-dreadful-life-as-an-independent-forced-acquisition

They sold themselves to Activision, for much less than they could have asked for, because they wanted creativity and security. Really sad that Activision f'ed them over.

“Our staff rely on us for their jobs – it’s not a business, it’s a family.”

The whole expansion all the away through has only been what we needed to do to survive. We could have asked for more money – what we wanted out of it was that we could support our families, and that our employees would feel secure. If selling was the primary concern we could have hired an agent, put the word out amongst publishers and had them fighting against each other. [Selling the studio] was the last thing we had on our minds, but Activision happened to be the ones to say ‘would you like to join our independent studios model’.”

Activision have outdone themselves again

Burning Eclipse

Genuinely gutted by this news. I'd like to say I've been a fan of Bizarre from the start, but my love of them began back in 2000 with the release of Metropolis Street Racer. I still remember the demo that came with the Official Dreamcast Magazine. You got to race the Opel Speedster around Asakusa in Tokyo at night. To this day there isn't a demo that I have played more. I could draw that track from memory is asked. I bought the game the day it came out, and it rarely left my Dreamcast. It was the kind of racer where you started off in a Mazda MX-5, and a Nissan Skyline R34 was as good as it got. Simpler times.

After that (and Fur Fighters), the team moved onto the PGR series for Microsoft, without doubt the spiritual successor to MSR. PGR4 is the perfect racing game imo. It doesn't have the ultra realistic handling that so many developers deem important today, but it has fun, and really that's what gaming should be about. Holding the power slide while overtaking on a long corner is about as fun as a racing game gets for me.

Who could forget Geometry Wars? The leaderboard system was fantastic and I still remember struggling to surpass SmellyIrishMan's crazy high scores in the original (I never did). Such a simple idea, but so incredibly well executed. Spent hours playing both iterations.

I would also maintain that the team at Bizarre were the best at appreciating how achievements could serve a game. 'Pacifist' from GW1 and 'Smile' from GW2 are both a touch of class, not to mention the secret achievements in PGR4... Google '3CZV657'. Amazing.

I know Bloodstone got it's fair share of mixed reviews, but it could have been the best reviewed game of the year... Activision still released a game with shooting mechanics a week before Black Ops... Poor sales were to be expected.

Bizarre always seemed like a company that cared about it's fans, they don't deserve to go out like this.

Vyse

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

I'd like to say I've been a fan of Bizarre from the start, but my love of them began back in 2000 with the release of Metropolis Street Racer. I still remember the demo that came with the Official Dreamcast Magazine. You got to race the Opel Speedster around Asakusa in Tokyo at night. To this day there isn't a demo that I have played more. I could draw that track from memory is asked. I bought the game the day it came out, and it rarely left my Dreamcast. It was the kind of racer where you started off in a Mazda MX-5, and a Nissan Skyline R34 was as good as it got. Simpler times.

Still have both the demo and full version of MSR. Would rank it as my favourite driving game (which is saying a lot considering I don't rate driving games at all). Hopefully this talented group of developers will rise from the ashes.

gizmo

+1 to all of the above.

"Smile" can still suck my god damn balls though.. :pac:

Mr E

Over 35k in gamerscore, and that was probably my most rewarding achievment.

johnny_ultimate

The leaderboard wars when GW2 first came out were crazy. While everyone on here was pretty reasonable and had achievable high scores, I think it was SmellyIrishMan who smugly sat at the top of every frickin' one of them :pac: But slowly working your way up those leaderboards was an amazing feeling (and the name in the corner changing as your score increased), brilliant utilisation of a well worn concept.

Never did get Smile though...

cherryghost

If there's one thing they will learn from this, is that they suck at 3rd person action games

They will be missed sadly. Unless MS acquire them again

gizmo

cherryghost wrote: »

If there's one thing they will learn from this, is that they suck at 3rd person action games

They will be missed sadly. Unless MS acquire them again

They were never owned by MS, they only developed the PGR series for them, an IP which MS still own.

As for their third person shooter games, Fur Fighters was pretty damn great imo. The Club, on the other hand, was a missed opportunity I feel. I liked the idea of the game alright but the execution really didn't feel right. I think Bulletstorm should take that score-based combat idea and take it in the direction it needs to go though.

penev10

I was a fan of these guys since MSR.

The Club was sadly overlooked and probably could've benefitted from some more exposure / marketing. It did for shooters what MSR did for racing games, concentrating on vignettes of skillful and stylish play within an arcade-like reward system.

I'd say their creative hands were tied quite a bit with the Bond license, not their kind of project really.

Retr0gamer

gizmo wrote: »

I think Bulletstorm should take that score-based combat idea and take it in the direction it needs to go though.

I played it, it's amazing.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I played it, it's amazing.

Dare I ask which platform you think it can be best enjoyed on? I typically get my FPS games on the PC but given the nature of this game and the fact that some friends will probably get it on the 360 I'm somewhat torn.