‘Split / Second’ was not the only cursed racing video game that ended up causing the closure of a studio, despite the quality it treasured . The same thing happened with ‘Blur’ , by the also English Bizarre Creations.
Chance is sometimes too capricious. Both games came out in May 2010 , they had very positive reviews, but they did not sell as expected and their studios ended up closing almost at the same time at the beginning of 2011.
It’s as if the industry has grown tired of arcade driving games, when once it had been a most glorious genre thanks to Namco and SEGA . As if it were now a niche genre, destined to sell just over a million copies, and with high demands from its publishers.
The ‘Blur’ numbers, in any case, were much more modest than the aforementioned Black Rock Studio work. According to VGChartz, no system reached one million units sold: on PS3 they were just over 700,000, while on Xbox 360 almost 600,000. Your sales on PC? Disaster.
But, what was its failure due to? Gareth Wilson, former chief designer at Bizzare Creations, blamed this “cereal and bacon” mix for how the studio tried to bring together two such different concepts in their racing video game. Although perhaps it was an accumulation of everything: people wanted to continue with what they already knew or were tired of the arcade genre, the controversial promotion of the game using scantily clad girls, or compete with a giant like ‘Mario Kart’.
Blur, the realistic Mario Kart
Because ‘Blur’ was a more realistic cut ‘Mario Kart’ . It was the great inspiration of Bizarre Creations, a studio with high experience in racing games (‘Metropolis Street Racer’, ‘Project Gotham Racing’) that wanted to bet in this case on an arcade mix for driving with official licenses for cars and on real cities, like Barcelona, Tokyo, Los Angeles or New York.
Unlike the Nintendo classic, the power-ups did not penalize the user as much , even though Download tried to simulate the blue shell trail. In total there were eight, we could accumulate up to three, and use them interchangeably:
- Discharge : a guided missile that overturned the opponent’s car
- Mine : an explosive mine designed for those who follow us behind
- Nitro : an acceleration, ideal after taking tight corners
- Lightning : a series of rays located in the distance
- Nudge : a shock wave to push others away
- Projectile : similar in use to green shells
- Shield : to protect us for a few seconds
- Repair : to completely repair our racing car
As in ‘Mario Kart’ , many of these power-ups could be thrown backwards. Even in the case of the Nitro, to take cornering much better.
Their game modes, despite not bringing originality to the genre, were efficient, giving their best both in the classic Carrera , competing against 19 other riders, and in One on One, with intense duels against their bosses. Destruction failed to harness its full potential with weapons, while Checkpoint was a kind of time trial with much more haste.
He also stood out for not forgetting the boom of the split screen for four players seen in the times of 32 and 64 bits (and certainly in disuse today), as a complement to the online mode. But not even with those did he succeed .
Is there no hope for this genre anymore?
One thinks of all the arcade driving games that emerged in the nineties, such as’ Daytona USA ‘,’ Ridge Racer ‘or’ SEGA Rally ‘, among others, and those that have emerged in the last ten years, such as the aforementioned ‘ Split / Second ‘ or ‘ Blur ‘ , with the closure of both studies, or the absence of a new’ Burnout ‘ since 2008, and we see that they no longer have the same punch of yesteryear at the media level.
Sometimes we come across games that bet on that arcade spirit, like Pelikan’s ’90s Super GP’, which should come out this year, but it is difficult for them to replicate the success of the Namco or SEGA classics. Because times have changed and people (most of them) look for other things.
But it is still a nuisance that everything is summed up, as always, to money. If a game doesn’t sell as expected, its sequel is canceled. It happened with the work of Black Rock Studio, and it happened with that of Bizarre Creations. Yes, because I was working on ‘Blur 2’ , but since the studio closed in 2011 … everything went to hell.
At least the genre is recovering, little by little, that visibility that was denied. It started last month with that ‘Split / Second’ backwards compatible with Xbox One , now with the confirmation of ‘Burnout Paradise Remastered’ for PS4 and Xbox One … And, who knows, maybe in the future we will see the backwards compatible ‘Blur’. It is one of our greatest wishes for 2018. That its sequel is a utopia …
| Split / Second, the arcade driving game that could reign, but which Disney denied