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Dangerous Driving (made by Three Fields, ex Criterion)


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I think it’s unlikely to look any more polished. And i’m not sure they’ll end up with a ridiculous looking trailer as I think they’re a tiny team.

Alex Ward was on rllmuk the last day or so giving some interesting industry background on how difficult it is and has been to make an arcade racer. “Needs more hot chicks” apparently is a common phrase.

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Spoilered for length:

 

After 14 years of finding myself sat in rooms every year trying to explain to people who for the most part didn't own consoles, didn't play games and never knew what arcades were what arcade driving games were about, why they were fun and what the genre was and wasn't - I decided to return to working with a small team making whatever we wanted and releasing the games ourselves. Which is just how "Burnout 1" or "Shiny Red Car" was started.



 

The genre has never been popular with publishers or marketers or PR's. With fake cars and made up courses built for scenic beauty,  a feeling of flow on each track, and massive drifts there's nothing for them to bring to the table, apart from some music licensing maybe. The best they could usually offer was a glamour model to appear on the box or to pay them to wear a T-Shirt with the game logo on for an hour and get it in "the Daily Star."

 

I've been told professionally that arcade games aren't popular since 1999. But the "Burnout" series provided jobs and steady employment for a lot of people for 14 years. Since  "Burnout 2 Point of Impact" in 2002 I was told that we 'really needed more celebrities' and "hot chicks" in our game because when we went to events it was just us and a PS2 game disc to show. At glitzy shows full of "booth babes" , as yet unreleased cars and celebrity signing stations, we were just left with "a really good 60fps videogame we'd made." 

 

I heard many many times from the folks who had to market, sell and PR games that 'we sell what is ON the box not what is IN the box.'

 

"Burnout 3" won GOTY from both US OPM and US OXM and was EA's highest rated game at the time they bought our company in 2004. But I was always told that consumers would always choose "Gran Turismo" or "Need for Speed" over our games. Again, no-one likes arcade games right? And our stuff didn't have 'cultural relevance.'

 

"Burnout Revenge" had a funny name because someone at EA Redwood Shores decided that "no successful entertainment property can ever have the No.4 in it" so "Burnout 4: Rush Hour" became "Burnout Revenge" instead.

 

Then we made "Burnout Paradise" open world because we were able to do something different, and somehow making an 60fps open world game on hardware that was a real pain to work on seemed like a good idea at the time. The racing wasn't the same as the others, but the game broke new ground in offering different types of experiences. It was one of the few PS3 games out there that let children drive around without being stopped by a Timer or be continually told 'they had failed' all the time.

 

After the Canadian NFS team released a couple of stinkers, I made a phone call - asked to do it, and ten minutes later, the "Burnout" guys were doing "Need for Speed." The first game was going to be called "NFS Millionaire" and opened with you winning the lottery, having all the world's best supercars delivered to your house before you and your Friends went off and had a lot of car-related "Top Gear" style adventures. This was 2009.

 

We burned a bit of time trying to start that, but as Occupy took over NYC I was told by the Leader of the company that "it's not a cool thing to be a millionaire at the moment' and then "your positioning is not as good as MY positioning of hot cars and hot chicks." (there's that line again..) Matt Webster (who now runs Criterion) was sitting next to me and muttered aloud "well how come they sell so many fucking lottery tickets then?" but we all knew then that our heavily online Friends-focused concept was a non-starter.

With just over a year left we decided to 'give the people what they want' (and by that we meant the US Mktg people) so "NFS Hot Pursuit" (2010) was born. That was a shorthand for "'let's make Burnout 3 but with real cars, big drifts and James Bond style car weapons.'

 

After that game I was done I was told that the next one "had to be either Most Wanted or Undergound again." I never liked NFS Underground that much so I chose "Most Wanted". It wasn't as easy to make as "Hot Pursuit" and we were also setting up Ghost Games to do "Hot Pursuit 2" because 'new team, new studio, new game, new hardware' would have been too much.

We went down a lot of dead ends - trying to get Spotify integrated into the game with specific songs tied to specific events and working with Michael Bay's team to write and direct the live action cutscenes for the game. In the end I felt the game was OK, but not as good as it could have been. We also had to do a Vita SKU and then a Wii U SKU, and I think the main game would have finished more strongly if we hadn't been tied up doing those platforms at the same time.

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  • 2 months later...

this is going to sound bitchier than I mean it, and maybe youtube just isn't doing it any favours, but that looks like a phone game. Like, it's moving really fast, but there's something missing that should add the impression of weight

 

never say never, but seeing it as Epic exclusive means I might not pick it up

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  • 1 month later...

Pre-ordered this last night on the back of Alex Ward’s passion about it, and my love of Burnout.

 

I am fully expecting to be disappointed, though.

There’s some talk of wonky physics, frame rate issues, multiplayer won’t be ready for launch and there will be no in-game music as they couldn’t afford it. So instead there’s an in-game option to pick one of your Spotify playlists to play if you’re Spotify premium.

 

My expectations are set fairly realistically from the fact that it’s a team of 7 who started making it in August last year and need to get it out the door before they run out of money.

Even if it’s an absolute mess, I’m happy to support them.

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That hud would look so much better if they didn't italicise EVERYTHING!

I also quite like the idea of Spotify integration - saves me having to mute the plethora of Dubstep/Pop Rock that normally goes with the genre.

 

Now you can just have Avril Lavigne on repeat!

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Also Pre Ordered this, loved BO2  and 3 so really happy to see this Paradise was good, but really felt BO was better in a track based environment over an open world.

 

Also not expecting wonders, but have faith that its going to at least be a playable throw back to their roots, 

fingers crossed it gets enough support so they can fund a second with added staffing. 

 

Not overly fussed about online though would have loved to see Split Screen.

 

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