Sega Web Visit Bizarre Creations (July 1999)

On Thursday (1 July 1999), Sega Web paid a visit to UK-based developers, and SOE's (Sega Europe's) most prolific 1.5 party developer, Bizarre Creations. The day was pretty incredible, and we've divided our coverage into three sections for your convenience: this day report, Metropolis impressions, and finally some Furballs impressions. Let's go!

For the uninitiated, Bizarre are developing a city-based racing game called Metropolis Street Racer - one of the most graphically impressive Dreamcast games ever - to be released in Europe and subsequently the rest of the world late this year. They also have another game in development - Furballs, an interesting mix of many genres, but best described as a cute, third-person shooting-puzzle adventure.

It's Sega Web versus Bizarre in the world's first playtest of MSR's two-player mode! Did we beat them at their own game? Er, no.

By far the most tangible thing about Bizarre is the friendliness of the team and the atmosphere in the office. Located in Liverpool on a fairly large computer development site, and on a one-floored, multi-roomed building, Bizarre are so passionate about what they do - hopefully by the end of this feature news you'll be convinced of that too.

Sarah Dixon is the Business Director at Bizarre, and welcomed us into their home, after a 'pick-up' from Office Coordinator Michelle. An initial, brief chat in the meeting room, and the proceedings were underway. We both had a fair bit to tell eachother, and we basically spoke about some of the industry in general, but after a while it was into the main office for some serious gamesplaying.

A couple of interesting side notes. While playing Furballs, we pointed out to Sarah that in the latest issue of FHM, Britain's leading bloke's mag, and just released that day, Metropolis was featured in the games section. It was just a small piece, but the fact was that it was featured in the most laddish mad around. She grabbed a copy and bounced into the MSR room, informing the team, "Guys, we've finally made it into the cool mags, no we know we're big-time!"

We asked the Furballs team what they thought of MSR and vice-versa. According to a Furballs programmer, MSR is "graphically breathtaking, what you'd really expect from a next-gen game." Furballs, however, is not one MSR member's type of game. Said Furballs programmer Paul, "we only go into their part of the office to call them names."

Metropolis Street Racer

It's been a long time since I've looked forward to playing a game this much. Believe me, Bizarre were as disappointed with the E3 demo as a lot of other people were, but that was just an unfortunate bit of bad luck, as the demo was extremely early. Our visit to Bizarre proved that MSR is going to be THE launch game for Europe.

The Metropolis Team in a precisely-organised photograph.

What Bizarre are not prepared to do is release an unfinished product. Said Lead Producer on the game, Brian Woodhouse, "We've put this much effort into it so far, we might as well get it as perfect as we can before releasing it. People don't want to see glitches, and neither do we!" The game is estimated to be at a "panicky" 50% complete stage, and when asked if they were confident they'd make the September deadline, they answered, "er, not really." Just as well, because SOE haven't announced the precise launch day titles yet.

Metropolis is basically stunning. Almost graphically complete, the gameplay needs to be worked on - nay, programmed in at all. But there can be little doubt that the combination or real cars with real cities will sell to every type of gamer by the bucketload.

Brian showed us several rolling demos and all of the street areas, and then we took a look at some of their research. You've already heard the statistics - some 35,000 photos, along with videos, and scaled-down yet huge satellite photos of the cities being worked on. Of particular interest to one Sega Web associate was the wall full of files containing information on all the sports cars they researched, right from the unincluded BMW Z3, to the incredible, just-included (and playtedted first by Sega Web) Honda S2000. More details on that in the MSR report...

Masses and masses of photos and research material. This is just one box. There were plenty more.

	The Honda file's contents exposed, with the other material looking on from the shelves behind.

We were introduced to the rest of the team. You've basically got your artists in one half of the room, and the programmers in the other. The artists showed us their research, their rendered artwork, texture maps, wireframe models; one programmer was even beavering away on the latest section of a London street as we watched.

The programmers were just as busy, and just as bizarre. Case in point: a VMS mini-game based on one programmer, Keith's, accompanying pin-up calendar of superstar Jordan, in which 'Jordan' basically appears on the screen - then goes. It is unlikely to make it into the final game. Roger was preparing for his birthday the nest day, and the all-programming MD was, er, programming.

This designer agreed to show us several impressive renders on his screen. Our camera was too crap to capture them
This artist ended up in one of my photos somehow, I didn't take it and I ain't captioning it. He did have a nice Z3 model though.

To give you some idea as to how fast they're working, the day before we visited, the Honda S2000 simply didn't exist - in any form - in the game. We were there and played fully functional, stunning-looking silver and yellow models hours later. A new GD ROM is written at the end of each day, each with less bugs and more features than the last

FURBALLS (RELEASED AS 'FUR FIGHTERS')

In development for just over a year on both Dreamcast and PC, Furballs is Bizarre's second project, and also looks very promising indeed. The concept being the game is very well-designed, and the range of characters superlative.

The Furballs Team with some of the stars. I don't know how Sarah got them off their asses for the photos, but we got there in the end. They look thrilled as you can see. 

Furballs was actually the game we played first. A smaller team in a smaller part of the office, consisting of about eight people (MSR has about 14 people working on it) the pressure isn't quite as severe as it is in MSR's domain. We were first shown an impressive opening sequence to the game, with characters running around carrying out various in-game activities. We talk more about the game itself in our full playtest.

An enthusiastic artist on the project showed us a book full of highly impressive character designs and ideas. From all of the main characters, to the enemies and the final bosses, they all looked incredible. But the essence of the design goes further than that. Each character has unique attributes, and a bizarre plot synopsis is evident throughout. But it really works.

The Furballs part of the office. Just as tidy as the MSR bit, only with animal junk replacing the car junk.

Next we were shown the level editor and the principles it runs on. The team have basically got all of the levels designed in one way or another, but have a lot of work to do getting them all edited in, fully-tweaked and functional. The team are really working on structure before the graphics, a sensible tactic as the structure is to be pretty damn impressive.

The level editor was built by the programmers themselves, and a user-friendly method of level construction is now employed. We then tried our hand at a couple of levels - again, impressions in the playtest. Needless to day, it's good. Very good.

So They Know What They're Doing Then?

Without a doubt. Bizarre are awesome. They sold millions of copies with their Formula 1 PlayStation title, and they're looking to break all records with Metropolis. Furballs has yet to be assigned to a publisher, although Bizarre say they've spoken to all major developers around the world already. MSR might miss the launch, but when we get it it will be perfect.

The Bizarre office contains a range of diverse personalities, but everybody has at least some things in common: pure enthusiasm and dedication to their work, and a love of games. You don't need a degree to work there, you need the passion. They don't have some poncey board meeting if something in the game needs to be changed. It's more like, "try putting that there - yeah that's more like it - sorted." Even the Office Coordinator, Michelle, took pleasure in kicking everybody's ass at Soul Calibur at E3. It's a pretty unique group of individuals.

As for future projects, it depends on the success of MSR. A sequel would be financially logical, but that doesn't mean there'll be nothing new. There were otherwise few surprises. Metropolis was breathtaking, Furballs was cute, the office was messy, and yes, Michelle was fit. To top things off, and proving that Bizarre is the developer that needs no PR company, Brian even paid for our meal before the journey home.

Original archived SegaWeb page: https://web.archive.org/web/20000820173852/http://www.segaweb.com:80/news/0799/01.html