Bizarre Creations on the PGR series

With Bizarre Creations now an Acitvision owned company, Microsoft’s Project Gotham Racing series needs to find a new developer. We caught up with Bizarre’s Commercial Director Sarah Chudley, to talk about the series as whole, working with Microsoft and the benefits of single platform development.

Project Gotham Racing was a launch game alongside the original Xbox. How did your deal with Microsoft come about?

Sarah Chudley: We’d done MSR for SEGA, and still owned the game content. Unfortunately, it was the end of the Dreamcast era, and the game didn’t get as much exposure as we’d have liked, so we really wanted to take our ideas somewhere further. We’d been talking to MGS (Microsoft Game Studios) casually about doing a game, and suddenly in a meeting it became obvious that using some of the assets to create a new game for them would be the ideal way to meet all our needs. And then they challenged us to do it for launch – now that WAS a busy year!

What was it like working with Microsoft back then, seeing as they were a newcomer to the console industry?

SC: It was a big shock! We expected them to be corporate, accountancy-driven and really officious. However, from the very top down they were a company of friendly and passionate gamers, to which the games mattered as top priority. It really was an amazing time, and the original PGR team, many of whom are still at Microsoft, some on Forza, were something really special. They knew that we had console experience, and were eager to learn from that too – I’m sure their developers all appreciated being able to give something back too.

Moving on to PGR2. This was pretty much a huge leap over the original game. Is it fair to say that the online offering was the game’s greatest achievement?

SC: I think the online was an area where we delivered what we’d only been able to dream about before. It was ambitious, but we think that our guys did a great job in achieving our dreams – and they deserve the awards it won in that area.

On the other side of the coin, PGR2’s frame rate doesn’t hold up so well these days. Was there a reason why it didn’t ship with a frame rate matching the original game?

SC: Well, the original cities were designed for Dreamcast, so although we didn’t have long to write the engine, the Xbox was more than powerful enough to cope with the lower poly counts. Given 2 years to build brand new high-detail cities and cars, we really went to town, and although we had written and optimised the game engine, there’s only so many polygons you can realistically handle, even with the best engine in town! 😉

And why haven’t we seen the likes of Edinburgh and Sydney in more recent PGR titles? They were two of the best cities to race in.

SC: We wanted to make sure there were a great variety of cities in the game, and chose our new locations carefully. Recently we’ve added some fantastically unusual and interesting locations like Las Vegas, Quebec, and Macau. We chose those that were the best fit and that people would enjoy racing, and our newest city selection was simply the best choice for this. In an ideal world we would have included your favourite two too, but we had to draw the line somewhere so we went with those which were original and fresh. Sorry!

Many people claim that the Xbox died far too soon. Being one of the devs who really pushed the console, did you feel Microsoft moved resources to the Xbox 360 too soon? Was PGR3 in development for the original Xbox at any stage?

SC: Yes, it did seem to have a shorter cycle. But Microsoft were sensible in their move – which meant that they’d get a release ahead of PS3. They learned a lot from their first generation and really put it into practice for Xbox 360. As for PGR3, by the time we were in development, it was pretty certain that we’d be going down the 360 route…

What was it like once again being responsible for Microsoft’s premier racing game on a new console – this time the Xbox 360?

SC: Scarily familiar! And as with any new console, developing alongside the hardware is a really daunting task, especially as the goalposts are never quite set in stone along the way. Thankfully the increased memory that Microsoft decided on after talking to developers gave us even more power to play with. It’s funny to think that PGR4 is our first release without something specific to support – it’s been Xbox, LIVE, Xbox 360 before that…!

An awful lot of launch (and beyond) games on the 360 didn’t really show what the system is capable of, yet PGR3 still holds up well today. How did you manage to make such a good looking game on incomplete hardware and to such a tight deadline?

SC: Great support from Microsoft and a great team here, especially on the technical side. I think being a 1st party developer always means you’ll have the edge in knowledge, and it’s up to you to try and implement that. It was still scary though, especially with the final hardware coming in so close to launch. But thankfully we managed it!

Although the game was received well by the games press, many fans seemed disappointed. Did this feedback shape PGR4?

SC: Yes, because we agreed with a lot of it too. There were a lot of things we’d had to cut or modify in order to make launch, for many reasons. For example, a complex feature not only needs a lot of development, but a lot of testing – so cuts need to be made. However, we saved a lot of the ideas for trying out on PGR4, and had the time to implement them properly.

How do the staff at Bizarre feel about PGR4? Being the last game in the series that you’ll work on, is it all you wanted it to be? Any hints at what we’ll get in terms of DLC?

SC: It’s something we’re really proud of. OK, there are always things you’d change or do better given the benefit of hindsight, but we think it’s a great achievement. However, it is the 4th iteration, so people would have been expecting it to be an advance on PGR3 anyway. We’re glad that we delivered that. DLC hints are courtesy of Microsoft, so you’ll have to ask them 😉

You’ve made four games now that have been exclusive to Xbox platforms. What advantages are there to single system development that you might lose when making a game for numerous systems?

SC: Technical focus is the main one. All of your art, coding, audio, etc can be specifically designed from the ground up for just one system, rather than having to consider how other hardware might want to handle the data. And this means that you can focus your time on the detail rather than the logistics. However, we’ve never been a ‘generic’ company – we have two engines for The Club to make sure that we make the most of what each format has to offer.

PGR4 looks amazing, but we’re still only in the Xbox 360’s second year. How much better can racers look on this generation of hardware and do you think we’ll see PS3 games pull ahead of their 360 counterparts?

SC: The longer you have with a machine, the more you uncover. We always raise an eyebrow at the ‘how much of the power are you using?’ type question, because you ALWAYS use 100% of the power that you know about AT THAT TIME. But given another year, you know more about the machine’s capabilities, and so what was 100% a year ago is maybe 80% of what you know today, 60% of what you know next year, etc. So there’s plenty more to come, we’re sure – wait and see!

As for the good old system wars debate, having used them both, we feel both machines are pretty level pegging overall. OK, one might win out in one area, and the other in another, but in general, there’s not a massive level leap that there has been in generations like PS2/Dreamcast. It’s all about being clever on the system and making sure you’re doing what you can to make the most of each machine. So interesting times ahead for us all!

Bizarre as a whole, but perhaps not the PGR team, has experience on numerous next-gen systems. What are the company’s views on the consoles that are available? Could a Bizarre-style racer work on the Wii?

SC: Our Tools and Technology Department works as a group, across formats, with general coders on multiple platforms and then specific coders on each format. So it’s not as clear cut as having a specific PGR coding team – there’s people who work on the game code specifically, and focussed technical coders who always keep their hand in on other machines out of interest. We enjoy working on any technology, whatever the capabilities – as they’re all a challenge. A Wii racer sounds interesting, especially with the cool racing wheel, but of course we can’t discuss any plans for the future as yet, sorry!

As one of the leading developers in the world, what is helping move games forward more: sheer hardware power or innovative control systems?

SC: Clever design! You can have all the power in the world and even special in-nostril smell-o-vision controllers as much as you like, but they won’t be anything without great gameplay. In some ways, the days before 3D helped constrain the gameplay and focus the action, so now it’s more about making sure that you don’t get carried away with the power or input devices and dilute the gaming experience. Consoles may be magnificent and controllers such as the Wii devices innovative, but you’ve really got to work to make the best use of them. After all, it’s the gameplay that gets you hooked, not the hardware…

Finally, any hints at what Bizarre fans can expect from your titles for Activision? There have been reports that you’ll be working on existing Activision IP. Any Activision properties you fancy having a crack at? Maybe Shrek Smash N’ Crash Racing 2?

SC: Pitfall racing, perhaps? Drive round avoiding great holes in the road. Actually, that sounds a bit like Liverpool city centre at the moment! 😉 As for hints, I’m afraid we’re far too early for anything like that – one team’s busily finishing The Club, and the other are just getting their teeth into the early design work, so even if we hinted, it’d probably all change by the time the games were out! Tell you what, ask me again in a year or so…