I feel I'm among friends here and would like to post my story of enjoyment Bizarre Creations have given me through the years.
1996 - I saw preview pics of their first Formula One game in OPSM and I was gobsmacked. Still having 8 bit and 16 bit consoles/computers fresh in my mind I just couldn't believe how many polygons were on the screen when only 8 years before the C64 struggled to have a few dozen sprites at one time. I knew this was going to be special so being in New Zealand I got up in the middle of the night and placed an order to the UK through Special Reserve and ordered 3 copies of F1 for myself and two friends. I didn't regret it.
1997 - Wasn't actually up on the play of release dates when this hit, I just used to frequent my regular store once a week. Saw F1 '97 and it was an insta buy. Sure, the game is dumbed down by PC standards but the evolution between the first and second title was phenomenal for its time. Engine failures, suspension wear from riding over the rumble strips, random weather changes and Murray Walker commenting on the changing weather. I played 5 seasons back to back on this game and to this day was the last F1 game I truely enjoyed.
1999 - Placed a mail order to Special Reserve for Metropolis Street Racer the day after I bought my Dreamcast on launch day. (Ordering online was still a bit iffy in those days)
2001 - The game arrived out of the blue. I had almost forgotten about it and I played this to death. Unlike some people who changed the Dreamcasts internal clock to meet criteria for the races, I actually used to see my alarm to get up in early hours of the morning to make that one hour window to race in Japan, San Fran or London. Yes, I was that dedicated. I never did quite finish the game, I found some sort of bug that prevented me from ever having enough Kudos to unlock the last few series of races.
2003 - New Zealand had a very special XBL promotion. Because the service wasn't going to be 'legally' available to Aus or NZ for another year, MS released a pack with PGR2 and Crimson Skies for less than the cost of two games. This came in an exclusive box bundled with a headset and 11 months of XBL. Yes, 11 months and a disclaimer that the account would never ever be able to be extended.
I would not be exagerating if I said myself and a few friends put in well over 800 hrs just into the online play. It was almost a full time job outside of work, only I wasn't working then, I was studying IT and failed because I just wanted to play PGR2.
Towards the end of our 6-8 month stint of playing PGR2 almost every day, Shaneus joined a match one night but it was a bad time. By then the rest of us were veterans, we raced perfectly, sometimes never hitting each other and still having photo finishes. Shaneus got abused for ramming us on the first corner and I think he subesquently left. We were stressing and were burnt out from PGR2. We never returned.
In the World Tour mode I was proud to say I has 4 consecutive #1 scores with one being at the top for over 6 months. I still got a photo somewhere but it might be on an old PC.
2006 - PGR3 came about but wasn't the first game I bought when I got my 360. Loved it but there was something about it missing. I guess because I lived on the other side of the world and no longer played with my buddies that I didn't really enjoy the online mode. Then combined with an unstable router I used to drop a lot resulting in a lot of bad feedback (40% voted to avoid me for leaving the game early. It still haunts my gamertag lol).
2008 - The Club. Look, I confess, I liked The Club but the online was dead so I didn't play it as much as I would've liked. Shame, but I guess there just wasn't a market for it.
But PGR4. Man, was this game the shit or what? The pinnacle of Bizarres racing genre. Thrashed this to death. Went through and finished everything on Gold then went back to do Platinum. Got about 6 Plats from completing it but a long story short, a recovered gamertag broke all my saves and nothing was compatible. I was broken and sold all my games and started afresh.
2010 - Blur. I don't get the hate. When Mario Kart gets the same release every few years (Mario Kart 7 now) and yet Blur is almost identical in every gameplay mechanic just with different eye candy and a great perk system that has been replicated in quite a few games since. The game was incredibly well balance and even with 20 players it was possible to come from Zero to be Hero. Shame the community died on this as I thought it would really have legs.
In order of enjoyment 2>4>1>3 but in order of preference 4>2>1>3. I've never played James Bond but will pick it up one day.
Bizarre, I just want to say, it's been a pleasure and I wish you guys all the best whatever you're doing. You've bought tonnes of enjoyment to gamers everywhere and your love of games has never gone unnoticed. Kudos to you.
