{"id":9922,"date":"2011-02-18T18:14:16","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T18:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/?p=118"},"modified":"2011-02-18T18:14:16","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T18:14:16","slug":"farewell-to-bizarre-creations-makers-of-project-gotham-racing-and-geometry-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/9922-farewell-to-bizarre-creations-makers-of-project-gotham-racing-and-geometry-wars.html","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to Bizarre Creations, makers of Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is hard to understand why some of the best game studios go out of business, while lesser ones (I am not going to mention names) continue. The last time I felt like this was when Ensemble Studios, makers of Age of Empires, was closed by Microsoft. Today it is the turn of Activision\u2019s Bizarre Creations, based in Liverpool.<\/p>\n

There are countless racing games, but when I encountered Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox I knew it was special. It is a hard game which rewards skill; you will not get far if you simply try to charge round the track. It is also street racing, with superb graphics capturing well-known locations like London and San Francisco. The graphics got better in the later versions of the game, but for gameplay I still have an affection for the first one.<\/p>\n

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The other I will mention is Geometry Wars, which started as a mini-game in Project Gotham Racing 2, but came into its own as an arcade game for the Xbox 360. This one cannot be captured in a screenshot: it is where gaming meets art, creating fantastic visions of light and colour as you charge round the screen trying desperately to stay alive.<\/p>\n

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Apparently<\/a> the relative lack of success of the critically acclaimed but poor-selling game Blur, released in 2010, was the beginning of the end for Bizarre Creations.<\/p>\n

Laments and memories can be found in the official forum here<\/a> and also on neoGAF<\/a>. Farewell video here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Bizarre Creations for some of the best gaming moments of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is hard to understand why some of the best game studios go out of business, while lesser ones (I am not going to mention names) continue. The last time I felt like this was when Ensemble Studios, makers of Age of Empires, was closed by Microsoft. Today it is the turn of Activision\u2019s Bizarre … Continue reading Farewell to Bizarre Creations, makers of Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1160,1186,413,1506],"class_list":["post-9922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","tag-activision","tag-bizarre-creations","tag-gaming","tag-xbox-360"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}