History, drive and rock and roll

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Who among fans of arcade racing is not familiar with the subgenre of combat racing?? Well, where racers actively blow up, set fire and do other nasty things to their rivals’ cars. True, today battles can be found mainly in various karting crossovers like the Mario Kart series, Sonic & All-Star Racing, where the heroes (and villains) of various games sort things out. But among the extermination races there are very interesting examples, and even entire series that are undeservedly forgotten today.

When EA was a cake

This story began back in 1987, when Electronic Arts released Racing Destruction Set – one of the first examples of the arcade racing genre. However, there was something about this Commodore64 "Racing Destruction Pack" that made the game something more.

The game had a level editor that allowed you not to be limited to a dozen (or how many more were usually made in games then) tracks. Tired of wandering around familiar twists and hills? Please – in five minutes you can assemble (including using the templates available in the program) any racing track – flat, as in Formula 1, or with many obstacles and jumps, as in survival races, or even covered in places with a crust of ice. Why is there ice?! In the settings you could even change the gravity, as if the race was taking place on the Moon or some alien planet.

Actually this is an editor from RPM Racing. I couldn’t find the screenshot I needed on the Internet, and I can’t launch the game on the emulator.
Why then was the game called Destruction Set and not Construction Set?? The thing is that, in addition to regular racing, the authors added Destruction Mode to the game – a mode where you could not only overtake your opponents, but also prevent them from getting ahead by dropping mines from the car and pouring oil on the road.

In general, given all the features, it was not surprising how popular the game was. And even more so, it was not surprising that EA wanted to make remakes and ports of the game to other platforms in order to reach a larger audience. And now, three years after the release of the original, a small and unknown company, Silicon&Synapse, was tasked with making a version of the game for the Super Nintendo.

Blizzard gets down to business

The developers did their best – the remake, released in 1991, was worthy of its predecessor. True, the color palette had to be cut down in order to increase the resolution (yes, that was the very limitation of the power of consoles even then). But overall it was a good old Racing Destruction Set. True, the name of the game was changed – now it has become Radical Psycho Machine Racing or RPM Racing for short.

RCS and RPM Racing – feel the difference!
But the future blizzards didn’t stop there. It was decided to make a sequel. Maybe not in such high resolution, but in better color. Maybe without a level editor, but with leveling up, colorful characters and… music. Several tracks from American rock legends were licensed for the game. This is how RPM Racing 2 turned into Rock’n’Roll Racing.

However, driving music tracks like “Born to be wild” were not the only thing added to the new races. Now the game even had something like a plot. About a simple guy from planet Earth (or not from Earth and not even necessarily a guy – there were 6 playable characters plus two secret ones), participating in a racing championship on a cosmic scale.

Snake Sanders is an earthling hero whose appearance was based on the vocalist of the band Witesnake. Well, Olaf (the secret character) is known to everyone who played Lost Vikings.

Remember that in the first https://royale500casino.uk part it was possible to change gravity and other parameters? So why not justify this by being on different planets with different conditions and climates??! That’s what Silicon&Synapse thought. Moreover, in each world the racer had its own subtleties, its own tracks and even a separate colorful personality as a rival.

Of course, with such surroundings there was no need to deal with realism and verisimilitude. So, regular jeeps were joined by jet-powered racing cars, hovercars and even light tanks. Yes, with guns. However, now all the cars were hung with weapons, accelerators, and some even threw mines onto the road instead of the usual spikes and oil.

Let the carnage begin!

If we talk purely about the fan, then his game brings the sea. Although there are only four cars in the race, this is enough to cause real chaos on the track. Someone rams and presses someone, someone crashes, someone explodes.

It looks something like this… But in fact, there is a little secret here – the game speeds up the lagging racers a little so that the chances of such a heap increase.

Already at the very beginning of the race, spikes are scattered on the track, turning cars around, and in some places even mines. So, even without the use of weapons, your opponents can damage the car by simply pushing them in the right direction. Keep in mind that any collision also harms you.

Fortunately, there are also several bonuses scattered around the track that completely restore the car’s protection. On the other hand, you can try to collect them already on the first lap in order to prevent your opponents from healing (after you have thoroughly beaten them).

In general, there are a lot of subtleties for those who would like to devote enough time to the game. In addition to the “first aid kits”, there are also cash bonuses on the track that allow you to get one buck for improvements in addition to the prize for the podium. Or a new, faster and more powerful car.

Money is also given to players for overtaking an opponent in a circle and destroying him (as in Dota, the only thing that mattered was who made the last shot).

“Pumping up” is generally standard – a more powerful engine, improved suspension and clutch, increased ammunition capacity. The latter, by the way, has one more subtlety – although the number of charges is limited, at each passage of the starting line the ammunition is replenished. So the decision when to shoot (at the beginning of the circle or wait in case of a more convenient moment) must also be made wisely.

Generally speaking, there is no loss as such in the game. If you don’t earn victory points to advance to a higher league or travel to another planet, you simply end the old season and start a new one. At the same time, all purchased equipment and earned money remain, which means you simply upgrade until the best car and body kit compensate for insufficient skills (or luck smiles on you). At any time you can view the password for the current state – this is essentially the same as saving/loading a game in case you are not playing on an emulator.

But, of course, when it comes to multiplayer, that’s a completely different conversation. It’s true that it’s only for two players, but there is also a co-op mode (the same races according to seasons, only two players), and a “who-who-who” competition, with the choice of planet and other settings. True, I still wouldn’t recommend getting too carried away with the competitive side – too much depends on a random mine or bullet. But letting off steam with a friend is just the thing.

In addition to the randomness, a collision system that doesn’t quite match the graphics adds trouble. Especially when jumping, figure out whether you will hit a mine or not.

And then the nitro ended.

Alas, after the release of Rock’n’Roll Racing, the glory of the series did not last long. Blizzard (Silicon&Synapse changed its name just during the release of the game, which is why the new company name appears in the version for Sega Megadrive) focused its efforts on creating Dune 2 clone a new strategy about the war between orcs and humans. And allocated resources for the continuation of old projects on a residual basis.

The sequel to Rock’n’Roll Racing, Red Asphalt wasn’t that bad. He just didn’t care for the receiver. In principle, there were new characters drawn like comics, an expanded leveling system, and screensavers before each race… But that wasn’t the main thing in the original! And the problems of the original were not solved in the sequel. All the same four cars on the track and the absence of an editor (and the game was already for the first PlayStation) – this is the first thing that an RnRR fan saw when launching the game. What was the point of purchasing a new game if the old one was inferior only in graphics?? What if the game didn’t go to a fan?? Either because of the changed perspective, or because of a different ratio of the power of weapons and armor, but the drive in racing has also greatly decreased.

It has become even more difficult to catch up with opponents and shoot them. But the benefit from destroying a car is not so great – after a few seconds it will be restored and the opponent will come after you.
Things didn’t work out for the series with its “spiritual successors” either. Released in December 2013, Motor Rock became the first game to continue the tradition and adopt… Unfortunately, it adopted too much from the original. So much so that Blizzard sued the authors of the remake. And literally a week later the game was removed from Steam.

Actually, the authors didn’t even hide where the ears grow from. Initially, the game was generally called Rock’n’Roll Racing 3D.
Judging by the reviews Motor Rock wasn’t that bad. And there are even certain steps forward (there are already six cars on the track, for example). But it still has too few differences from the original. And besides, the pleasure of racing is hampered by glitches with multiplayer synchronization and other shortcomings. Judging by the reviews again. I can’t see for myself – the game asks for money for a steam key, despite its absence from steam. I don’t know, maybe by paying I’ll get a non-Steam version, but I don’t want to risk it. Somehow all this smacks of defamation. Greed, hmm..

There are also games BlazeRush and SpeedKills. Maybe I’ll even review them, if they don’t drive me completely into the red.

In general, today the original Rock’n’Roll Racing is more of a museum piece than a game. If, of course, you decide to download it (by the way, on the Battle website.net there is a completely legal demo with three tracks), you will get a charge of positive emotions by racing alone or with a friend. But nothing more.

Is there any hope that someone will try to revive the series again?? Don’t know. It’s unlikely to be Blizzard – they’re not particularly interested in their roots. Third Party Developers? After all, there are successful examples – “Revival” of Deathtrack (and, like Motor Rock from our compatriots) and Road Redemption (yes, the successor to Road Rash was defended in Early Access for more than one year, but it was worth it). But again, Metelitsa has already refused the offer to make Motor Rock an official remake.

The problem is also that RnR Racing relied on a combination of crazy racing, visual style and music. It made the game a hit, but today musical tastes are different, and the requirements for gameplay have changed. However, if someone decides to make a racing game in a rocker style, where on the tracks of distant planets racers fry competitors with a plasma gun, and in addition to the game there will also be a track editor – I will wait for the release of this project. Although it is unlikely that the word Rock will appear in its name. Big companies today demand too much for connections to their series.

History of Arkane Studios

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After E3 2018, I became extremely curious about what Arkane Studios would do now, having released an addition to Prey. A studio that is used to working purely on single-player games. What project will she take on in this era of dominance of battle royales and service games?? What a reason to plunge into the history of the studio, fortunately enough time has passed since my last attempt to refresh the information.
This is the story of Arkane Studios.

Formation of your own style

The studio was founded in 1999 year in Lyon — France, former employees Electronic Arts And Atari. The main initiator among them was the Frenchman Rafael Colantonio. Once upon a time, Raphael quite accidentally got into the gaming industry thanks to a competition for knowledge of the universe Ultima, held by Electronic Arts. At one point, EA changed the focus of its activities to sports games, which greatly disappointed Rafael, provoking his quick departure. With his last money, he assembled a studio, whose employees decided to concentrate on extraordinary ideas and interesting approaches, as opposed to the conveyor belt of industry mastodons.

All the developments resulted in the studio’s first project, called Arx Fatalis. The game was heavily inspired Ultima Underworld and it was originally planned to be a threequel to this franchise, but there was a hitch with the rights and the name had to be changed. Which did not at all exclude a common mood with the progenitor.
Using old connections with colleagues from EA, Rafael enlisted help Paul Neurath, one of the main developers of the Ultima series. The team continued to work stubbornly, but the mentioned mistake with the release of a game under the Ultima franchise put the release into question. Fortunately, we managed to reach an agreement with the publisher JoWooD Productions, which finally determined the release date of the project in 2002.

Arx Fatalis

June 28, 2002

MS Windows, Xbox

The result was an extremely atypical and interesting RPG, which unfortunately few people noticed at the time. The game presented an underground world to explore, full of characters, events and dangers. Plot-wise, we play as a nameless prisoner who is called upon to destroy the God of Destruction. The player will lead his character towards this throughout the game, solving various problems along the way.
The game mechanics, unique in its kind, are much more interesting here. There are several modes, inventory manipulation, exploration and combat. Let’s start with the first: in addition to the usual dragging into your pocket of everything that is bad, there are quite a lot of features similar to quests. In this way, you can combine a rolling pin and dough to get a raw bun, and then bake it on any of the fires. You can also use a mortar to create potion ingredients from plants.
Cooking is needed so that the character is susceptible to hunger, and he simply cannot eat raw food. You can practice alchemy, it will be useful in creating a variety of potions. There is also blacksmithing, which allows you to repair things with the proper level of training. You can also cast magic using signs found while wandering through the corridors of the game world. By combining them you can achieve a certain effect from spells, be it lighting a light or throwing a fireball. Spells can be memorized for quick use in battle.
Exploration is the usual mechanics where we walk around locations, look for things, talk to people, interact with the environment by dragging objects and finding secrets throughout the game world. Locations are filled with hidden things that help in the passage, and in every possible way facilitate the further game. But the battle takes place in the manner TES: Morrowind. And this is not counting the traditional RPG leveling, arranging points according to skills and, thanks to this, an inclination towards any class.

Ultimately, the game turned out to be interesting and exciting, and requires getting used to the overloaded controls, but can really captivate. Unfortunately, the game was held hostage by the time of its release and found itself in the shadow of more advertised and successful games. But the studio did not despair, because the audience liked the game, even though it was small. Therefore, the studio decided to start working on a sequel, but to make it more technologically advanced, because Far Cry And Half Life 2 set the bar high. For this purpose, Arkane bought Source and began looking for a larger publisher.

This is where a happy coincidence came into play. French publishing house Ubisoft planned to make a linear RPG based on the recently acquired Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. And with a job offer they went to their fellow countrymen from Arkane. The latter immediately seized on such an interesting business, in addition, the French were allowed to make the game whatever they wanted, but, naturally, without deviating too much from the original task.
The first thing game designers began to think about was to make the role-playing model simpler, along with the mechanics. Involved in the design work The Building Studios, which was organized by a former designer Half Life 2 — Victor Antonov. His artistic vision will still affect the work of the studio itself.

And then everything else followed, including adjusting what had already been done to the universe of Might and Magic. Development continued for quite a long time, but already in 2006 the world saw something completely new. Again from Arkane.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

December 21, 2006
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MS Windows, Xbox 360

Dark Messiah felt very similar to Arx Fatalis. Only the role-playing system has become really simpler compared to the studio’s previous game. We play as a sorcerer’s apprentice, and are free to develop the character in any direction we want. However, we do not have specific characteristics in the usual form; we have to invest experience points in certain skill branches, of which there are only three types: warrior, mage and assassin. And in each there is also a branching and the desired perks become more and more expensive each time. This dictates not only a certain style of passage, but also the very pace of the subsequent game.
Improved skills also influence what weapons and clothes the character can wear. Armor and weapons have their own unique properties, allowing you to choose the ideal class and direction for development.
The locations, although linear, have enough space to play the chosen role. So you can either slip past the guards unnoticed, or secretly cut the throats of everyone one by one, or just walk right through. The combat system, excellent in every sense, helps in all this. A large number of different animations of swinging a sword, daggers, and a staff, plus division into strong and weak blows, blocking and using magic. And of course, how can we not mention the opportunity to kick the enemy into the abyss, onto stakes, or somewhere else?. And yes, the legs are not only visible here, but the body itself is felt almost physically.
The plot takes place in the world of the Fifth Heroes and tells the story of Saref, a student of the magician Fenrir, who dreams of adventure. And in fact, he gets them when he and his teacher find a mysterious artifact – the Skull of Shadows. It is somehow connected with the imminent arrival of the Dark Messiah in the world.
The game has completely correct physics, we can throw boxes at opponents, break them, kick them, and many riddles are tied to this (the legacy of Half Life 2 in action). Bottom line, the game is just very fun to play. The atmosphere grabs you and doesn’t want to let go until the very end. But in addition to the main game Floodgate Entertainment made a multiplayer mode.

Forming your own cemetery

Dark Messiah came out very original and some people liked it, but others not at all. However, the release was quite loud, both due to the connection with Heroes, and because the game was created on Source and she looked very beautiful (even now she looks pretty good).
Arkane showed itself to the world, opened an office in Austin, Texas, and was now a fairly respected studio and open to suggestions. The first came from former colleagues from Electronic Arts. The fact was that Steven Spielberg, who had long wanted to take part in the creation of a game according to his own idea, began to collaborate with a large publisher. Arkane didn’t mind and started preparing the concept LMNO. It sounded like this: “A first-person game with RPG elements and stylish parkour in a modern setting”.

One of the main roles was Eve – an alien with whom the player will have some relationship. The main character must show her the living world around, but due to Eve’s origin, he is called upon to protect her from the government. The project was truly ambitious, but due to circumstances beyond Arkane’s control, development was stopped, which is truly a pity. Perhaps this happened because Electronic Arts did not need another parkour game (the first one was Mirror’s Edge from DICE).

The Crossing

But for now LMNO did not burst into the life of the studio, but was a figment of Spielberg’s imagination, Arkane announced their independent project called The Crossing. The game was supposed to be the first to combine both single player and multiplayer. The game world, in which the medieval Templars managed to take control of Paris, was planned to be open in the style of Team Deathmatch, and each player would follow his own plot, killing along the way or hiding from equally real enemies.

The trailer caused a stir and made The Crossing expected, all thanks to the non-trivial idea of ​​both gameplay and story. Viktor Antonov again worked on the game design, and in tandem with Arkane they created exactly the dream project. Experiment.

The game was prepared to be quite intriguing and monstrous. This is how she scared away the publishers who were offered to release the game by Arkane. Many of the 20 publishers refused to undertake the implementation, and those who agreed demanded the release of the game not only on PCs, but also on consoles. And then another problem opened up: the Source engine was poorly optimized for PlayStation 3. This aspect almost completely put an end to the project. And the lid was nailed down by the problem with the implementation of correct matchmaking.

We wanted to make The Crossing so bad. And when we stopped, I felt like I had made a huge mistake. But we would not be able to do this with this particular publisher (approx. the publisher’s name has been omitted). We canceled the agreement because I didn’t believe one percent in success.

Rafael Colantonio

Having frozen the project, Arkane continued to work on LMNO for some time until the project was closed. The two canceled projects were not only an emotional failure for the studio, but also a financial one. Therefore, I had to get out as a hired force.
Arkane was involved in the development Return to Ravenholm, which is referred to by many as Half-Life 2: Episode Four. Valve positioned it as a prequel to the events of Episode Two, and at one point realizing that they had done enough in the second part and there was nothing more to say, Gabe Newell canceled the order to develop the episode. And so the gaming community was left even without a spin-off for the Half Life series.

After the cancellation of many projects, Arkane finally went into apprenticeship. So they helped a little Threearch in 2008 with their Call of Duty World At War. The studio was creating some multiplayer maps for the game, and that’s all. But in for Take Two the studio provided design, animation and drawing services in the project Bioshock 2. By the way, a whole conglomerate of studios was involved in helping with this game, so it’s not surprising that the game turned out to be frankly secondary.

Shaping your destiny

And the studio would have been running wild until Arkane fell under the wing in August 2010 ZeniMax Studios. Having assessed all past achievements, the studio was expanded and added to the team of people who had previously worked on such high-profile projects as Deus Ex And Half-Life 2. The studio was given funding in exchange for an excellent idea, and Arkane took most of their work on The Crossing, Viktor Antonov, and invited Harvey Smith to lead the project (he worked on System Shock And Deus Ex) and the idea of ​​a game with open locations and wide variability, and plunged headlong into work.

Dishonored absorbed everything that the studio did previously and what the new employees did before working at Arkane. This was reflected in the appearance, the plot, and the gameplay. We spent more time working on the design, following our ideas and desire to create a real living world that you believe in. Development continued for a long time, but evenly, and by the beginning of October 2012, Dishonored was ready to hit the shelves of both retail stores and digital stores.

Dishonored

October 9, 2012

MS Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

The eye is immediately drawn to the graphics and design. The good old man is responsible for all the beauty Unreal Engine 3. And the environment is truly mesmerizing with its architecture and interesting solutions. Analogies when looking at the city are with London of the Victorian era, City 17 and medieval castles. Every street in Dunwall is 19th century mixed with an industrial spirit. The background is as follows – the city is an industrial center for the extraction of fuel – blubber.
And here the plot spreads out in a thin layer. We play the Lord Protector of the Empress, Corvo Attano, who arrives in the capital to inform his mistress that help in the fight against the plague will not arrive. And at the same time, unknown people kill the empress and kidnap her daughter, and Corvo is framed for murder. Having rotted in prison for six months, the hero, not without outside help, gets out into freedom, finds the strength to take revenge, and also save little Emilie. This is how the beginning sounds, and the ending will depend on the style of passage.
The plot and gameplay aspects are justified. Since we are now a killer, we must act stealthily. A short blade and a crossbow with different bolts will help with this. In addition, Corvo teaches the Alien, giving him a mark and magical power. The hero is able to teleport short distances, see enemies and active places through walls, in short, he acquires various perks for himself. They can be bought and upgraded for runes, just like weapons for money.
By combining skills and thinking outside the box, we can be an invisible shadow on the streets. Well, or kill everyone left and right, since sword fights look indistinguishable from Dark Messiah. You can also explore locations and complete secondary tasks from random people.
Dishonored is very harmoniously executed. Nice graphics, interesting and varied gameplay, freedom in passing methods, as well as non-linearity. A plus is an extremely detailed background with its conspiracies, crises, peculiarities of the world and its own laws. I want to immerse myself in this world and find out all the secrets. The developers did their best, which is why their game won quite a lot of awards, including game of the year.

For Arkane, this was a long-awaited breakthrough to a new level of development and a good statement about itself, and not without the help of its name Bethesda. And after a truly successful worldwide release, no one raised the question of developing a sequel. Harvey Smith again took the helm of development and it would be stupid to make the same game a second time, so the following changes awaited the project: firstly, the engine was changed from Unreal Engine 3 on a just modified engine “Void” – derivative from idTech 5. Secondly, it was decided to give the main character a voice, which he was deprived of in the first part according to all the canons of Half Life. And thirdly, Emily also became a playable character.

With all these introductions, the work began. Over Dishonored II a team from Austin was working when Arkane from the French city of Lyon began parallel work on a new Prey. This castling subsequently affected the final quality of the game in technical terms, but otherwise the team knew what to do and soon the world saw the second part of Dishonored.