Bizarre Creations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bizarre Creations | |
---|---|
Type | Video game developer |
Founded | 1994 |
Headquarters | Liverpool, United Kingdom |
Industry | Video games |
Owner | Vivendi |
Employees | 165 |
Parent | Activision Blizzard |
Website | http://www.bizarrecreations.com/ |
used in 2000
Bizarre Creations is a Liverpool-based video game developer beginning development under this name in 1994. The company is most known for the Dreamcast videogame Metropolis Street Racer and their Xbox console game series Project Gotham Racing.
Bizarre Creations evolved from Raising Hell Software, a developer of video games founded in 1988 by Martyn Chudley. Sega pressured them over the use of "Hell" in the name so the company went nameless for a short time. In 1994 a submission to Psygnosis/Sony forced the need for a new name. The founder initially put "Weird Concepts" on the submission documententation. Later a staff member used Microsoft Word's thesaurus on the name and "Bizarre Creations" was the suggestion that stuck.
The Bizarre Creations team started off with five people working on a concept project called 'Slaughter'. After seeing the demo, Psygnosis signed on the developer to develop Formula 1 for the PlayStation. Formula 1 became the best selling game in Europe in 1996.
In 2006, the studio announced a departure from their usual racing genre. The Club is a third person shooter, released on February 7, 2008.
On September 26, 2007, Activision acquired Bizarre Creations[1]. The future of the Project Gotham Racing franchise is uncertain. They announced that PGR4 will be the last game produced for Microsoft[2], who own the rights to the Project Gotham Racing brand, so any future releases to the series will not be Bizarre Creations-developed.
Bizarre Creations is also rumored to be making a racing genre video game based on the James Bond series for Activision.[3]
[edit] Games
- Bizarre Creations Racing Project (in development) - Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC (TBA)
- The Club — Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (2008)
- Geometry Wars: Galaxies - Nintendo DS, Wii (2007)
- Project Gotham Racing 4 - Xbox 360 (2007)
- Boom Boom Rocket — Xbox Live Arcade (2007)
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved — Xbox Live Arcade (2005), Windows Vista (2007), Windows XP (via Steam) (2007)
- Project Gotham Racing 3 — Xbox 360 (2005)
- Project Gotham Racing 2 — Xbox (2003)
- Treasure Planet — PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance (2002)
- Project Gotham Racing — Xbox (2001)
- Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge — PlayStation 2 (2001)
- Metropolis Street Racer — Dreamcast (2001)
- Fur Fighters — Dreamcast, PC (2000)
- Formula 1 97 / Formula One: Championship Edition — PlayStation (1997)
- Formula One — PlayStation (1996)
- Wiz 'n' Liz — Sega Genesis, Amiga
- The Killing Game Show/Fatal Rewind — Sega Genesis (1991), Amiga (1990), Atari ST (1990)