Kyleripman
Member
Was there something special about the other Crash Team Racing? This looks just like some Mario Kart clone
It's very fun, with great mechanics.
Was there something special about the other Crash Team Racing? This looks just like some Mario Kart clone
Why would they buy them "back"? They never owned them to begin with. Universal (Vivendi) owned both characters, and chose to work with Sony for publishing.
Yeah, I guess I spoke a little too soon. After watching a few youtube videos it does actually look quite fun.It's very fun, with great mechanics.
We were in talks to do this, given we did Madagascar Kartz. In fact, when we first started talking to Activision about Madagascar Kartz it was actually supposed to cover more Dreamworks franchises but then they scaled it back (though it did include Shrek and Monsters vs Aliens characters and tracks). We ended up doing Madagascar Kartz from scratch in about 7 months across PS3, 360, and Wii for a very modest budget (it was a "value" title). It sold 1.2m units from the last report I've seen, and made Activision a ton of money.
Of course, rather than have us roll just onto a Dreamworks "sequel", they wouldn't give it to us unless we took on something else they wanted to farm out which we didn't want to touch (budget way too low and timeframe too short for us to do a quality game even by budget standards). So we walked away from it all.
Unfortunately, the contract we cut with Activision meant they had no source code or assets for the Madagascar game from us. So they had to build the Dreamworks game including all assets from scratch. It reviewed lower than our game.
So shortsighted. We were in a great position tech/asset wise and actually (strangely) really interested in doing a Madagascar Kartz "sequel", even given the paltry budget it would have had.
You were the one of Speed Racer on Wii no? Because I love that game (maybe a little on the easy side) and thought that the only thing that was missing were the dakar style races (will have gave more variation to the game and make it really unique) and the giacchinno music and speed racer original theme (although I really like the ending song).
I also liked a lot the character portraits, and even more the characters that the team invented that really never appear in the movie or the series.
Yes, that was us.
You might have found the game a little easy because we skewed it towards a younger audience.
We left the Dakar style races out on purpose because we only had 10 months to make the game, and felt trying to do both would be too much of a stretch to do either justice.
And we weren't allowed to use music from the film, but the artist we worked with Winifred Philips did a great job we thought.
The characters were fun (character art was by Udon), and we did have a little coup. The Wachowskis liked what we were doing so much that when they had to show the leaderboard in the movie, they actually used all the names we had come up with. Mattel even was going to use our Trixie car design as the basis for the second run of toys, but that didn't go ahead when the movie tanked (along with our hopes for a sequel ).
That game did over 1m units too though, outperforming expectations
Of course, rather than have us roll just onto a Dreamworks "sequel", they wouldn't give it to us unless we took on something else they wanted to farm out which we didn't want to touch (budget way too low and timeframe too short for us to do a quality game even by budget standards). So we walked away from it all.
Unfortunately, the contract we cut with Activision meant they had no source code or assets for the Madagascar game from us. So they had to build the Dreamworks game including all assets from scratch. It reviewed lower than our game.
Alright, what the hell Activision?
I would have bought these games for the artstyle alone. For the first time in years, Crash actually looks like his original self...
Why?
Just out of curiosity, how much do you guys think Crash is worth? Imagine if NaughtyDog bought the rights. I CAN DREAM.
Cancelled probably because they had the much cheaper Madagascar Kartz title in development (with us as it happened). Two games in a single category? Preposterous! Run with the licensed one (well, it did sell over 1m units at least).
Why does Activision have this have this IP? -_-
Was there something special about the other Crash Team Racing? This looks just like some Mario Kart clone
Sony never owned Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. They distributed them on behalf of Universal Interactive. Through a series of mergers, and stuff they both eventually fell into the hands that today we call Activision.
Yeah I'm aware Sony never owned it but I really wish it wasn't with Activision. They don't even seem to really want to do anything with it and its sad.
Companies sometimes sit on properties they never plan on using. Many followers of various Capcom, and Konami franchises can tell you this.
Can I ask why they didnt allow to use the movie or series music? Possibly over budget?
CamHostage said:One of the secret shames of the game design business is the bidding process and the hardball that publishers can play (or the lowball that hungry/foolish developers can play.) Consumers just see the product and determine if it's good or bad (as well they should, in the end that's all that matters,) but if you get to know the business at all, it can be surprising sometimes that anything at all of artistic merit (let alone quality) can be produced.
Luckily for High Impact, nobody seemed to notice that they made this game (I don't totally love this company's main three products, the PSP games - though Secret Agent Clank's puzzles were worth fighting the camera - but I see skill and talent there that some day could go somewhere.) The Dreamworks Kartz game is clearly a rushjob product with little pizazz for even the budget family market (and a lesser game than its predecessor, I don't own Madagascar Kartz but I've played that.) Taking such a lose-lose job like Mario describes could have hurt the company if they ever have ambitions again to be a studio behind name-brand titles (though these days, not every company can/should hold out for the next big project when five take-what-you-can-get projects will put food on the table.)
Only Naughty Dog could do a good job with it
Edit: Just read that it was being created by ex-ND and Insomniac people and I looked at the vid of the Crash Bandicoot 2010 game that was cancelled. All i can say is fuck you activision fuck you sony fuck you universal and fuck you naughty dog
Don't you fucking say that manThe only way we'll see Crash again is through some Skylanders shiznit.
Don't you fucking say that man
:c
The only way we'll see Crash again is through some Skylanders shiznit.
It was just a rights issue mainly I think from memory. Plus we had to have the game finished 3 months before the movie came out. While we worked with members of the movie production team, we never actually saw any final footage before the movie came out.
Only Naughty Dog could do a good job with it
Edit: Just read that it was being created by ex-ND and Insomniac people and I looked at the vid of the Crash Bandicoot 2010 game that was cancelled. All i can say is fuck you activision fuck you sony fuck you universal and fuck you naughty dog