what type of car designs do i want?
how do i want my enemies to behave?
what do i want my arena to be like?
Look At Games
I have been playing some old games that are similar in style to what i want mine to be so that i can see for myself what the games are like and what i will want to take from them.
the first game that i looked at was twisted metal.
twisted metal is a combat driving game created in 1995 for the playstation1, the idea of the game is that the player would take control of a car driven by a maniac who has some crazy backstory about why they are competing in the tournament. the game takes place in various arenas against increasing numbers of enemies and increasing difficulties, until you get to the end where in the first one you got to the boss which was a big riot truck and depending on the starting difficulty one or two more vehicles.
the vehicles in twisted metal are mostly based around similar designs to existing vehicles at the time such as sweettooths icecream truck and grimms motorcycle. each vehicle had different stats and starting weapons although in the first and second one the weapons only looked different the rates of fire and damage each did wasnt changed till later on, but you would get vehicles like grimms motorcycle would have better speed and handling compared to sweettooths truck bu the truck could take more damage.
the arenas in twisted metal were partly based off of real locations like Paris and New York with famous landmarks such as the Eiffel tower which you can drive around the base of it and drive through the streets around it although the streets were made alot wider than they actualy are because you needed to be able to turn your cars around and fight in the middle of the streets.
the A.I. in the first game wasnt the best as they seemed to just stick to the bot paths that were layed out for them until they saw you then they would start to attack, so this meant that when you were 1 on 1, if you knew your opponents routes you could stay far enough away and collect power ups until you wanted to fight them, although this wqas simple A.I. it worked and provided a fun game that wasnt too challenging so will be similar to the A.I. that i would want for my game.
I have also been playing the old wipeout games. more specificaly the original launch title for the playstation simply titled WipEout and the second release WipEout 97.
wipeout is mainly a racing game, created in the mid 90's and was targeted at the club scene that was around at the time which influenced the style of the game, as the developers wanted to appeal to the club goers they created an electronic soundtrack for the game and set it into the future in order for them to be able to bring the feel of the club scene into the game with the bright lights and fast pace. although wipeout is a racing game crossing the finish line was not the only way to win, in a more violent version of the mariokart weapon system they alowed you to gun your opponents down with picked up weapons, so the game style changed it wasnt just about who could get to the finish line first but was also about who could keep their ship running for the entire race, which was made much harder with the endurance races that were added in later games.
the ships in the wipeout game all have different appearences and stats in the areas of armor, acceleration and handling depending upon which company sponsors them, the shipos all have roughly the same amount of attribute points put into the various stats but to keep it balanced the fastest vehicles will usualy have a few less points put into armor or handling than they should have available so that they dont have a maxed out speed and slightly less than average handling and armor, the ships are all designed to be long and thin so that the slightly over the top camera angle makes them look like theyre going a lot faster than they actuqaly are when you combine it with the long slow turns and the lights that litter the tracks.
the lands for wipeout are all futuristic tracks but they are built in real world and off world locations such as an abandoned russian industrial complex or monument valley in america even the barren surface of mars, these tracks were mostly built with long slow corners so that you didnt lose too much speed to keep the illutution that you are going a lot faster than you actualy were, the tight corners that they did have came up fast so you had to know where they were so that you didnt plow into the sides at full speed but they were usualy followed up with a few speed boosters, they also had massive jumps in it aswel either spanning huge gaps that meant death if you werent going fast enough or had the track underneath so that you could get a view of where the oponents were. in later games they also had loops and corkscrews so if you werent going fast enough you would fall to your death there aswel.
the A.I. in the original wipeout were more conserned with finishing than taking other players out so that the player didnt feel overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that was happening at once with it steadily getting harder as you progressed where at the end of the game most of the bots would only target you with the weapons which meant that on some of the longer races it was normally better to stay back and take ouit a few before yoiu make your move.
i have also been playing starwars demolition another way for lucasarts to cash in on the franchise.
althogh not the best game of its type it was entertaining enough so that it wasnt only fans of starwars that would enjoy it for a little while at least, following in the footsteps of twisted metal it saw a number of competitors take part in a tournament that spans the entire galaxy where the winner would get anything that they wanted, this game offered more of a story than players would have expected for this type of game, and the unlockable characters meant that most players would go through the campaign multiple times so that they could work their way up to the best characters in the game.
the vehicles in the game were all based off real vehicles in the starwars universe many of which are instantly recogniseable to most people so people that arent fans can recognise them and pick them without caring too much about what all the vehicles are and can do, the characters have different stats so the bigger vehicles such as tanke have alot of armor and power but are slow and costly, then you get vehicles like the speeders that are as their name says fast but with not so much power and medium armor, easch vehicle also had a unique attack that you had to charge up so when you learn about all the abilities you can pick a character that better suits how you play.
most of the arenas in the game are really big and mostly empty so that you have to go out searching for your opponents and the matches could last quite along time not because you are getting ready but because you are looking for the enemy, there are a few small maps though and these maps are layed out well with alot of cover and open spaces so you could play it in a couple different ways, although most of the arenas are too big and open for what i am looking at for my level.
another game that i looked at mainly for its tracks hazards was micre machines.
micromachines is a racing game that has you play as a remote controled car driving around tracks that are created in trhe house, the main reason that i looked at this game was becauseof the hazards that are in the tracks as i want my arena to have some hazards in them aswell, the hazards that are in the micro machines tracks include drops off the edges of the map oil spills and objects that crash into you to slow you down.
i have also looked at the old demolition derby game that launched on the playstation with the game having two different modes there was the first mode that was based more around the nascar style of racing where you went round a oval track and either had to survive of finiosh all the laps the only problem was that the crashed cars werent removed so you ended uup with a pile up that you had to push your way through then ther was the other game mode where you faced inwards on a oval arena with all the other cars and would have to just try and survive till the end most of the time though you would just hit the throttle crash and be out within the first 10 seconds.
i also looked at vigilat8 one of the first car combat games and one of the only ones that didnt cary on despite its popularity, this is a game that i looked at but could not play although i have played it before in the past, it is a good game to look at for what i am doing as the vehicles that feature in it are all based off of vehicles that were around at the time although i will not be using any of the vehicles that are in this game i will be basing my vehicles off of cars that are around today and concepts that arent around at all. the A.I. in the game was also quite good aswell they didnt so much go for power ups unless they were near them but tey would seek you out so that changed the way that people played games of this type, the levels were quite good aswel having multiple levels and hazards as well as cover and open spaces made this a fun game to play.
