John-ShepardIt's always fun to learn about ditched video game projects that almost were.
For example, we know Criterion Games as the racing masters; the team that brought you various Need for Speed and Burnout titles have excelled in the world of virtual driving. But everyone makes mistakes, as illustrated by studio director Alex Ward.
On his Twitter page, he discussed several failed attempts, including a concept that would've been called "Need for Speed: Millionaire." Basically, you hit the lottery and started buying supercars for you and your friends, and "it was supposed to be Freeburn meets Top Gear challenges." Ward said the team struggled to make it work – they even had a playable build – but ultimately ended up making the well-received Hot Pursuit .
Then they tried a new Burnout set on the famous Route 66 . Ward said the team actually rented cars to do it for real but again, it just didn't pan out. Lastly, Criterion tried a different genre: They wanted to make a quasi-open-world Medal of Honor entry that would let the player assume the role of the Germans (oh, all sorts of controversial):
"I once spent a month or so writing up a Medal of Honor game where you played as the Germans. For the first half. Invading England. I was a HUGE MoH fan back in the day. Would have loved a crack at it. Would have gone open world a bit too. And been very British at core."
Yeah, I loved MoH once, too. And this would've been interesting, no doubt. But we're happy that Criterion stuck with the ideas that did work, 'cuz those are great games.
Sounds like an interesting idea that none of today's publishers would have been willing to take a risk on. So far the next Wolfenstein has been the only attempt at another WWII themed game to make it out of development. There isn't much room left in that genre. Most FPS shooters are either modern or future based.
Either way I would very much love to see a BurnOut two. One with better crash physics and a better accessible navigation mechanic! Soon! Soon I hope.
It really sucks that warfighter was such a letdown, the first game of the rebooted series showed so much potential.
The sooner we get a big WW2 FPS playing as the Germans, Italians or Japanese the better :). One of the things I liked about BIRDS OF STEEL was that we saw the air war in the Pacific from both the US and Japanese side. Props to Criterion for giving it a look at least :).
yeah i really want them to make a burnout 4 or burnout paradise 2 to be honest those are the game i wud look forward to if they make them.
happy gaming =)
figures, they will take a crack at MoH something that does not suit them, but they wont take a crack at a franchise which they created and is considered to be one of the best shooters ever made!
sigh.
for f*cks sake alex, just give the fans what they want and announce a new burnout game!
its just pathetic weve had to wait this long since paradise came out, especially considering how successful that was and how much DLC it received.
not to mention most of it was FREE!
hell i still have people on my friends list that play it every day!
Even if they dusted off and reused the Burnout Paradise engine, with the same made-up cars and only released it on current gen consoles, i'd still buy it in a heartbeat.