Comments on: Crash, Bam, Boom! Putting a Face on Pain in Burnout

By: turkmenistan

turkmenistan — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:06:57 +0000

There’s a genius moment in Burnout: Takedown where you earn a “headline” for a spectacular crash, meaning a newspaper spins on the screen detailing how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage you just did - and the subhead reads, “MIRACULOUSLY, NOONE WAS HURT”!

By: Bonnie Ruberg

Bonnie Ruberg — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:27:54 +0000

Interesting. I knew there were restrictions on the type of damage developers could show in racing games, specifically games with licensed cars–but I knew thought about the same thing applying to drivers. Of course, Burnout games don’t have licensed vehicles to the best of my recollection… but the ratings issues would be the same. Still, there’s no reason drivers would have to receive realistically gruesome injuries. Like the cars, they could bounce right back :) .

By: RacingGameDev

RacingGameDev — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:19:04 +0000

You’ve pretty much got it figured - in some cases you won’t see drivers because of rating issues. Most publishers won’t want their racing games to have any chance of getting an M rating (it will hurt their sales).

Just showing a driver and then giving the implication that they might be killed in squishy and gruesome ways is enough to raise questions.

In other cases there may be conditions on a license the game is using - I believe the FIA doesn’t like people to think that F1 racing is overly dangerous for example, so it used to be the case that you couldn’t show flames on a car without also showing the driver safely leaving the vehicle.

This may have changed in recent years (haven’t made one in a while), but that’s why older F1 racing titles only show white, gray or black smoke - any yellow, orange, or red would have indicated flames.

By: Bonnie Ruberg

Bonnie Ruberg — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:49:44 +0000

I actually didn’t know about that, Fred. That is really interesting, thanks!

The “crash cam” could definitely bring in elements of sadism–or just goofiness. It reminds me a bit of those cameras that take your pictures when you’re going down the drop in a roller coaster. Who wants to immortalize the moment when you look more ridiculous?

By: Fred Zeleny

Fred Zeleny — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:01:06 +0000

One of the things that I think is very exciting about Burnout Paradise is the “crash cam” feature - when playing online, if your opponent has webcam hooked up to their 360 or PS3, when you take them down, it sends you a polaroid-style picture of their face at the time of the crash.

Granted, it’s a rather different thing than creating your own avatar (or crash-test dummy), and it’s bound to be abused by creative folks, but it’s a very interesting concept.