Why Blur can damage its cars

by Justin McElroy on May 27th 2009 11:00PM

Car manufacturers are notoriously cranky about letting their autos show damage in racing games. So why will you find bumps and bruises on the cars in Blur but not in Bizarre's other racing title Project Gotham? Apparently, it's all about the make.

Because a game like Blur doesn't have to have companies like Porsche and Ferrari, Bizarre is able to focus on the ones that will let Bizarre beat up its cars. Plus, according to Bizarre's Gareth Wilson, car-crunching games like GRID and DiRT helped to pave the way.

Just out of curiosity, how much does damage modeling matter to you?

Source

Tags: bizarre, bizarre-creations, blur, Microsoft, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (74)

ALOT !

thats one reason I just can't get into Gran Turismo. (driving simulator my ass) :p

then surely you want to be driving a mule in downtown L.A. if its that big a deal. I definitely would like damage but Burnout already satisfies my hunger for it.

Damage will be in GT5 and I think its even coming to the prologue pretty soon.. ish

Agree. Reason why I favored Forza and arcade racers over GT. However, I can't wait for GT5 (will have damage).

ABOSOLUTELY agree with the comment about Gran Turismo. I used to love the series back in the day but really? No damage. Also, does anyone remember an interview with a Forza 2 developer saying that this is all a mith about the car manufacturers being "cranky" about damage?

@Masa:
(I don't know this for sure or anything) but I presume that for games like GT and forza, it matters much less as they are "realistic simulators", meaning that the prerogative of them is to drive as fast as possible as one would in real life, however, in games such as Burnout, one of the major elements in the gameplay is crashing/not caring about crashing so you can go faster, so car companies don't want you to be intentionally crashing as you would in those games, whereas in GT etc. you try and NOT crash.
But I agree that they should have it in GT already, but I hold the belief that they haven't because they want to hold up to having the highest level of realism (including during crashes) for all their cars, so that when you crash into a wall at 200km/h the front end bends and crumples exactly the way it would in real life.
Personally I can't wait 'til GT has damage modelling.

@Indefinite Implosion "but I hold the belief that they haven't because they want to hold up to having the highest level of realism "

Cars crash.... making cars in games SO they can look like they've crashed is realistic (see: Forza 2) than what GT has done to date.

The Burnout games wouldn't be 1/100th the fun they are without realistic crashes. As much as i like to see them, i still LOVE NFS:Underground 2 and wish they'd make a good sequel.

i agree with u completely., especially with NFSU2.. love everything about that game. especially the cars' audio.

I wouldn't call them 'realistic', but the crash and damage modeling is definitely a huge part of the game.

Ah man they definitely need to make another nfs:u2 game, that's one of my fav racing games of all time!

NFS:U2 Still the up there as one of my favourite games of all time... the series just hasn't good it as right since.

*got it as right since.

It doesn't matter at all. I don't see why auto makers would care.

It's because they're afraid that a crash that's suppose to be "realistic" mayu show up safety flaws in their vehicles that are not real, or even worse, flaws that are.

That is the biggest reason I think burnout paradise is the best racing game to date.

Burnout Paradise doesn't do damage modeling. Your car either drives as if it is undamaged or it stops working, blows up and you get a new one.

It just does cosmetic damage.

Well, generally your car is basically fubar after a crash anyhow, so car handling due to damage is pretty moot. Your car also can be wrecked over time with so many crashes.

Either way, to say it's JUST cosmetic damage is silly. It's frickin' sweet.

It's not very accurate damage, but your car moves slower and handles more loosely when it's damaged. I have no hard data, but I've noticed the difference.

It's just cosmetic. It doesn't affect handling.

Brainninja:
The only time I had my car work differently was when a wheel fell off and the game oddly didn't reset the car, so I was driving on 3 wheels. I tapped a wall and it blew up shortly thereafter.

At all other times, damage does zero to handling. You can make all the same jumps and turns with your car a tiny smidge from blowing up as you can in brand new shape.

When it was considered a new and exciting feature, now though, I couldn't care less.

What's great about damage modeling is that it shows you how terrible of a driver you are. Games like GT that don't have any damage don't seem realistic despite the fact that they're simulators.

Besides, how do they think about street racing anyways? With all the concern with danger around street racing, showing the damage and even totalling your car could kind of teach a lesson that street racing isn't exactly the safest thing. We've all heard the arguments that games (and movies) influence people, why not put in damage so that there's some argument against the people that care oh so much about that influence from games?

Damage modeling quite frankly makes or breaks a game for me. That's one of the main reasons I'm a GTA nerd and I love Forza over other games. Ya with no damage you can drift into walls and get away with it, but that's no fun. I wanna see that car BLOW THE HELL UP!

Forza has weak damage modeling. Your bumper will limp a bit, or your car will scratch, but you can't actually wreck it like in say Burnout.

Regardless, it's still a fun ass game.

I don't care for damage modeling. I can appreciate the fact that other people do, but I'm the kind of person who is bothered by scratches on my virtual vehicle. I miss racing games like NFS: Underground, when I crashed I didn't have to stare at my glaring failure until I got it fixed, I just pressed select and my mistake blinked out of existence and a copy was summoned to replace it.

Amen brother....they really need to bring the underground series back. Seriously.

Don't give a crap about damage modeling. Cosmetic damage doesn't really matter much to me either.

When I drive simulators, I don't hit stuff, just like in real life. So damage modeling doesn't come into play. I am much more concerned with the physics of the driving than realistic damage.

I agree that most of the time there may as well not be damage, as I try my hardest not to hit anything in the simulation games I play...

However I do like the minor damage you do sustain to be realistic, such as maybe a damaged front splitter from getting slightly too hot into an overtake making my car understeer due to the reduced aero performance.

A lot.

Gran Turismo looks like a joke when you can crash into walls and nothing happens. Kills the realism the series strives for.

I remember in GT 3 where you'd just bounce directly back from the wall, and if you ever just graze a wall you'd come to almost a dead stop. I haven't played GT since... but I'm still looking forward to GT5

If it doesn't have damage I won't play it. Period.

No Mario Kart for you then, eh?

Shame, as it's a really fun GAME!!

DAMAGE makes racing games so much more FUN to play

but that's it...

I hate damage because no game has yet to bring out the realism in it. Sure you can crash and have problems with the suspension and bad downforce but that's not it.

Only when its a game like Burnout and "Crash the fuck into shit" plays a major role

Well by God, my turtle shells better show cosmetic damage on the other player's car.

Damage is important to me. I loved the damage in Burnour Paradise. It doesn't bother me that GT doesn't have it because I can understand and accept why it doesn't have it. The thing that bothers me is the games that have non real life cars yet STILL don't have damage. That's just lame. Or ones that have damage that is just too minimal to even make a difference. Graphically there's no reason anymore to NOT have it, but I can understand why certain games don't. It'll be interesting to see which cars make it into Blur though so we can see who's cool with it and who's not.

It doesn't matter to me (well in GT:P) and the only reason for that is because penalties are there for a reason . It's not like you can go grinding around the WHOLE track. BTW concentrate on not crashing on this game.

just out of curiosity Justin, how much time did you spend writing this article?

How many more times do you need to use 'Bizarre' in a paragraph? Jesus.

On topic, to me damaged cars would be more fun in games like gran turismo, which attempt to be simulators, rather than games like Blur.

damage please

I spend half of my time in driving games crashing into shit. :P

I never like it when you crash and your car still looks fine. It takes you out of the experience. I thought GRID did a really good job with its damage modeling and is probably the best looking game that does. It does effect gameplay too and there are even some sponsors that won't pay you if the car is too damaged or damaged at all.

i like real damage. makes the game that much cooler when you can't just ride the wall to get ahead.

Damage models in a racing game make it much more realistic, and much more enjoyable, this is a great thing to know. Blur looks like it's going to be really cool, I can't wait to be able to get my hands on it!

Incredibly important. It makes them that much more realistic. I think it looks pretty bad in a game where you hit something and nothing shows up. Doesn't make any sense.

One of the reasons Burnout Paradise is as awesome as it is.

It's nothing new. In Need For Speed III, the first one with police chases, Mercedes and Ferrari both forbade access to their cars in the "criminal" role. It's all rather strange, given MB's popularity among crims, but I suppose image is everything.

Yea, GT is long overdue for damage. It's such a perfect game, aesthetically, but then there's the lack of damage that turns me off.

The graphics of a GT game just make me want to see how beautiful they can make damage look...

As for Blur, I'm not sold on it, but it's always nice to see damage modeling a la Burnout (my favorite racers to date)

I want more scratches and colour fades than even Burnout has. Makes the cars look more realistic. If the cars star to lean on one side and handling gets worsened it will be an extra plus.

I would like the same for Tekken 6 :)

I only want damage if it is realistic to the cars. Like say... simulating what would happen if a 2000 pound well-built car hit a 600 pound poorly built low-end car at 40 mph in a curve, as opposed to how it is currently done with just simple math and "if damage = x, car = totaled." and change the look of the car to generally abused.

I want damage, yes. But if it is done, do it right. It's like enemies with hit points where you can shoot them 6 times in the face and nothing happens to them until you shoot them the seventh time and they actually die. Or you shoot them 20 times in the same ankle to kill someone in an FPS. In a sim game, things should be simulated not roughly approximated.

But I guess we have to start somewhere.

How could you start listing car-crunching games and miss out Burnout?

Anyway, haven't they been doing that since ever? I mean, don't they just get a normal sports car and cal it a Jansen or whatever?

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Why Blur can damage its cars

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