I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about how seriously developers take their art. The team at Capcom working on Resident Evil was said to have studied up on human decomposition, parasites, and viruses in order to make realistic zombies. Hideo Kojima would bring in military contractors to advise his Metal Gear Solid team. In some retellings they gave the team the ability to opt out of the battlefield lecture because they could not unlearn the horrors of war. Over at Polyphony there was a team whose responsibility was traveling the world, recording the actual sounds of modern, vintage, and racing cars to make Gran Turismo accurate. In all of those instances the teams were large, and specialized. None of those people could hold a candle to the dozen people working at Stainless Games. Patrick Buckland was the lead programmer, and co-founder of Stainless Software. Neil Barnden was the other co-founder, and lead artist. They started working on a car game that centered around crashing in 1994. They wanted a high-quality 3D engine, a library of unique vehicles with realistic physics, the ability to go anywhere on an open world map, and the ability to run over pedestrians. Today you could name a few franchises that do this, but it seemed impossible decades ago. Especially for a very small team. This was uncharted water not only for their studio, but pretty much for the entire industry. Carmageddon was born because nobody told them what they couldn’t do.
The studio was familiar with the BRender 3D engine from other projects they had worked on. As they were starting to put together car models they needed to figure out how they were going to create pedestrians. They needed reference material to work from. This was when Tony Taylor stepped up, and donated his body to the cause. They would go out to a parking lot where Tony had all the protection that a helmet, pair of gloves, and some cardboard tucked under his shirt could provide. The studio would then proceed to hit him with a car over, and over. Making sure to get shots from multiple angles. He challenged them to go faster, and faster at him, hoping to get a shot of him rolling completely over the roof. At about 35mph he ended up going through the windshield instead. Nearby residents called the police because they were sure they had just witnessed a murder. It wouldn’t be the first time the people at Stainless would be suspected of criminal mischief. Almost everyone at the studio was engaged in acts of vandalism, and destruction for the sake of “research."
The team, and engine could not create both 3D car models, and 3D pedestrians at the same time. There was just too much work to do that on any reasonable time table. They still wanted a library of different pedestrian types to work from. That was how Tony got involved. He would act out different scenarios, and pretend to be running for his life. Animators worked from this footage when they created the male, and female sprites that would be used in game. The animators then asked for reference material so they could create explosions in the game. They needed references for car explosions, power up barrel explosions, and anything else in the game that might go kaboom! The team used that as an excuse to take propane tanks to an undisclosed area, and shoot them with rifles. They also took a car that had been trashed in a banger race out to a field. Where they then ran out an extension cord, Buckland put a bunch of aerosol cans in a microwave, set the timer, and ran for his life. Banger racing was invaluable for recording the sounds of actual car collisions. Just to be sure that the studio got enough reference material they ran over real estate posts, and studied the damage to the car. No word on if they replaced those signs, but I doubt it. There are stories of home made bazookas, destroying the chandelier that used to hang in their office space, and tons of mayhem during holiday parties. Again, all in the name of research.
The studio cranked away diligently inventing a new genre. Their art team creating new cars, and characters that would have fit in the pages of a comic book, or possibly a James Bond film. Making sure that the game was ready for both the Mac, and Windows meant that they were pulling double duty. Not every publisher had the luxury of hiring a separate developer to handle the adaptation. LAN play was in the cards, and they were all eager to test on that, but the team also needed to make sure they had a demo ready first. This would be used to get certification with game rating boards, and also be used to help promote the title. Time was of the essence, and they couldn't waste it chasing bugs. The studio got creative with the engine when they came across a new issue. One of the first challenges they had to figure out was in making the Hawk, and Eagle. The stars of the game had to be balanced from a game play perspective. It wouldn’t be difficult to assign them similar stats. The graphics engine however required them to be modeled on the same body, but be visually distinct. A paint scheme was not enough to set them apart. Since the modelers were not allowed to create two separate bodies they instead used a reflective texture to create a windshield, and make the Hawk appear like a mid-engine car, and a transparent texture to make the Eagle look like a front engine car. It was an example of the creative problem solving at Stainless. Future versions of those two cars would get their own models.
Another thing that was in the planning stages, and actually promised to audiences, was a vehicle with a trailer. One of the racers was a madman in a hazmat suit known as Firestorm. He drove a stolen tanker truck called Tanka. The website, and official art of the vehicle showed this well in advance. This design was very futuristic, it definitely captured the science fiction world that Stainless wanted to convey. Those playing the demo, myself included, were hyped on seeing the actual truck in the finished game. There was a problem however. No matter how hard the developers at Stainless tried, the trailer portion gave nothing but problems to the physics engine. Sometimes it would clip through the model, and cause the truck to be stuck. Other times a collision would break the model, leaving it inert. There were issues getting it to shift its virtual weight, and turn realistically. There was no way that they would have all the complications sorted in time for release, so they cut out the trailer. This cab-only version of the truck was labeled as a Cheat car, but it was anything but ideal to drive. Without the trailer to balance the front end it bounced around awkwardly in the game. It was difficult to control at any speed, making it of no use in single, or multi-player games. Broken models aside, there was a bigger issue that Stainless, and SCi had to deal with. As much fun as audiences were having with the game demo, there were many seeing this as the next major controversy.
The media began painting Carmageddon as too violent, as too extreme. It was not funny, or enjoyable according to them. The game debuted around the time that Congress in the USA was holding hearings on violence in video games. The popularity of titles like Doom, Mortal Kombat, Twisted Metal, and Killer Instinct had caught their attention. It took a few years for violent games to make it to the floor for an inquiry. Pop culture trends that that were “corrupting the youth" had been the focus of politicians for several generations. It happened with comic books, rock and roll music, heavy metal music, gangster rap music, and now violent games. Adding Carmageddon to the debate was literally pouring gasoline on the fire. The arguments against these things were disingenuous. They never put the media in context. You could take a portion of any creative work out of context to build an argument. A car accident is not funny, a hit, and run is not funny, a traffic fatality is not funny. Why then should a game featuring any of these elements be published? What possible entertainment value do they have?
Violence, blood, and gore had actually been used for comedic effect for decades. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is considered a comedy classic. It was released in 1975, the same year as Death Race 2000. One of the scenes features King Arthur hacking the limbs off of the Black Knight. The Knight considered the fight a draw once he has been reduced to a stump. There is a power up in Carmageddon that also blows the limbs off of pedestrians, it is called “tis but a scratch," a line borrowed from the movie. In the Addams Family movie from 1991 the brother, and sister pair of Pugsley and Wednesday Adams cut each other open during a sword fight for a school play. They proceed to shower the audience in gallons of blood. It is arguably the funniest scene in the movie. These are examples of an absurd kind of humor. There is nothing inherently funny about amputation, or blood loss. This changes when they are presented in an absurd context.
To find entertainment value in violence, blood, and gore supposedly goes against our moral compass. It is ironic to laugh at things like this. One of the reasons that people gravitate to these forms of entertainment is for escapism. People do not watch police procedurals because they are criminals at heart. People do not read true crime thrillers because they want to learn how to kill. There is control in the entertainment they consume, rather than the media they are bombarded with. People of every age, and demographic are saturated with images of war, violence, and civil unrest by the news. Viewers cannot control what gets played on the television, only whether or not they want to change the channel, or turn the TV off. When they choose to read a true crime story, watch a horror movie, or play a violent game, they are in control of the media. They know that they are safe, they can get lost in this world, and can control how they choose to react. These things are never debated by the politicians, or news outlets. They only seek an alarmist sound bite. Whatever grabs headlines, and helps keep their agenda on the air is the true goal. As much hand wringing as there was in Congress things were a thousands times more heated overseas in Parliament.
Stainless Games was dragged by just about every media outlet. Nothing they did, or said seemed to convey any truth about their title. Carmageddon was never meant for kids, despite the news perpetuating the myth that the entire game industry targeted children exclusively. The Gen-Xers that made up the majority of game players in the ‘90s were adults, and entering professional careers when Carma came out. Somehow that entire demographic was never brought up alongside the alarmist headlines. When Stainless did interviews, even on the radio, they were set up with loaded questions. Imagine being asked “Why do you think death is funny? Is running over veterans funny?" Stainless would dig their heels in while defending the game, but the attitude did more to hurt their case rather than help. Being contrary, and leaning into the dark humor did not go over well with audiences. Stainless would talk about their game on the air, only to have a parent that lost a kid in a traffic accident be the counter argument. They would talk about the blind pedestrians power up, only to have a the disabled community write the outlets to say there was nothing funny about blindness.
By picking individual elements out in the game the news took it completely out of context. Just as congress did with fatalities in Mortal Kombat, and gun violence in shooting games. Member of Parliament Greg Pope took exception to the game as well. By using his last name the newspaper headlines made a gigantic scandal out of a game yet to receive certification. Many countries, such as Australia, refused to import the game at all. They were asking for all sorts of things to be removed. At the very least it would have to be censored before they would even give it a rating. Don't get me started on how many concessions had to be made to get the games ported to the home consoles! SCi relented in several cases. Swapping out the pedestrian blood, and guts for green slime. Calling pedestrians mutants, or zombies would get around the ban. In the German N64 version the pedestrians were replaced by green-blooded dinosaurs! Some boards refused a rating at all, they did not want to be associated with the title. One of the most vocal was the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which rates movies, as well as video games for content. The US equivalent would be the ESRB.
Stainless was very stand offish with the whole process. The issue was one of free speech, and it was taken up by George Carman a QC (Queen’s Counsel), and barrister. The court showed that this form of entertainment was protected, and essentially forced the BBFC to give it a rating. In an interview with Edge magazine (issue 190) Matt Edmunds, one of the programmers remembers taking the game to the BBFC, and letting them play. They were laughing, and having a blast. They got mad at themselves for liking it. Edmunds recounted “They said it made them enjoy the experience of running people over." In the end they gave it a 15 rating, the same rating they had ascribed to the VHS version of Death Race 2000. “No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a 15 rated video work."
When I read the story of the BBFC I remembered how our college was a microcosm of politics. Carol our Dean was a woman held in high regards. She had crafted school policy for some of the biggest colleges in Southern California. Several of her policies are still in use today! She would never be seen playing this game, or admit to it. Yet she actually had fun when she tried out Carmageddon at our department party. Not that it mattered for Stainless, all of the negative publicity had done its damage. Only deviants could possibly enjoy the title. For the rest of history Carmageddon would be associated with controversy instead of the fact that it was a great game. Normally this would be the end of the experiment. Publishers could not be expected to take this kind of heat again. Stainless Games was nowhere near done pushing the envelope. An expansion, and the fan community would pull together to make a great game even better. We will look at this on the next blog. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
No comments:
Post a Comment