Fatal Rewind: A Bizarre Creations Retrospective

Bizarre Creations was born in the 8-bit microcomputer era, and grew to prominence as masterful developers of arcade racers and twin-stick shooters.

The loss of this talented Liverpool studio in 2011 was keenly felt by the whole games industry. Written throughout 2021 in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the studio’s closure, this MegaFeature explores Bizarre Creations’ complete back catalogue, from the very earliest days right up until those fateful seventh-generation games that killed them off.

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Combat Crazy: The Genesis of Bizarre Creations - The story of Bizarre Creations begins back in the '80s, with the formation of a small development group inspired by Martyn Chudley's love of Iron Maiden. And their first game would be Combat Crazy, a solid and enjoyable game that proved to be a commercial failure.
The Killing Game Show: The Only Way is Up - Powerslave Developments begat Raising Hell Software -- and from there we saw Martyn Chudley's second commercial release. The Killing Game Show was a solid platform shooter published by Psygnosis -- albeit one with a monstrous difficulty curve!
Wiz ‘n’ Liz: Hunting Wabbits for Fun and Profit - Several years after The Killing Game Show, Chudley and friends were back with another pretty 16-bit platformer that went by the name of Wiz 'n' Liz. And it was a very different kind of experience to what had come before, offering non-violent, speedy arcade-style gameplay!
Formula 1: Bizarre Creations’ True Beginning - The first game with the Bizarre Creations name on it was also the first game where they got to prove their talent for developing great racing games. And with the pressure of one of the world's biggest licenses in motorsport, no less!
Formula 1 97: Racing, Refined - A year after Formula 1 for PlayStation, Bizarre Creations went and did it again, but better. But how exactly do you top a game that was already doing great things in its genre -- apart from adding more Murray Walker?
Fur Fighters: Bizarre Gets Blasting - Fur Fighters was one of two projects Bizarre Creations originally developed for Dreamcast around the turn of the century. While their racer Metropolis Street Racer is much more well-known, don't sleep on this one!

The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.