Released as a pack-in title for the new $699 3DO system in 1993 and coded by a fledgling studio called Crystal Dynamics headed by Steve Morse, this title needed to be a head-turner to justify the consoles huge price tag.
Dave Morse had been the guy who introduced Trip Hawkins to R J Mical and Dave Needle (3DO OS and hardware creators) and soon after he had gone off to form Crystal Dynamics.
Crash ‘n Burn certainly looked the part and thrust players into a futuristic combat racing world, offering a mix of vehicular chaos and explosive competition. While not without its flaws, the game managed to captivate players with its unique blend of aggressive racing and combat elements.
Set in the post-apocalyptic 2044 AD, Crash ‘n Burn embraced a ‘street rules’ ethos, where racing becomes a matter of survival and racing cars are equipped with guns, rocket launchers and deployable mines. The game introduced six racers, each with distinct personalities portrayed through video clips.
These video clips are laughable and very poorly acted but do offer good visual quality. They seem to have been added in just to show off the native ability of 3DO to render FMV video and add a multimedia element. Also the actors clothing looked too shiny and new and instead the actors should have had a more grungy Mad Max type look in my opinion. Bottom line – the dialogue and acting in these scenes is horrendous.
The overall narrative carried a cliché tone, but I guess it does align with the era’s exploration of the futuristic Death Race 2000 racing genre.
With only six tracks, the game compensates with lengthier races, offering both Tournament and Rally modes. In Tournament, players race to earn points and money for car body and weapon upgrades, providing a strategic layer to the gameplay. Rally mode strips away upgrades but leads to the thrilling Death Dome Tournament, a chaotic battle reminiscent of Twisted Metal.
An uncommon feature for its time, Crash ‘n Burn introduced a pit stops where players choose to refuel, repair, and reload ammunition. The duration of the pit stop is under the players control and affects the extent of repairs and ammunition replenishment. This feature added an interesting tactical element, as sometimes you just need a little repair to finish the race or a minor reload to finish off a pesky competitor.
Considered one of the most visually appealing race games of its time, Crash ‘n Burn impressed with full-motion video clips devoid of graininess or pixelation. The in-game graphics boasted brightly coloured cars and beautiful 3D tracks, although the similarity among all cars was a drawback. Collisions triggered a peculiar palette swap effect that, while interesting, was repetitive and it was also impossible to visually deform the car by crashing into other players.
The way the beautifully rendered 3D car tracks were pulled directly off CD is explained in the following interesting but slightly technical explanation grabbed from old Google discussion boards and described by Crystal Dynamics programmer Gregg Tavares:
The track consists of tons-o-polygons. Far too many for any machine to display in real-time. One part of displaying something in 3D is figuring out which parts you can see and which parts you can’t. For example, if you are driving down a racetrack and you are looking forward you can’t see behind you therefore you don’t want to draw the stuff behind you on the screen. So, you do some math to tell you what parts of your 3D world you can see.
This takes a lot of time. In fact, it is probably this single biggest problem with anything that works in 3D. All programs deal with this in different ways. Flight Simulator does it while it’s running. It keeps a list of all the things you can see and as you fly around it adds or removes things. To see it in action, fly in skew mode and skew fast and then stop. You will see different 3D parts pop in one at a time as the program finds new things that are now in your
view.
On CnB we wrote a program that would ‘drive’ down the track and for each section of the track it makes a list of all the parts that can be seen. These ‘lists of visible parts’ are then stored in the CD and as you drive down the track the ‘list’ for the part of the track you are currently on is loaded. This makes it run faster because we don’t have to do all the calculations for which things are visible while you are racing.
While the graphics clearly looked the part, the controls fell short. The animation of the cars turning looked simplistic as there was not enough animation frames of the sprite based racing cars. It somehow appeared as if your car is on a central axis, turning left or right with very exaggerated movements. The learning curve demands patience and practice to master, otherwise you constantly bump into track sidings.
The car engine noises were unfortunately feeble sounding and don’t sound powerful enough to match the futuristic hot-rod cars in the race. The game’s music was also nothing special and just about bearable – most tracks are a type of MOR soft rock music that could have been dreamt up by todays AI in a few seconds.
As a next generation multi-media launch title for 3DO , Crash ‘n Burn stands as a very visually impressive debut and does look fantastic compared to anything else on SNES/MegaDrive/CDi/ Sega CD consoles available in 1993.
While the controls and learning curve would probably deter some players, the game’s unique blend of combat and racing, coupled with its striking track details, makes it a standout debut in the 3DO launch roster. It’s such a shame that other initial 1993 launch titles were so weak – Its a Birds Life and Fatty Bear come to mind!
Overview: Futuristic combat racing game developed by fledgling company Crystal Dynamics; combines racing with vehicular combat elements.
Setting and Characters: Set in 2044 AD, featuring six racers with unique personalities in a post-apocalyptic survival racing world.
Gameplay Modes: Includes Tournament (points/money for upgrades) and Rally (leads to chaotic Death Dome Tournament).
Pit Stops: Tactical feature allowing repairs, refueling, and reloading.
Graphics: Impressively detailed tracks using pre-rendered tracks stored on CD for smooth visuals but with some repetitive effects.
Controls: A bit clunky with a steep learning curve.
Audio: Weak engine sounds and forgettable MOR rock music.
Conclusion: An innovative racer with flaws in controls and sound but a massively impressive racer at the time that showcased what was possible on 3DO.
