Metropolis Street Racer
From Sega Retro
| Metropolis Street Racer | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System(s): Sega Dreamcast | |||||
| Publisher: Sega | |||||
| Developer: Bizarre Creations | |||||
| Genre: Racing | |||||
| Number of players: 1-8 | |||||
| |||||
Metropolis Street Racer, known as Metropolis during development and frequently listed simply as MSR, is a racing game developed by Bizarre Creations for the Sega Dreamcast. Highly praised at the time of release, MSR was often considered to be the Dreamcast's answer to the PlayStation's Gran Turismo racing series, as it has over 250 circuits (set in real-world locations) and numerous officially licensed cars.
History
Development
MSR's origins date back to 1997 when Sega's Kats Sato was tasked with finding out who had developed the PlayStation games Formula 1 and Formula 1 Championship Edition for Sony Computer Entertainment. Reportedly Sato purposely pulled the power cable at a display at ECTS 1997 to see the game's intoductory credits, and, upon discovering the team was Bizarre Creations, a meeting was arranged with Kazutoshi Miyake in an attempt to get the team to produce games for Sega instead. Martyn Chudley of Bizarre Creations accepted the offer and work on MSR began.
Metropolis Street Racer had an extremely rocky development cycle. Initially aimed for the Dreamcast's western launch window (late 1999), a series of delays put the project back until November 2000, at a time when Dreamcast sales were on the decline. Development on a Japanese release was started but never completed. Richard Jacques who had at this point composed many soundtracks for Sega, provided the audio for the game.
Release
Metropolis Street Racer originally launched in PAL regions with a number of bugs, so much so that the game was recalled and Sega felt the need to issue replacement discs (the later North American version is the bug-fixed version, although not all the bugs were actually fixed). A replay option, included in review copies of the game, was scrapped at the last minute due to time restraints.
Despite initially high expectations, MSR sold roughly 120,000 units, with 101,757 of those being in North America. In Europe 13,297 were sold in the first two days, meaning very few units were moved after the launch period. Martyn Chudley described releasing the game exclusively on the Dreamcast at this time was like "The Beatles exclusively selling The White Album on Mars". £1 million of Bizarre Creations' own money went into the project, and although the team was happy to port the game to the PlayStation 2, management at Sega declined the offer.
Bizarre Creations would use what they learned through Metropolis Street Racer to create their line of Project Gotham Racing games for the Xbox/Xbox 360 which were seen as a spiritual successor series.
Physical Scans
| Sega Retro Average | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 |
90 |
|---|---|
| Based on 31 reviews | |
| Dreamcast, US |
|---|
  Cover
|
 Inlay |
| Dreamcast, EU |
|---|
  Cover
|
 Disc |
- ↑ 576 Konzol, "December 2000" (HU; 2000-xx-xx), page 40
- ↑ Ação Games, "Fevereiro 2001" (BR; 2001-xx-xx), page 47
- ↑ Bonus, "9/2000" (YU; 2000-12-25), page 50
- ↑ Click!, "3/2001" (PL; 2001-02-01), page 24
- ↑ Consoles +, "Décembre 2000" (FR; 2000-1x-xx), page 88
- ↑ Computer & Video Games, "December 2000" (UK; 2000-11-15), page 82
- ↑ Dreamcast Monthly, "Christmas 2000" (UK; 2000-11-23), page 84
- ↑ Dreamcast Magazine, "No. 15" (UK; 2000-11-02), page 62
- ↑ Edge, "December 2000" (UK; 2000-11-02), page 98
- ↑ Electronic Gaming Monthly, "January 2001" (US; 2000-12-05), page 193
- ↑ Entsiklopediya igr dlya Dreamcast, "Izdaniye chetvertoye, dopolnennoye" (RU; 2002-xx-xx), page 131
- ↑ Fun Generation, "11/2000" (DE; 2000-10-18), page 58
- ↑ GamePro, "January 2001" (US; 200x-xx-xx), page 105
- ↑ Game Station (UK) (+0:00)
- ↑ Game Informer, "December 2000" (US; 2000-1x-xx), page 123
- ↑ Gamers' Republic, "December 2000" (US; 2000-xx-xx), page 69
- ↑ Hyper, "February 2001" (AU; 2000-12-20), page 44
- ↑ MAN!AC, "12/2000" (DE; 2000-11-02), page 52
- ↑ Mega Fun, "12/2000" (DE; 2000-11-02), page 38
- ↑ Neo Plus, "Grudzień 2000" (PL; 2000-xx-xx), page 54
- ↑ Next Generation, "January 2001" (US; 2000-12-21), page 96
- ↑ Official Dreamcast Magazine, "October 2000" (UK; 2000-09-07), page 8
- ↑ Official Dreamcast Magazine, "Holiday 2000" (US; 2000-11-28), page 86
- ↑ Playbox, "Décembre 2000" (FR; 2000-1x-xx), page 41
- ↑ Play, "Luty 2001" (PL; 2001-xx-xx), page 30
- ↑ PSX Extreme, "03/2001" (PL; 2001-0x-xx), page 38
- ↑ Power Unlimited, "Jaargang 9, Nummer 1, Januari 2001" (NL; 200x-xx-xx), page 42
- ↑ Sega Magazin, "Dezember 2000" (DE; 2000-1x-xx), page 12
- ↑ Strana Igr, "Dekabr 2000 1/2" (RU; 2000-xx-xx), page 48
- ↑ Video Gamer, "December 2000" (UK; 2000-11-01), page 46
- ↑ Video Games, "12/2000" (DE; 2000-11-02), page 102