The 'Renegade' trilogy (and what happened?)

[mritoldyouso]

Hi, I've been a long time lurker here, first time poster though.

Thanks for producing such great games - Renegade was one of the first beatemups I played and got me hooked on the genre, IMO it actually plays better than the arcade version. While Target Renegade was one of my all time favourite games on the Spectrum - brilliant gameplay, graphics and music! In fact, I still enjoy playing it from time to time! However, like a lot of people, I was just a tad disappointed with the 3rd installment of the series...

So I was just wondering what influenced the decision to switch the formula in such a hugely successful beatemup series to a game that's less like a beatemup (fewer fighting moves and weapons) to something that's, if anything, more like a platformer?

I guess there's the need to inject something different into a new installment of any series, but surely this was quite a radical departure. Anyone remember the meeting when the idea was proposed?

Was it a marketing decison in light of the outcry (from non-gamers) about violent video games? Or did the new development team just want to add their own style to the series? Or was it something more cynical, like (rightly, it turns out) expecting the game to sell well based on the title alone?

In asking this, I feel a bit like the comic book nerd from the Simpsons - "worst episode ever!" and all that. Hope I don't sound like I'm trolling though, I'm just curious.

[Bill Harbison]

hi - thanks for posting - love the avatar!

As far as i can remember with Renegade 3 the decision was made between Gary and the team responsible for the game - I think probably Gary felt that the formula was looking a little tired and needed some new elements - I don't know about removing some of the fighting moves that may have been a memory issue due to the amount of graphics in the game.

In all honesty, game design documents were not as important then as they are now and like a few games it was probably cobbled together quickly without much attention to gameplay.

I could be completely wrong about this - i think Gary needs to shed some light on this one.

[Gary]

Thanks, Buck-passer Bill!

This probably sounds like a cop-out, but I hand-on-heart don't remember anything about the whys and wherefores of the design elements in R3. All I can speculate upon, as Bill suggests, is that we were worried that the franchise might be getting a little stale and wanted to inject something fresh into the Renegade series.
In hindsight, it's probably best to leave well alone if the legacy is successful, but perhaps the team involved wanted to stretch it a little.

Such decisions were never taken lightly and so it was done with 'best intentions'.... if that's any consolation!

Glad you enjoyed the first two so much anyway.

Cheers,

Gary

[mritoldyouso]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry for not posting again sooner. Heh it's good to know you weren't all sitting around swigging champagne and throwing £50 notes onto the fire while cackling at the thought of crushing every gamers' expectations

So in a way, the series was a victim of its own success - Target Renegade pushed the limits of the hardware available, and created unrealistic expectations of what the followup would be like.

I decided to have another try at playing it this week, with a pretty open mind. I must admit that the idea of the game might have actually have worked out if the fighting aspect had been better. I mean, there were good hack&slash beatemups being made at the time, and combining that aspect with bare knuckle fighting might have been a pretty cool idea.

I think the biggest weakness is that the fighting seems based around the C64 version of TR (which was quite a lot simpler than the other versions). I can only wonder how it might have turned out had it been an extension of the Speccy or Amstrad game engine. Hmm, this gives me an interesting angle for a remake...