Rob Baumsteiger of Rainbow Studios 2-3-05
- Updated: February 5, 2005
It’s being labeled as the greatest motocross game of all time! Based on Rainbow Studio’s former ATV Offroad Fury 1 and 2 success, we’re believers of the hype. On March 8th 2005, you will have the opportunity to play a game that stands tall and competes with no other. Rainbow Studios has delivered a true masterpiece and it’s name is MX vs. ATV Unleashed. Resembling their most recent hit titled, MX Unleashed, their new installment combines ATVs and dirt bikes together in one masterpiece of a game.
We got a spectacular preview of the game when we went knocking on Rainbow Studio’s door a few days ago. We were welcomed by none other than Rob Buamsteiger the Executive Producer. Rob showed us everything from the programmer’s work center to the impressive game testing section.
ATV Scene: We see you’ve decided to go with online gaming with MX vs ATV Unleached. How many people will you be able to compete against online?
Baumsteiger: Six. And we’ve added live chat as well. You can talk smack while playing the game if you have the headset for the Xbox. Due to some memory issues we could not make chat work for the PS2. One of the cool things about online gaming on MX vs ATV Unleached is we’ve locked out the pro rider’s names for online gaming. That means if you see the name Keith Little signed in and playing the game, you are actually playing Keith Little, Doug Gust, Jeremiah Jones or any other pro rider featured in the game. This will more than likely be your only chance to beat one of the top named ATV pros.
Here Keith Little’s likeness fights off Jason Dunkelberger’s. The days of unrecognizable ATV professionals are gone! ATV Scene tips our hat to Rob and the entire staff at Rainbow Studios for taking ATV racing to a higher level!
ATV Scene: How does the career mode compare to your previous title MX Unleashed?
Baumsteiger: It’s going to seem like a long time. It will be about the same length as MX Unleashed. It’s not going to be as in-depth as a lot of people want. In other words, you wont be able to start out as a rookie kid and work your way up the ranks. We just didn’t have the time. It will be almost a year that we have been working on this game.
ATV Scene: Tell us more about the ATVs in the game.
Baumsteiger: Developing the ATVs was a lot of work. We couldn’t just drop ATV Offroad Fury 2 physics in there. It was a complete rewrite. You can do things on the ATV that you couldn’t do then like squaring up turns and skimming on top of whoops. The ATV now handles much better than ATV Fury 2. It’s been a lot of hard work. Our guys have been working 100 hour weeks for a long time.
ATV Scene: Who are the pro riders in the game?
Baumsteiger: Dana Creech and Doug Gust just to name a few. There are 12 pro quad riders in the game. There are also 12 dirt bike guys like Jeremy McGrath, Bubba, and Chad Reed to name just a few.
These photos of Rob were shot at the 2004 Budd’s Creek GNC. A key reason as to why Rainbow Studios releases extraordinary playing motocross games is the fact that Rob (among others at Rainbow) actually ride themselves and relate to what their creating.
ATV Scene: What were the reactions of the quad riders when you approached them to have their names and likenesses put in the game?
Baumsteiger: They were all very receptive. They are all for it without a doubt. And yes, we do pay them to be in the game. Rainbow Studios goal is to help out the sport not take advantage of it. What’s more is their roll in the game is a sponsorship deal, so all the guys in the game will be running Rainbow Studios decals on their race quads.
ATV Scene: What about the music in the game? In the past Rainbow Studios has done a pretty good job of putting together an amazing group of talent. Are you up to par with your former titles?
Baumsteiger: Yes we are. It has bands like Nickleback, Black Eyed Peas, Phunk Junkies and Kottonmouth Kings.
ATV Scene: How do you decide who to pick for the soundtrack and do you have to pay royalties?
Baumsteiger: Yes. We have to pay them. We go through an agency. They’ll send me probably 1000 songs. I go through it, narrow it down to fifty and then get some of the other guys on the project team to help decide what to pick for the finalists. We also like to look at what’s going to be, and what’s currently hot. A lot of work goes into just figuring out the soundtracks – that’s for sure.
Everything off-road is available in MX vs ATV including; bikes, ATVs, sand-rails, monster trucks, bi-planes and even 4X4 golf carts. MX vs ATV features Rainbow’s “Rhythm Racing”, their breakthrough physics model that allows players to race through incredible scenes.
ATV Scene: It sounds like you guys are putting an extreme amount of money into this.
Baumsteiger: Yes. It’s an extreme amount of money to make a game. People may think you can make a game for a few hundred thousand but that’s not the case. It takes millions and millions of dollars that just go into the development of the game. We’ve been running a 30 man team for 12 months on this project.
ATV Scene: What about the bikes? Can you ride the pro’s bikes like you can the quads?
Baumsteiger: Every one of the pros will have their individual bike to the closest amount of accuracy that we can do. There are certain sponsors that don’t want to be associated with a game that lets the player do a double back flip. They are just scared someone might try things like that in real life and they don’t want to have anything to do with it. Some other companies want royalties for the use of their name in the game. We don’t have an endless budget on the game and have to watch our investment. We have to operate within a budget or else there won’t be a second installment.
ATV Scene: Going back in the days of ATV Offroad Fury 1 and 2, the quads handled different and some were faster than the others. Which one is going to be the fastest in this game?
Baumsteiger: We really didn’t want to go out of our way to make one pros bike faster than the other. It wouldn’t be fair for the company A’s bike to be faster than company B’s bike. It’s not about that this year. Having the fastest bike out there doesn’t mean your going to be the fastest. This game is about rhythm. It’s knowing when to square up the turn or rail around the turn. We figured there was going to be a lot of people that didn’t want to play certain bikes because they weren’t as fast as the others. We saw it in Fury 2, where no one wanted to race the 250EX. A lot of time goes into the artwork and characteristics of each quad and you have to ask yourself, why spend the time creating a bike when nobody is going to even select it.
Ever wish you could ride like Dana Creech? Here’s your chance. Dana’s banner is also featured in the game. Check it out in the background.
You can compete in new racing events, mini-games and massive free world environments featuring hill climbs, machine challenges, gap jumps and short track races.
ATV Scene: How does you being an ATV racer play into the creation of the game? Are you the secret to why Rainbow is so successful at making excellent mx games?
Baumsteiger: I wouldn’t say that I’m the secret to the game. We’ve got about five guys here that ride and each one of them play an important role into dialing in the realism. We live in a world called “Realism Plus.” It’s realism plus fantasy. That’s where our game stands different from the others. We try to make it as real as possible but we want the players to have fun too. You can do a double back flip, 360 back flip and other cool tricks that add to the fantasy portion.
After a few questions in Rob Baumsteiger’s plush corner office, he led us to the gaming room. The gaming room at Rainbow Studios is amazing! There are six 65 inch DLP high definition TVs. Rob then told us to take the controls and hold on.
The graphics on the MX vs. ATV Unleashed are nothing short of a miracle. Playing on an XBOX with a high definition TV really brings out the detail and stellar graphics. The Rainbow Studios artist can really show off their talent here.
Surprisingly, Rainbow Studios made the handling of the quads even better than ATV Offroad Fury 2. You can get on top of whoops and pound through them. It almost made us feel like we need handlebars instead of video game controllers. The suspension and rider animation look like it’s a real persons actions when pounding the whoops and jumping. Our test pilot on the game was Joe Byrd. Unfortunately our skills aren’t up to par so we didn’t make Joe Byrd’s character look nearly as fast as he does in real life, but it was amazing to see that the rider actually resembled Joe’s all too familiar riding style. Seeing is believing, and every ATV racer must see this to believe it!
With out a doubt, ATV vs. MX is going to be a major hit for PlayStation 2 and XBOX platforms. It’s a definite two thumbs up, but that’s if you can stop playing long enough to put your thumbs up – we sure couldn’t!
Look out for the die-hards on opening day. You’re liable to get hurt just buying the game, as mx enthusiasts of all kinds will have their elbows up and pushing through the crowds to grab the first copies on March 8th.
