Game Ideas: Boat Racing?
Sunday, January 1st, 2006Boat racing what is that I never heard of it. Below there is a game idea featuring you guessed it boat racing but on a very different playing field. Check it out.
Now before I start this I will say that the following game idea is very simple and has no real story behind it. In addition, this is quite a read so get ready. I find this genre of boat racing quite lacking in the current and next generation of gaming systems. The genre I am talking about is Boat Racing. Huh? What? Never heard of that? There has not been many or even any boat racing games.
I got this idea from watching several James Bond movies and The World is not Enough really sparked my brain. A strange place to come up with a game idea you say, well not really. If you have seen the opening of the movie, you know that Bond is in that black boat chasing that assassin woman. Anyhow, you see Bond going through tough situations, through explosions, down the street, through buildings, away from police. Well you take this idea and combine it with ideas from the recent Need for Speed and other racing games and you have an idea for a boat racing game.
The game that I see in my mind has a normal race mode but many others including a chase or be chased mode where you escape or chase another vehicles. There would be police chasing a character (you) in boats and you try to get away on a lake or river or other type of water source or you chase after someone that has a prize or special item.
In these certain water areas, there are ramps, speed ramps, drops, obstacles, and other types of marine fixtures including fish, dolphins, and more. You use or avoid these objects to your advantage. Obviously, most people can figure out what ramps would be used for and if you do not well the ramps are used to achieve air, avoid traps and obstacles, animals, racing competitors, etc. You can use these ramps to jump through buildings, bridges and over things like other players, animals, etc. Drops would be like waterfalls where the boat flies off the ledge and down to other water. Mostly this game is quite similar to Wave Race except the use of boats instead of jet skis. Outside this chase or be chase mode there is normal racing or quick race, free roam, Championships, ocean races, and more.
Now for locations, if I can go back to the James Bond movies where there have been many boat chases. There have been locations in the Bond universe that had boat chases and many would be great for racing. Places such as China, UK, Louisiana, and more. I will specifically talk about down south in America places like Louisiana and New Orleans. In these areas there are lots of low laying land that could be used for shortcuts and is excellent for obstacles including trees, swamplands, and animals such as Alligators. When racing in these areas, you would have to drive around avoiding trees by turning, diving in the water, jumping above, etc. In addition if your moving pretty good you can drive right over land for bigger shortcuts.
What type of boats would be used? Well there would be several but mostly speedboats, hovercraft, swamp buggies, and swamp boats. You can even customize your vehicle or create your own with decals, parts, other interesting add-ons and novelty items. To be able to customize your boats you will be awarded money from the races specifically in the championships and ocean races. Some of the add-ons would be weapons (grenades, beer cans, chickens, other things), turbo boosts, NOS, bigger engines, fans, lights, etc. Some of the novelty items might be T-shirts or hats that your character wears, pet animals that come for the ride, floaties (hehe you know those orange things around kids arms), Plaques with funny sayings, etc.
To make the game interesting there are several crazy characters as drivers and they can interact with each other such as tag teaming where two characters can attack and nail another boat so they can advance. The game is not strictly about hardcore boat racing the game will feature parts that are funny such as one boat driver is a country boy (red neck, no offense) and if he gets passed in a race the red neck will throw beer cans at the other driver or pull out his shotgun and start shooting away.
In addition, by me taking cues from Mario Kart, the drivers besides their interactivity say things as they pass by such as yeehaw or other funny things like light hearted insults, Yo Momma jokes, etc. Also there will be spectators that will watch and be part of the races so there is a possibility of race watchers to throw ice chests, chairs or other objects into your path if they don’t like you passing another driver or just plain getting in your way.
More so there will be other boats that are driving around despite the racing for more obstacles and even more funny actions such as you drive through their boats they stand up and yell at you or they jump out of the way screaming. And what I touched on earlier about going through buildings you see people running away while you crash through their place of business or crashing through a café through tables and chairs.
In conclusion, I would say this would be a fun game and would be a combination of the EA Need for speed and other racing games, with touches of Redneck Rampage, Mario Kart, and Wave Race. Maybe Nintendo could make a game like this or possibly EA. I know EA looks at this site once in awhile so maybe they will notice this.
I referenced the James Bond movies due to many memories of boat chases and I am not saying make a Bond game featuring racing though that would be interesting.
