Stellar Stone
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| Former type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer games |
| Founded | Santa Monica, California (2000) |
| Defunct | Santa Monica, California (2006) |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, United States |
| Area served | United States, Russia |
| Key people | Sergey Titov (Co-owner)[1] |
| Products | Taxi Racer, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, Midnight Race Club: Supercharged!, Total Pinball, Total Mahjongg and Shanghai, Gettysburg: Civil War Battles, Ultimate Civil War Battles: Robert E. Lee vs. Ulysses S. Grant, Remington Big Buck Trophy Hunt |
Stellar Stone was a video game developer founded in 2000 and based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed games offshore in Russia and Ukraine, with a small staff and low budget of at least $US 15,000. The co-owner of Stellar Stone was Sergey Titov of TS Group Entertainment, who licensed TS Group's Eternity engine out to Stellar Stone in exchange for a substantial portion of the company. They published a total of eight games, most of which fell to the annals of obscurity and never received widespread press coverage. Their first commercial game, Taxi Racer, was released in 2001, but their best-known title was Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, a 2003 video game considered to be one of the worst games ever made.
Most of Stellar Stone's games were published by GameMill Publishing—the sole exception being Taxi Racer, which was published by BestBuys Interactive. What little coverage the company has received has mostly been negative, generally due to the perceived low quality of Big Rigs and sometimes their other titles, all of which (sans Total Mahjongg and Shanghai) were covered by Russian reviewing site Absolute Games.
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[edit] History
Stellar Stone was founded in Santa Monica, California, in 2000.[2] The company was headquartered in the city, with management offices in Los Angeles and London.[2] The company's developers were stationed offshore in Russia[2] and Ukraine.[1] This allowed Stellar Stone to produce games at the cheap price of at least $US 15,000, compared to costs three to five times higher in price with other European or United States-based developers.[2]
Stellar Stone's first title, Taxi Racer, released exclusively in Europe in 2001, was published by European company Best Buys Interactive;[3] the game's engine was developed by Sergey Titov of TS Group Entertainment, who developed his engine for Stellar Stone in exchange for a substansial portion of the company.[1] The company ceased business in 2006 and the members separated.[1] Their Internet domain, Stellarstone.com, is no longer active, and is now commercially cybersquatted.
Although the domain Stellarstone.com is closed, fans of the company and Stellar Stone's infamous Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing video game have made a site with the domain Stellarstone.org. The site is a blogspot site and has a web forum and IRC chat network. Even though this site is not official, some people are taking it seriously by leaving hostile comments in the sites blog posts.
[edit] Games
Stellar Stone developed a total of eight known games—three drag racing games (Taxi Racer, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, and Midnight Race Club: Supercharged!), a puzzle game (Total Mahjongg and Shanghai), a hunting game (Remington Big Buck Trophy Hunt), a pinball game (Total Pinball), and two RTS games based including two games based on the American Civil War (Gettysburg: Civil War Battles and Ultimate Civil War Battles: Robert E. Lee vs. Ulysses S. Grant). These games were all produced by the US-based company GameMill Publishing, with the exception of Taxi Racer, which was produced by Best Buys Interactive. All of the games developed by the company used the proprietary game engine Eternity, developed by company co-owner Sergey Titov of TS Group Entertainment.[1] Their best-known release was the infamous Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, which received overwhelmingly negative review scores for being "blatantly unfinished in nearly every way".[4] The game was a pre-alpha release[1] and, despite Stellar Stone's release of a patch, is still considered to be of very poor quality.[5]
[edit] Reception
Reception and critique for the company of Stellar Stone has generally been negative, mainly due to the company's release of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing,[6] which received almost unanimously negative reviews from critics,[6] being named "the worst game ever made",[7] "only good as a joke",[8] and "completely broken and blatantly unfinished in nearly every way."[9] It was mainly panned due to its complete lack of collision detection, entirely non-existent AI (as the computer opponent does not move, or otherwise participate in the "race" at all), extremely abnormal physics, and its victory screen — an image of a tri-handled trophy accompanied by the typoed caption "YOU'RE WINNER !".[10] In 2004, Big Rigs was listed by GameSpot as one of the worst games ever made (and the only game to receive their lowest score possible, a 1.0).[10] and Thunderbolt.[11] The GameSpot review of Big Rigs called it "as bad as your mind allows you to comprehend", [10] and the video review contained no narration whatsoever, consisting of in-game footage interspersed with wider shots showing the reviewer staring in disbelief, crying, and beating his head on a desk.[10] GameSpot also awarded it its annual Flat-Out Worst Game award for 2004, with its "trophy" being the three-handled "YOU'RE WINNER" trophy from the game itself.[12] After declaring it the "worst game ever made" in a Games You Should Never Buy, X-Play's Morgan Webb refused to even rate Big Rigs as their scale only went from 1 to 5.[7]
Brad Hicks of SwankWorld felt that releasing the game was an "embarrassment" to them, as well as "the people who produced it." He also quoted their website as saying their goal was to "provide our clients with best of gaming technologies and cut their development expenses, allowing them to concentrate on product rather than on technology hustles of development," countering with how Big Rigs' unfinished state seemed to render that statement null and void. "I don't know what kind of money there were going to lose if they gave the game more development time so they could crank out something of even middling quality," he continued. "People say PC gaming is dead, and games like this are starting to prove that."[13] The game has been consistently listed among the worst video games of all-time by GameSpot,[14] Metacritic,[15] and GameRankings.[16][17] Despite poor reception, sales for the company have been moderate;[14][1] Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing sold approximately 20,000 copies,[14] while Gettysburg: Civil War Battles and Ultimate Civil War Battles: Robert E. Lee vs. Ulysses S. Grant, combined, sold over 100,000 copies in the United States.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Q and A with Sergey Titov". you'rewinner.com. 2008-09-21. http://www.yourewinner.com/index.php?action=stitovinterview. Retrieved 2010-05-04.
- ^ a b c d "Stellar Stone LLC :: Company". Stellar Stone. Archived from the original on 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20040415033140/stellarstone.com/company.html. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
- ^ "Taxi Racer for PC - Technical Information, Game Information, Technical Support". GameSpot. 2010-06-09. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/taxiracer/tech_info.html?tag=tabs%3Bsummary. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
- ^ GameSpot.com review of Big Rigs, Jan 15 2004
- ^ Big Rigs Patch release at GameSpot
- ^ a b "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/bigrigsovertheroadracing. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ a b Satterfield, Shane (2004-03-23). "Games You Should Never Buy". X-Play. Archived from the original on 2005-04-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20050406001445/http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/484/Games_You_Should_Never_Buy.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Wadleigh, Matt (2004-03-22). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Review - PC". Thunderbolt Games. http://www.thunderboltgames.com/reviews/viewreview.php?rid=381. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Navarro, Alex (2004-01-14). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing for PC Review". GameSpot. http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/driving/bigrigsotrr/review.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ a b c d Navarro, Alex (January 14, 2004) Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing for PC Review, GameSpot. Retrieved on May 25, 2008.
- ^ Wadleigh, Matt (March 22, 2004). Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing - PC review. Thunderbolt. Retrieved on May 25, 2008.
- ^ GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004: Flat-Out Worst Game. GameSpot. Retrieved on July 11, 2008.
- ^ Hicks, Brad. "Big Rigs Over the Road Racing (PC) Review". SwankWorld. http://www.swankworld.net/Games/PC/bigrigs/bigrigsreview.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ a b c "Flat-Out Worst Game". GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004. GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day3w_12.html.
- ^ "Search Results from Metacritic.com". The Worst Games of Metacritic. Metacritic. http://apps.metacritic.com/search/process?ty=3&ts=&tfs=game_all&sb=4&release_date_s=&release_date_e=&metascore_s=1&metascore_e=100&x=11&y=8. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/919220-big-rigs-over-the-road-racing/index.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
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