CHASING THE HARE

IT WAS A BREAKTHROUGH IN 3D CITY EXPLORATION, AND REFLECTIONS WAS THE FIRST

Reflections found itself when it turned its back on the track. During the ’90s, most driving games were straightforward circuit racers, and the Newcastle studio’s Destruction Derby series appeared no different – sending stock cars around figure-of-eight loops ad infinitum. Only when an inevitable pile-up happened did Reflections’ speciality emerge: realistic physics and crunchy collisions.

Those traits were finally set free by in 1999 – another driving game, but crucially, not a racing game. Studio founder Martin Edmondson embraced his first love of car chases, setting getaway, but with a different goal in mind – capturing the sway of the 1968 Ford Mustang in Bullitt as Steve McQueen executed a right-angle handbrake turn. This was no longer sport but cinema, a stylish and dangerous dive into a criminal underworld.