Equestriad David Gibbon give his verdict on the Equestriad computer game When you set off to the local games store, adrenalin pumping, ready to splash out on the latest sporting extravaganza, chances are you’ll be thinking motor racing, football or ice hockey. Video Games by Jason Parker 3 hrs ago.
Video game developer | |
Industry | Video games |
---|---|
Founded | 1996 |
Defunct | 2009 |
Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
Key people | 1996-2007:
2007-2009:
|
Transmission Games (originally known as IR Gurus) was an Australian game development company, specialising in sports and action games. Originally, Transmission Games was established as IR Gurus Pty Ltd in 1996 by Craig Laughton, Andrew Niere, and Ian Cunliffe with the motto 'Game Play is Everything'. The company name was changed in February 2008 to Transmission Games and was later purchased by a third party investor. The company was subsequently wound up some 18 months later by the new owner.
Transmission Games had developed many games, including: Ashes Cricket 2009 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, Heatseeker for the PlayStation 2, Wii, and PSP, Heroes of the Pacific for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC, the AFL Premiership series of games for the PlayStation 2, and The Saddle Club – Willowbrook Stables.
The company was based in Melbourne, Australia and its last games released were Ashes Cricket 2009 (which was published by Codemasters), Heatseeker, AFL Premiership 2007 and Brian Lara Pressure Play.
Development history[edit]
Transmission Games released fifteen games between 1996 and 2009, including Australia's No.1 selling PC game in 2003, The Saddle Club – Willowbrook Stables based on the successful TV show The Saddle Club. Transmission Games's AFL games, including Kevin Sheedy AFL Coach 2002, AFL Live 2003, AFL Live 2004, AFL Live Premiership Edition, AFL Premiership 2005, AFL Premiership 2006 and AFL Premiership 2007 all debuted at No.1 on the Australian sales charts, with AFL Premiership 2006 staying at the top of the all-formats charts for six weeks.
Arcade flight games[edit]
In 2005, Transmission Games released the award-winning arcade style flight simulation game Heroes of the Pacific for the PC, PS2 and Xbox formats and was originally developed by startup Melbourne studio Thatgame who later merged with IR Gurus. Heroes of the Pacific was published in PAL territories by Codemasters and in NTSC territories by Ubisoft. Heroes of the Pacific garnered favourable reviews (averaging 76%-78% across all platforms), and received a number of awards, including Australian Game of the Year and PC Game of the Year from the Game Developer's Association of Australia in 2005.
Following Heroes of the Pacific, Transmission Games co-developed Heatseeker, a modern flight combat game, with Codemasters. Heatseeker was released in Europe on 30 March 2007. Heroes Over Europe, the sequel to Heroes of the Pacific, was released in September 2009.
Sports games[edit]
In 2001, IR Gurus began development of stadium-based sports titles. They released AFL Live 2003 in October 2002, followed by AFL Live 2004 in September 2003 which was published by Acclaim Entertainment. IR Gurus continued to develop AFL games, including AFL Live Premiership Edition released in April 2004, AFL Premiership 2005 released in September 2005, AFL Premiership 2006 released in July 2006, and finally AFL Premiership 2007 released in June 2007.
In addition, Transmission Games developed the officially licensed GAA Gaelic Football game Gaelic Games: Football exclusively for the PlayStation 2 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment of Ireland on 11 November 2005. Following its release, Gaelic Games: Football was the highest selling PlayStation 2 game of all time in Ireland.[citation needed]
Transmission Games followed Gaelic Games: Football with Gaelic Games: Hurling, and Gaelic Games: Football 2 in November 2007. Both of these games were developed exclusively for the PlayStation 2 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment of Ireland.
In 2007 Transmission Games worked with fellow Melbourne company Acheron Design to develop Brian Lara Pressure Play, a PSP version of Codemasters's Brian Lara series of Cricket games. The game debuted at No.1 on the UK sales charts when it was released in mid-2007.
Transmission Games' last sports game release was Ashes Cricket 2009, the latest in the Codemasters' series of cricket games, formerly known as Brian Lara International Cricket. The game was released in August 2009 in England and Australia. The game debuted at number 1 in the All Formats UK charts.[1]
Equestrian games[edit]
Transmission Games was also known for development and publishing of equestrian-related computer and console game titles. From 1996 to early 2000, Transmission Games developed its own equestrian computer games Mary King's Riding Star and Equestriad in conjunction with Melbourne software companies Blue Tongue Entertainment and Tantalus Interactive. Both Mary King's Riding Star and Equestriad continue to have worldwide appeal and have been sold on the PC and PlayStation formats in seven different languages. In 2002 Transmission Games released The Saddle Club – Willowbrook Stables, featuring the license from The Saddle Club television show.
In 2007, Transmission Games released Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge on PlayStation 2 and PC. Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge is an equestrian game based on the sport of 3-day horse eventing. The game features Show Jumping, Dressage and Cross Country events.
Games[edit]
- Heroes Over Europe (2009)
- Ashes Cricket 2009 (2009)
- Gaelic Games: Hurling (2007)
- Gaelic Games: Football 2 (2007)
- Brian Lara Pressure Play (2007)
- AFL Premiership 2007 (2007)
- Heatseeker (2007)
- Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge (2006)
- AFL Premiership 2006 (2006)
- Heroes of the Pacific (2005)
- Gaelic Games: Football (2005)
- AFL Premiership 2005 (2005)
- AFL Live Premiership Edition (2004)
- AFL Live 2004 (2003)
- AFL Live 2003 (2002)
- Kevin Sheedy AFL Coach 2002 (2002)
- The Saddle Club – Willowbrook Stables (2002)
- Equestriad (2001)
- Mary King's Riding Star (1999)
External links[edit]
- IR Gurus at MobyGames
- Heroes of the Pacific at MobyGames
- AFL Premiership 2006 at MobyGames
- AFL Premiership 2005 at MobyGames
- Gaelic Games: Football at MobyGames
- AFL Live Premiership Edition at MobyGames
- AFL Live 2004 at MobyGames
- AFL Live 2003 at MobyGames
- IR Gurus Profile at IGN
References[edit]
- ^Ashes Cricket 2009 Debuts at Number 1 in UK Charts
2. Transmission games closes doors report
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transmission_Games&oldid=929871578'
Tantalus Interactive | |
Proprietary limited company | |
Industry | Video games |
---|---|
Founded | 1994; 26 years ago (as Tantalus Media) |
Founders | Andrew Bailey Trevor Nuriden Arthur Kakouris |
Headquarters | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Tom Crago, CEO Joss Ellis, Director of Development | |
Products | See complete products listing |
Number of employees | 20-30 contractors |
Website | http://www.tantalus.com.au/ |
Tantalus Media (formerly Tantalus Interactive) is a video game developer based in Melbourne, Australia, founded in 1994 by former Beam Software programmers Trevor Nuridin, Tim Bennett and Andrew Bailey. In the mid 1990s Tantalus was partly owned by UK developer Perfect Entertainment, which secured contracts with Psygnosis for ports of their popular PlayStation games to the Sega Saturn. During this time, Tantalus was known as Tantalus Entertainment, but reverted to Tantalus Interactive after they became independent when separating from Perfect in 1998. Private investment then allowed the business to develop its in-house title 7th Gear to the point it was able to secure a contract from Acclaim to use the game engine for a 'kart' style game with the South Park license. The company changed its name to Tantalus Media in 2007 following a hostile buy out from then CEO Tom Crago and an investment from private equity company Netus.[1] In 2010 following the completion of the DS & PSP title Megamind: The blue defender, CEO Tom Crago re-acquired the business from Netus.
Tantalus Media are best known for licensed platform conversions and have created over 45 games for platforms as such as Xbox, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and PC, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Nintendo Switch and iOS.[2]
- 2Games by Tantalus Media
History[edit]
Initially Tantalus were best known for porting games from the PlayStation and arcade to the Sega Saturn.[3] Their first original title was South Park Rally, completed for all four platforms of the time in eighteen months. The fast pipeline was largely attributed to the already existing in house title - 7th Gear. The development team at Tantalus worked on their first handheld game released ATV Quad Power Racing for the Game Boy Advance another title Woody Woodpecker: Crazy Castle 5 also developed concurrently was delayed by Kemco to July 2002 (interesting this title saw the return of director Trevor Nuridin to coding taking the lead role in its development), and they released Space Race, their first PS2 game, that same year. They used two cross-platform engines: CRIS for handhelds, with skinned mesh rendering, and the Mercury Engine for new generation consoles in its early years.[4]
CRIS (Character Render Interactive System) was developed by CTO Andrew Bailey following discussions with studio producers Stephen Handbury and Arthur Kakouris for use on the Game Boy Advance (GBA). Using a unique procedure, it was able to render 3D mesh on the handheld system. CRIS was used mainly in the 2003 GBA title Top Gear Rally. Released to critical acclaim, it showed the power of a system at it peak, while raising the bar for racing games on hand-held systems.[5] Tantalus won 'Best Game' at the 2003 Australian Game Developer Awards in Melbourne for its effort.[6]
In addition to licensed video games, the developer released two original titles, Trickstar and Black Market Bowling. In 2005, Tantalus' had two prominent original IP titles that did not managed to attract publisher interest. Metal Shell was developed into a playable demo, originally a vehicle shoot-em-up on the PlayStation 2 in 2003, the feature making it popular was deformable terrain as vehicles and shells exploded. In 2005, new concepts and a short promotional video were developed in-house by the art team, shown at E3 that year it was promoted as a Battlefield 1942-type game, set in the future. However, the 2003 promotional video was seen by players of the Toronto-based games producer Longbow Digital Arts 'Treadmarks' tank combat and racing game, and several issues were flagged up, leading to graphical comparisons drawn in a side-by-side fashion; they were incredibly alike, in one case down to exact sprite design. Tom Crago was contacted directly on the issue and denied any infer of 'copying' (or trying to copy) Treadmarks, despite Tantalus holding Treadmarks source material. Archived video footage of both titles can be found and compared on YouTube.[7]
Anaka was first pitched as a jump n' run title for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, while only a document existed featuring loose details. In 2005 an animation feature short was made with the help of Act3animation as part of a pilot for television.[8] In 2006, a touch-only Nintendo DS demo was created. Players could control the character indirectly by touching the screen where they wanted them to go. It was a mix between a jump n' run and a traditional adventure game.
The developer’s best performing title was the 2007 girl’s horse riding simulator Pony Friends for the Nintendo DS, which sold more than 1 million copies, making it the largest-selling single-format game developed in Australia. Previous work on the Sony Playstation developing the title Mary-Kate and Ashley Winners Circle (Acclaim) (the 'massive world' technology developed by Andrew Bailey for Winners Circle was largely wasted on a branded title and an aging system) and Equestriad 2001 (Midas) had given the studio the background experience and tools to develop the title.[9] By 2008, Tantalus was running two studios, and during that time the studio worked on Cars Race-O-Rama and MX Reflex for the Nintendo DS and PSP, as well as Pony Friends 2 for the Wii & Nintendo DS, and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole for the latter system. Shortly after completion of Cars Race-o-Rama in 2009, the Brisbane studio started work on the company's first digitally distributed title, Drift Street International, for the Nintendo DSi. Meanwhile, the Melbourne office began work on Megamind for PSP and DS, while also prototyping demos for 360, iPhone, and PS3.
In the decade since, Tantalus briefly re-branded to Straight Right, relocated its entire studio and underwent a number of changes which despite keeping the business branding of 'Tantalus' to this day, heralded a radical change for the developer. During this time Tantalus Media dabbled in some touch-gaming development and largely returned to its former self- a studio dedicated to porting on Nintendo platforms.
Games by Tantalus Media[edit]
Developer[edit]
- Stargate (SNES, 1994)
- Area 51 (Saturn, PS, PC – 1995)
- Wipeout (Saturn, 1996)
- Krazy Ivan (PS, Saturn, PC – 1996)
- Manx TT Superbike (Saturn, PC – 1997)
- Wipeout 2097 (Saturn, 1997)
- The House of the Dead (Saturn, PC – 1998)
- South Park Rally (DC, N64, PS, PC – 1999)
- Mary-Kate and Ashley Winners Circle (Acclaim - 2001)
- Equestriad 2001 (Midas)
- ATV: Quad Power Racing (PS, GBA – 2002)
- Looney Tunes: Space Race (DC – 2000) (PS2 – 2002)
- Woody Woodpecker in Crazy Castle 5 (GBA – 2002)
- Monster Truck Madness (GBA – 2003)
- Men in Black II: Alien Escape (GameCube, 2003)
- Unreal II: The Awakening (Xbox, 2003)
- Top Gear Rally (GBA, 2003)
- The Polar Express (GBA – 2004)
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius – Attack of the Twonkies (GBA – 2004)
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The Yellow Avenger (DS, PSP – 2005)
- Trick Star (GBA, 2006)
- MX vs. ATV: On the Edge (PSP – 2006)
- Cars Mater-National Championship (GBA, DS – 2007)
- MX vs. ATV: Untamed (DS, PSP – 2007)
- Pony Friends (DS – 2007)
- The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (DS – 2008)
- Pony Friends 2 (Wii, DS, PC – 2009)
- MX vs. ATV Reflex (PSP, DS – 2009)
- Cars Race-O-Rama (PSP, DS – 2009)
- Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (DS – 2010)
- Megamind (video game) (PSP, DS – 2010)
- Super Speed Machines (DS – 2010)
- Ben 10: Galactic Racing (DS – 2011)
- Funky Barn (3DS, Wii U – 2012)
- Pony Trails (iOS – 2012)
- Zombi (PS4, Xbox One, PC – 2015)
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Wii U – 2016)[10]
- Sonic Mania (Nintendo Switch – 2017)
- Rime (Nintendo Switch – 2017)
- Cities: Skylines (PS4, Xbox One - 2017 Nintendo Switch – 2018)
- Stellaris: Console Edition (PS4, Xbox One - TBA)
- Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Microsoft Windows – 2019)[11]
Publisher[edit]
- AMF Bowling 2004 – Black Market Games (Xbox, 2003)
- Black Market Bowling – Black Market Games (PS2, 2005)
- Heat Shield – Black Market Games (iOS, 2009)
- Drift Street International – Tantalus (DSi, 2010)
- Funky Barn Download – Tantalus (Wii U, 2012)
Studios[edit]
Tantalus' first office was in Queen Street in Melbourne's CBD from 1994 to 2000. They then moved to 'The Tea House' at South Wharf, Victoria in South Melbourne where they stayed until late 2011. In December 2011, they relocated their headquarters to Fitzroy, a suburb of Melbourne. In December 2008, Tantalus established an office in Kelvin Grove, Brisbane, supporting a small team to increase development capacity. At that time Tantalus employed just over 70 staff across the two offices, with 5 titles in production across 5 platforms. The studios were equipped to handle mutable projects, with 3-4 titles were being developed at any one time.
During the last half of 2009, due to a shift in the games industry in Australia, Tantalus Media closed its Brisbane office, while also making much of the staff in the Melbourne office redundant. During the first half of 2010 the company was reduced to a staff of under 18, at a time when many Australian development studios were closing.[12] By December 2012, the company was in development of two new titles and is currently focusing on digital distribution, developing for the Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, iPhone/iPad and Android devices.
References[edit]
- ^'Sydney Morning Herald Screenoplay: Developer Dreams'
- ^http://www.mobygames.com/company/tantalus-media-pty-ltd
- ^Leadbetter, Rich (March 1997). 'Manx TT Super Bike'. Sega Saturn Magazine. No. 17. Emap International Limited. p. 14.
- ^'Tantalus Media pty ltd'
- ^'Top Gear Rally'. Gamespot. Archived from the original on 11 July 2011.
- ^'Top Gear Rally Award'. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.
- ^'Metal Shell'. Archived from the original on 28 March 2011.'Treadmarks'
- ^'Anaka on NickToons'. Archived from the original on 28 March 2011.
- ^'Sydney Morning Herald: Local Hero'.
- ^'In Real Life A HD Remake Of Twilight Princess Is Being Developed In Australia'. kotaku.co.au. 12 November 2015. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
- ^Wright, Steve (19 June 2019). 'Aussie devs Wicked Witch, Tantalus working on Age of Empires 2'. Stevivor. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ^http://www.tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/130510/ign-editorial-on-the-state-of-the-australian-games-industry
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tantalus_Media&oldid=929870487'