I just picked up the latest copy of Hyper, and on the back page there is an ad for the next issue, which has a giant picture of one of the Transformers and the title "Transformers - One of the best games to come out of Australia?".
Now, Transformers does look quite smashing if I do say so myself, and when I read this ad I also wondered what everyone elses favourite Australian game is. Well, what is it?
(Also, on the same page in Hyper, they say they are going into an Australian development house. I'm guessing that its Atari, with all the Transformers reviews and all.)
quote:Originally posted by Red 5
IMO it would be one of the following: GP500 (PC), TD Le Mans(DC) or Grand Prix Challenge(PS2)... all good in their own way.
Even though you picked 3 titles I worked on I don't think you are thinking far enough back...
How about:
- Way of the exploding fist
- The Hobbit
for their time they were two of the greatest games in the world, which just happened to have been made in Australia.
quote:Originally posted by Zaph
quote:Originally posted by Red 5
IMO it would be one of the following: GP500 (PC), TD Le Mans(DC) or Grand Prix Challenge(PS2)... all good in their own way.Even though you picked 3 titles I worked on I don't think you are thinking far enough back...
How about:
- Way of the exploding fist
- The Hobbitfor their time they were two of the greatest games in the world, which just happened to have been made in Australia.
I had a feeling you might join in when you saw that [;)]
Those other titles you mentioned might be great but they're not my style of game, the ones I chose are IMO the best from Australia.
Zaph, the bottom line is you need to make another racing game... I'll help you out [;)]
I think most of you know I would nominate The Way of the Exploding Fist due to my interview with Gregg Barnett [:)]
C'mon, that game got the ball rolling on the 1vs1 combat/fighting genre and spawned countless clones on various platforms! Not only was it original and groundbreaking, but they simply got everything right with it! Great artwork (colourful backdrops, believable character animation. So many moves/attacks possible with one joystick and a button), extremely catchy music, and the gameplay was and still is top notch! You can block, parry, do combo's to some extent.. You could be be cheap against the computer real early on by sweeping, but he gets much harder later on.. player vs player mode was so much fun.
I like Grand Prix Challenge(PS2) too, that was a very polished looking game.. I haven't played The Hobbit, but I know that made a huge impact in the game industry when that was released, but Exploding Fist is my number 1. [:)]
Sumea has a pretty big list of games produced in Australia/NZ, and it's probably the only place where you could find info like this.. (There is a large website that compiles data from every game they could add that has a fair few Aussie and Kiwi games, but you can't get a list from, say, all the Australian games from their database.. I'm sure Sumea has a bigger and more updated list than theirs anyway.)
Anyway, the local games are listed in their developer profiles on Sumea, so you won't get one big long list of all the games. It's by no means a complete list, especially when it comes to older games since sometimes it's hard to find anything about them.. I haven't included a lot of the old games by Melbourne House too since they've done TONNES of 8-bit, Snes games [:)]
Perhaps at some point someone from Melbourne House could send in a photo of the Big Plaque in their reception area that has on it every game melbourne house has created. This is, a Big Plaque! and contains (at a rough count when i looked at it) over 150 titles on around 15-20+ systems. Some of the titles are repeated (on different systems) but it is still a lot of games!
My favourite game from australia might be the Usagi Yojimbo game that melbourne house did for C64. It had some very interesting/unique play elements to fir with the samurai theme, including respect, honour and karma. For example, if you drew your sword (you could have it drawn or sheathed) in front of a monk or peasant, you would lose honour/karma. If you gave a peasant some of your money you would gain karma. If you ever ran out of karma, Usagi would commit hara-kiri to attone for his dishonour!
I wasn't very good at the game though, but i still liked it quite a lot.
There are a lot of australian games i really should get my hands on some day, but too many games, not enough time! And then some people go and release great games on platforms that i don't have!! (hint port transformers to xbox hint) :)
CYer, Blitz
I just thought I would point out that the biggest selling Australian game of all time is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, by Krome studios in Brisbane. I guess that?s because the strong Aussie content is so popular with the kiddies over seas. Interestingly, it?s actually in the top 50 of best selling games of all time, world wide (at least this is what I?ve heard, I could be wrong!). I think transformers would have a very good chance of competing with these statistics though, as there must be A LOT of transformer fans around the world, and if the game turns out to be as good as it?s looking, it should do very well. However, Krome is currently developing Ty 2, so Melbourne house could have some serious competition beating the Brisbane developer on the best selling games list.
Despite which developer manages to make the most sales, it?s great to see that Australian game developers can compete with the sales figures from the big overseas developers. Our games industry is indeed growing strong.
LOL @ brain, indeed.
i have played Ty - but i cant say i like the game, but i just dont like the whole genre of game, i can however say that the atmosphere created by the art / sound was done REALLY well, the colours are all rich and vibrant, paramount for a younger age title.
It was one for me to look at - but not really to play. Any platformer that converts me, will be a rare breed indeed.
Racing games... hmmm not really my cuppo coffee either, Way of the exploding fist - now that was a game, i played over and over, and im not much of a fighting game enthusiast either.
But it would definately have to get my vote - hobbit a close second.
The only game that had aussie content i liked was Crash Bandicoot.....*Relises bandicoots aren't australian* DAMN!
Ok since i only found out by this thread that Dark Reign was Aussie, then that's got my vote. But it will soon change when Transformers comes out. *Starts singing transformers song*
Transformers robots in disguise,
Transformers more than meets the eye,
Transformers that is all i know,
Tranformers i'll go back to the start.
Transformers robots in disguise,
Transformers more than meets the eye,
Transformers that is all i know,
Tranformers i'll go back to the start.
Transformers robots in disguise,
Transformers more than meets the eye,
Transformers that is all i know,
Tranformers i'll go back to the start.
quote:Originally posted by palantir
I just thought I would point out that the biggest selling Australian game of all time is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, by Krome studios in Brisbane. I guess that?s because the strong Aussie content is so popular with the kiddies over seas. Interestingly, it?s actually in the top 50 of best selling games of all time, world wide (at least this is what I?ve heard, I could be wrong!).
I'd love to know where you got those stats (not doubting them, just dont know where to find them). How many copies did Ty sell ?
Melbourne House sold over 500,000 copies of The Hobbit, and 500,000 of Way of the Exploding fist, both on tape back in '83-'86 !
To put that in perspective, Doom only sold 1.1 million (similar figures for Doom2 ten years later :-)
Success for any Aussie company is good for all the others, since it shows that top games can be made here (on the same grounds, Aussie companies folding or failing to deliver can't be good news)
quote:Originally posted by Brian
*cough*kissass*cough* @;-D
Er, yeah, sorry [8)] - I guess I was still in job interview mode when I typed that. Didn't mean to lay it on so thick!
*wipes brown stuff off nose*
I was just trying to say how cool it is that Aussie developers can be as successful as the big overseas games, and also how it will be interesting to see how both Transformers and Ty 2 do (both being pretty big Aussie titles near completion).
And BTW, I didn?t say anything about liking Ty, just that it sold well. I don?t really go for 3d platform games.
quote:Originally posted by Zaph
I'd love to know where you got those stats (not doubting them, just dont know where to find them). How many copies did Ty sell ?
Like I said, it's only what I've heard, so I could be wrong. But according to their web site TY sold over 1 million copies. [url]www.kromestudios.com.au[/url]
quote:From Krome's web site:
?As the creator of TY the Tasmanian Tiger, Krome has the number one selling Australian game of all time, having sold over a million units to date.?
quote:From Krome's web site:
?As the creator of TY the Tasmanian Tiger, Krome has the number one selling Australian game of all time, having sold over a million units to date.?
Nice, that would definately put it up there at the top, or close to it. Very few games crack the million mark, so it's a huge achievement to get there.
I think there might be a few Aussie titles trying to break that record. Two I think have a shot at it are:
- Transformers - no bias :-)
- Tribes Vengance (if people can drag themselves away from Counterstrike and Battlefield!)
and there are a bunch of others that have a shot at it coming along (check the sumea list of Aussie games, there are some big names in there)
http://www.sumea.com.au/sdevelopers.asp
quote:it?s actually in the top 50 of best selling games of all time, world wide (at least this is what I?ve heard, I could be wrong!).
Hmm, I don't think that is right, considering there are around 40 games that have done more than a million units in the US alone this generation - when you go back and add in the 8/16/32-bit era games, it looks even more unlikely. Selling a million copies is still an impressive effort, though.
quote:Originally posted by stonedwal:
when you go back and add in the 8/16/32-bit era games, it looks even more unlikely.
Yeah, but I wonder how many of those old games would be on a top 50 best selling list? Not talking about units moved, but $$$. When you consider inflation, the cost of games going up, and an ever-growing market/audience (and there are probably other factors), I get the feeling that it would be mostly current generation games in the top 50 best selling list.
It would be very interesting to see sales figures of all the top games. Personally I believe that TY would be in the top 50, considering that it sold around the same as something as big as the Doom games (plus I heard this stat from a reliable, if somewhat biased source [;)]). Don't underestimate the selling power of popular children?s games.
quote:Where the hell is the edit post button on these forums anyway?
- It's the button with the little piece of paper and a pen over it, that said "Edit Reply" when you hold the cursor over it, and only shows up on your own posts.
[:)]
quote:When you consider inflation, the cost of games going up, and an ever-growing market/audience (and there are probably other factors), I get the feeling that it would be mostly current generation games in the top 50 best selling list.
Game prices have been stagnate on the consoles since I started buying games in 1990 - except for a sharp rise in 1994 when the average cart-based game price was ~$149.95
I'll see if I can get a list of the top selling titles this generation once I get home later tonight.
quote:considering that it sold around the same as something as big as the Doom games
Personally, I consider this to be a flawed comparison. Piracy is much more widespread on the PC than the consoles, so it is much harder to compare the two. Compare the biggest selling PC title - The Sims with 6 Million copies, to the biggest selling console title - Super Mario Brothers 3 with 19 Million copies, and you'll see what I am getting at (Guinness lists Super Mario Brothers as the top selling title with 34 million, but the truth is that most of these copies were pack-ins with the NES console).
quote:Don't underestimate the selling power of popular children?s games
Believe me, I don't. People will hound on Nintendo for producing games with allegedly childish themes, but they're still the #2 publisher of games worldwide (possibly #1 when you consider that The Pokemon Company is a separate entity that Nintendo controls). You don't have to be a child to enjoy a game that doesn't deal in excessive amounts of gore.
IMO it would be one of the following: GP500 (PC), TD Le Mans(DC) or Grand Prix Challenge(PS2)... all good in their own way.