Showing posts with label British. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Profile of British developer M4


In my recent Resident Evil Gaiden article for Retro Gamer (hi-res scans in this Biohaze forum topic) I profiled the developers behind the game, but due to dwindling space these weren’t able to used in the article itself. So they won’t go to waste, I’m posting them here. The above photo is from their office during better times.

Here's a web archive of their old website.

M4 was a British developer formed in 1995 by Tim Hull. Primarily known for handheld titles, it was comprised of several former BITS development staff. Although they formed to create new titles, paying the bills necessitated working with licences. Three of their biggest titles, Bounty Hunter (PC), Stuntpigs (Next Gen) and Space Cadets (GBA) never made it to market. Though Space Cadets was actually completed.

As Tim Hull explained in the RG article: “Sadly no original M4 titles made it to the shelves. Bounty Hunter, Space Cadets and Stuntpigs were all games we really wanted to bring to market. The later two are still held by us in Stuntpigs Ltd a dormant company. Who knows maybe one day they will rise.”

With backups of everything still with Tim, there is a chance that in the future we’ll see one of these unreleased M4 games.

The question then is: WHERE ARE THE DISBANDED TEAM NOW?


Elliot Curtis
Creative Producer
Making Fun Games
Elliot now runs an indie development company called Making Fun Games. They produce browser games for PC and are currently expanding their most popular games onto other platforms, including mobile and X360.
www.makingfungames.com

[Sketcz’s note: I’ve checked out the website and it’s got a nice selection of totally free browser games! I tend to dismiss them, because most browser games I see people playing are terribly uninteresting – but I had a go on Outbreak 2012 on the MFG website, and it’s actually pretty damn awesome. It’s a 2D side-scrolling survival horror with an interesting mouse-based combat system and some great atmosphere. Definitely worth checking out! There’s also a diverse range of other games on there.]

[Elliot in RG article: Bounty Hunter was in production when I joined M4 and it really was stunning. As for Stuntpigs - the best game never made. I think it was just ahead of its time... Space Cadets though, that was actually completed and it was a really good game. It was different though and it really worked best multi-player. It’s typical - generally publishers don’t like to risk money on original stuff, especially when there’s cartridges to pay for.]


Stefan Barnett
Artist / Game Designer
Rice Media
Is in Birmingham where he’s working as an Artist/Game Designer on iPhone games.

[FROM RG ARTICLE: I worked as a traditional model-maker on Pepperami adverts, In the theatre with sets, and props and also in Childrens books. I was thrown in right in at the deep end with Resident Evil: Gaiden being my first project]



James Cox
Head of Development
PlayStation Home
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe



Tim Hull
Games Explorer
Globaltimoto
One man on a motorcycle around the world in a quest for gameplay.



Kieron Wheeler

I’m not entirely sure what Kieron is doing, to be honest. I liaised with Tim and I don’t recall being told where he moved on to. Perhaps some form of top secret project?



As I've always said, it's important to know who makes your games, never mix up the publisher with the developer, and if you like a game, take a look at the credits to see who made it, since they seldom get the attention they deserve (unless they're someone like Kojima or Molyneux), and they've probably made other great games you might not know about.
Posted by Sketcz at 9:01 AM 3 comments
Labels: , , , ,

Thursday, January 7, 2010

James Pond 2 (NES) and Edd the Duck (Game Boy)


In August 1993 a British magazine, Game Zone, printed reviews of 2 games. But were they unreleased, or did they simply never exist at all?
.
.
.

(Scroll down for better scans of each review)

For some time now I’ve wanted to draw people’s attention to this issue of Game Zone, an old, unofficial, Nintendo-themed magazine by a now defunct British publisher whose name escapes me. It represents either a case of 2 games which were completed, sent out in prototype form for review purposes, and then never released – in which case there could still be prototype cartridges to discover. Or it’s a rather cheeky joke and the games are fictional.


For a bit of context, Game Zone’s editor was Jackie Ryan, a woman who previously helmed some ZX Spectrum magazine I forget the name of, loved for its irreverent humour, and GZ followed this trend by being surreal, sarcastic, and generally a bit weird. Very British, you could argue. It was all a bit silly at times, which is what makes me think these 2 games never existed.



The reviews themselves are the standard early 1990s GZ fare. One tip-off is the screenshots. Normally GZ had some good quality screens, but these are blurry, pixelated and indistinct, encouraging the idea that they were faked. Oh, and both games receive the exact same score: 78%. What confuses the matter is the August publication date, meaning it was likely on sale in July, and had been written during the month of June, and was therefore far removed from any April fool’s joke,.

Click the pics to see an enlarged version which you can read.



JAMES POND 2 - NES

The James Pond 2: Codename Robocod on NES review actually had me convinced for a long time, since the game does exist and was ported from the Amiga to the SNES, Genesis, PS1, GBA, and several other systems. I think there was even a GB version. So a NES port would not be out of the question. No NES ROM archive features information on it, and neither does trawling the internet. If anywhere else has given mention to James Pond 2 on the NES, I’ve not heard it. So, unreleased prototype, or fictional game? I’ve no idea what happened to Martin Pond, the reviewer, but I’ve not seen his work printed anywhere since GZ, otherwise I’d say it’s worth contacting him.


EDD THE DUCK – GAME BOY

Edd the Duck was apparently a children’s mascot of the British Broadcasting Corporation (from about 1 minute). Before my time, so I’ve never seen it. There was apparently a licensed Edd the Duck game released, but for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad and Amiga home computers. Which, given GZ’s connection to the Spectrum, convinces me that this was likely some kind of surreal joke. The review itself is chock full of weirdness, at one point comparing it to Sonic the Hedgehog, and the screenshots don’t match up with each other. One doesn’t have any hearts, and in the others, there’s no number next to the white square. The reviewer, Nick Griffiths, went on to write for the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine supplement, doing the film reviews – which I suppose makes him vaguely contactable. EDIT: Googling his name makes me think he may in fact be this author.

Do any readers have any insight into this strange matter? Can anyone claim to have played or seen either of these games? Do they exist, are there prototypes somewhere, or was it all a surreal joke?
Posted by Sketcz at 4:26 AM 20 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)