 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Skokie, Illinois, United States |
| Website | rawthrills |
Raw Thrills, Inc. is an arcade video game entertainment company based in Skokie, Illinois. It is best known for developing arcade games based on films.
Raw Thrills was founded in 2001 by Eugene Jarvis, Deepak Deo, and Andrew Eloff. Early on, the staff also consisted largely of other former Midway Games employees.
At the beginning, the company made game designs for IGT including Super Times Pay Poker , Multi-Play Blackjack , and Turbo Reelette .
Raw Thrills' first independent coin-op game was Target: Terror , a light-gun shooter game [1] which was later upgraded to Target: Terror Gold (also known as Target: Force) featuring bonus levels, end-of-round awards, and other performance enhancements. Target: Terror was the first gun game designed under the direction of Eugene Jarvis.
The company's second game was The Fast and the Furious, [1] a racing game based on the Universal Studios movie of the same name. Tsunami Visual Technologies later made a motion version of the game for large family entertainment centers.
In 2006, Raw Thrills published two titles: [1] Big Buck Hunter PRO , developed by Play Mechanix ; and The Fast and the Furious: Super Bikes. Raw Thrills released in 2007 a sequel to The Fast and the Furious titled The Fast and the Furious: Drift. [2] They also released a continuation of the successful Big Buck series, Big Buck Safari [3] in three different configurations which included a standard 27" cabinet, a 42" LCD version [4] and an 8'x6' projected screen Theater version. They would also release a new update to Big Buck Hunter Pro with Big Buck Hunter Pro: Open Season [5] in 2009.
After the success of their Fast and Furious DRIFT racing title, the company set their sights on kart-style racing with Nicktoons Nitro . [6] The game featured licensed characters from various Nickelodeon Nicktoons including SpongeBob SquarePants , Timmy Turner from The Fairly OddParents , Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender , Invader Zim , Jimmy Neutron, and Danny Phantom .
Also in 2009, Raw Thrills teamed up with Konami and Activision to produce Guitar Hero Arcade . [7] Raw Thrills engineered the game while Konami and Activision were involved to cover patenting and licensing issues respectively. [8] The game was a solid success selling over 2000 units in just three months. [9]
In January 2009, it was revealed that Raw Thrills and Specular Interactive came together to produce a spiritual successor to the Midway arcade racer Hydro Thunder with a game entitled H2Overdrive. [10] Specular Interactive was made up of several ex-Midway employees who had worked on Hydro Thunder and this led to H2Overdrive maintaining many of the ideas that Hydro Thunder had in place while adding in some new elements such as achievements, a leveling up system and improved physics. It also received high praise from critics. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] The original version of H2Overdrive came in a cabinet sporting a 42" LCD HD monitor and in March 2010 they produced a 32" version for smaller venues. [16] A motion-based version was also produced in November 2009 that was being handled by Namco Bandai Games and UNIS. [17] UNIS also holds the rights to distribute the game in China. [18]
In March 2010, Raw Thrills and Play Mechanix released Terminator Salvation , a deluxe light-gun shooter based upon the film of the same name that was released to theaters in May 2009. [19] The game received early praise from arcade operators as it exceeded earnings expectations during testing. [20]
On June 16, 2021, Raw Thrills announced a port for its arcade game Cruis'n Blast , the latest installment in the Cruis'n video game series for the Nintendo Switch system. It marks the company's first console game, and its first port to a home system. [21]
|
|
The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 action film directed by Rob Cohen from a screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist, and David Ayer, based on the Vibe magazine article "Racer X" by Ken Li. The first installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, it stars Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Rick Yune, Chad Lindberg, Johnny Strong, and Ted Levine. In the film, Dominic Toretto (Diesel) is a Los Angeles street racer suspected of masterminding a series of big-rig hijackings. When undercover cop Brian O'Conner (Walker) infiltrates Toretto's iconoclatsic crew, he falls for Toretto's sister (Brewster) and must choose a side: the gang or the LAPD.
Eugene Peyton Jarvis is an American game designer and video game programmer, known for producing pinball machines for Williams Electronics and video games for Atari. Most notable among his works are the seminal arcade video games Defender and Robotron: 2084 in the early 1980s, and the Cruis'n series of driving games for Midway Games in the 1990s. He co-founded Vid Kidz in the early 1980s and currently leads his own development studio, Raw Thrills Inc. In 2008, Eugene Jarvis was named the first Game Designer in Residence by DePaul University's Game Development program. His family owns the Jarvis Wines company in Napa, California.
Cruis'n USA is an arcade racing game originally released in 1994. It was developed by Eugene Jarvis' company TV Games Inc., and manufactured by Midway Games. It is the first game in the Cruis'n series and features races set in locations across the continental United States.
San Francisco Rush 2049 is a racing video game developed and manufactured by Atari Games for arcades. It was ported to the Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, and Dreamcast by Midway Games West. The arcade machine was released in 1999; home versions followed in 2000 on September 7 for North America and November 17 for Europe. It is the third game in the Rush series and the sequel to San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing and Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA. It is the last game in the Rush series to be set in the city of San Francisco and the last released on a Nintendo console. It also serves as the final game for the Atari Games label, which was retired shortly after the arcade release. The Dreamcast version was later re-released as part of Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube and later for Microsoft Windows as part of Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition.
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is the third and final compilation of classic arcade games published by Midway for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. This compilation includes 8 racing games that were not in the 2003 and 2004 releases Midway Arcade Treasures and Midway Arcade Treasures 2. Like the first and second installments, however, the Xbox version is not compatible with the Xbox 360. Unlike the other installments in the Midway Arcade Treasures series, it is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. It also differs from the other installments by focusing on one specific genre, while the first two featured games from a wide variety of genres.
Deer Hunter is a series of hunting simulation video games. Originally available for Windows platform published by WizardWorks, it has since been published on MacOS, Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, and mobile phones. The first Deer Hunter game was an early success in the casual game market.
Hydro Thunder is an arcade inshore powerboat racing video game originally released by Midway Games in February 1999 and later released for the Sega Dreamcast as a launch title later that year. It was also released for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 in early 2000. This game is part of Midway's Thunder series of racing games, which includes Offroad Thunder, 4 Wheel Thunder, and Arctic Thunder. Hydro Thunder Hurricane, a sequel to Hydro Thunder, was later released for the Xbox 360 on July 27, 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade.
Target: Terror is a shooter arcade game developed and published in 2004 by Raw Thrills, and designed by Eugene Jarvis. The game involves shooting terrorists attacking various places in the United States, including Denver Airport, the Golden Gate Bridge and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Big Buck Hunter is a game hunting video game developed by Play Mechanix. Primarily developed for arcades, the goal of the game is to shoot moving bucks without shooting a doe or female animal.
Cruis'n is a series of racing video games originally developed by Eugene Jarvis for Midway Games and published by Midway and Nintendo. The series distinguishes itself from other racing games with its over-the-top presentation and fast-paced gameplay, featuring a wide variety of vehicles and tracks based on a number of real world locations. The series debuted in North American and European arcades in 1994 with the release of Cruis'n USA, which, along with Killer Instinct, was advertised as running on Nintendo's Ultra 64 hardware. Two sequels followed, Cruis'n World and Cruis'n Exotica, which featured new vehicles and tracks. All three games were released for the Nintendo 64 as well, with Exotica also being released for the handheld Game Boy Color. The next game in the series, Cruis'n Velocity deviated from the traditional arcade gameplay of the series and was released for the Game Boy Advance.
Cruis'n is a racing game for the Wii released in 2007. It was originally released as The Fast and the Furious in arcades in 2004, based on the Fast & Furious franchise and developed by and published by Raw Thrills. The Wii version was ported by Just Games Interactive and published by Midway.
Fast & Furious, also known as The Fast and the Furious, is an American media franchise centered on a series of action films that are largely concerned with street racing, heists, spies, and family. The franchise also includes short films, a television series, toys, video games, live shows, and theme park attractions. The films are distributed by Universal Pictures.
Nicktoons Nitro is a racing game which is a sequel to Nicktoons Racing and Nicktoons Winners Cup Racing. It features Nicktoons characters from the SpongeBob SquarePants, Danny Phantom, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, The Fairly OddParents, Invader Zim, and Avatar: The Last Airbender franchises. The game was released in August 2008 as an arcade game by developer Raw Thrills.
Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a boat racing video game developed by Vector Unit and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. The game was released on July 28, 2010 as part of Microsoft's Xbox Live Summer of Arcade promotion. It is the sequel to Hydro Thunder, originally an arcade game, and part of the Thunder series, developed by Midway Games and under license of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It was also released onto the Windows Store. The game was added to the list of Xbox 360 backward compatible games on Xbox One on December 17, 2015.
H2Overdrive is a powerboat arcade racing game developed by Specular Interactive and released in 2009 by Raw Thrills. It is considered a spiritual successor to 1999's Hydro Thunder. The game was also released in the People's Republic of China by UNIS.
Dirty Drivin' is an arcade racing game developed by Specular Interactive and released by Raw Thrills in 2011. The game was also released in the People's Republic of China, which was unveiled at the GTI Asia China Expo. The game's main track played throughout the menu is More Human than Human by White Zombie.
Batman is an arcade vehicular combat game based on the DC Comics character Batman, developed by Specular Interactive and released by Raw Thrills in 2013. The game can be single-player or multi-player.
Cruis'n Blast is a racing video game developed and published by Raw Thrills. Originally released for the arcades in 2017, it is the sixth installment in the Cruis'n series. A version for the Nintendo Switch which includes additional modes, cars, and tracks, was released on September 14, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)