Lucasfilm Games is an American video game licensor and a subsidiary of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a larger 1990 reorganization of the Lucasfilm divisions, the video game development division was grouped and rebranded as part of LucasArts. LucasArts became known for its line of adventure games based on its SCUMM engine in the 1990s, including Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, and several Indiana Jones titles. A number of influential game developers were alumni of LucasArts from this period, including Brian Moriarty, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Dave Grossman. Later, as Lucasfilm regained control over its licensing over the Star Wars franchise, LucasArts produced numerous action-based Star Wars titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while dropping adventure game development due to waning interest in the genre.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, LucasArts was well known for their point-and-click graphic adventure games, nearly all of which received high scoring reviews at the time of their release. Their style tended towards the humorous, often irreverent or slapstick humor, with the exceptions of Loom and The Dig. Their game design philosophy was that the player should never die or reach a complete dead-end, although there were exceptions.
Christopher Hülsbeck, known internationally as Chris Huelsbeck, is a German video game music composer. He gained popularity for his work on game soundtracks for The Great Giana Sisters and the Turrican series.
Gearbox Software, L.L.C is an American video game development company based in Frisco, Texas. It was established as a limited liability company in February 1999 by five developers formerly of Rebel Boat Rocker. Randy Pitchford, one of the founders, serves as president and chief executive officer. Gearbox initially created expansions for the Valve game Half-Life, then ported that game and others to console platforms. In 2005, Gearbox launched its first independent set of games, Brothers in Arms, on console and mobile devices. It became their flagship franchise and spun off a comic book series, television documentary, books, and action figures. Their second original game series, Borderlands, commenced in 2009, and by 2015 had sold over 26 million copies. The company also owns the intellectual property of Duke Nukem and Homeworld.
Contra is a video game series produced by Konami composed primarily of run and gun-style shooting games. The series debuted in February 1987 with the Japanese coin-operated arcade game of the same name, which has since spawned several sequels produced for various platforms.
Digital Leisure, Inc. is a Canadian publisher of software. The company formed in 1997 with the aim to acquire, remaster and publish numerous classic video-based arcade games such as the Don Bluth-animated titles Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp and Space Ace. Over time, they have acquired the publishing rights to various full motion video games, which they have re-released on a variety of modern formats. In more recent years, they have produced original games as well.
NaturalMotion Limited is a British video game development company with development offices in London, Brighton and Birmingham. Founded in November 2001 as a spin-out company from Oxford University, NaturalMotion specialises in creating animation technology for the game and film industries. In January 2014, NaturalMotion was acquired by Zynga for US$527 million.
MadWorld is a beat 'em up hack and slash video game developed by PlatinumGames, published by Sega, produced by Atsushi Inaba, and directed by Shigenori Nishikawa. It was released worldwide for the Wii in March 2009, and in Japan in February 2010. Although a commercial failure, MadWorld received generally positive reviews from critics. A spiritual successor, Anarchy Reigns, was released in 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Black Rock Studio Limited was a British video game developer based in Brighton, England. It was a division of Disney Interactive Studios. The studio was founded by Tony Beckwith in 1998 as Pixel Planet. It was acquired by the Climax Group in 1999 and was renamed Climax Brighton. In 2004, it became Climax Racing, as the Climax Group rebranded its studios. On 28 September 2006, it was acquired by DIS and was eventually renamed Black Rock Studio in 2007. The last game the studio developed for the Climax Group was MotoGP '07, which was completed after its acquisition by Buena Vista Games. The name is derived from a district in Brighton. In early 2011, the company faced lay-offs and was forced to abandon sequels for Pure and Split/Second: Velocity. Despite good reviews for both games, Disney turned down both sequels to focus on freemium content.
Since the release of the Nintendo Wii, many aesthetic, ergonomic and functional accessories have been developed by third parties for the console’s controller, the Wii Remote.
Toy Story 3 is a 2010 platform game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Disney Interactive Studios. The game is based on the 2010 film of the same name. It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Microsoft Windows. The game was ported to Mac OS X by TransGaming. A Nintendo DS version was developed by n-Space, while Disney Mobile Studios developed and published an iOS game based on the film. Another version was developed by Asobo Studio and released for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.
Ben 10 is an American media franchise conceived by Man of Action, produced by Cartoon Network Studios, and owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The franchise revolves around a young boy named Ben Tennyson, who discovers the Omnitrix — a high-tech, extraterrestrial device shaped like a wristwatch. This remarkable gadget contains the DNA of various alien species, allowing Ben to transform into them at will. Initially, the Omnitrix features ten alien transformations, but over time, Ben gains the ability to unlock additional species.
Final Fight is a series of beat 'em up video games by Japanese publisher Capcom, which began with the arcade release of Final Fight in 1989. Set in the fictional Metro City, within the Street Fighter universe, the games focus on a group of heroic vigilantes who fight against the control and various threats of criminal gangs, primarily the Mad Gear Gang. The series has sold 3.2 million units worldwide as of June 30, 2023.
Custom Street Racing is a free-to-play drag-racing game by Boss Alien and NaturalMotion Games. In the game, the player takes the role of a new racer looking to gain fame in a deserted city ruled by five racing "crews". A sequel was released on iOS and Android on June 29, 2016, called CSR Racing 2. The early access as beta was released on Malaysia on January 2024, called "CSR Racing 3"
BossAlien is a game developer based in Brighton, UK. BossAlien was founded by ex-employees of Disney's Black Rock Studio in June, 2011. In July 2012, BossAlien Ltd was acquired by NaturalMotion Games Ltd. In January 2014, Zynga acquired NaturalMotion.
CSR Classics is a free-to-play drag-racing game by Boss Alien in collaboration with Mad Atom Games and published by NaturalMotion Games. In the game, the player takes the role of a new racer looking to make a name for themselves in a city resembling Las Vegas, which is ruled by five racing "crews". The storyline consists of a racer with their agent trying to prove the seemingly corrupt Mr. Baladin of his guilt, who has worked their way into a business magnate behind the scenes.
Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is a computing platform created by Microsoft and introduced in Windows 10. The purpose of this platform is to help develop universal apps that run on Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile (discontinued), Windows 11, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and HoloLens without the need to be rewritten for each. It supports Windows app development using C++, C#, VB.NET, and XAML. The API is implemented in C++, and supported in C++, VB.NET, C#, F# and JavaScript. Designed as an extension to the Windows Runtime (WinRT) platform introduced in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, UWP allows developers to create apps that will potentially run on multiple types of devices.
Super Hydorah is a 2017 independent side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Locomalito and published by Abylight Studios. It features a 16-32 bit era look and feel as well as a CRT Monitor effect. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita on September 20, 2017, and later, in 2018, ported to iOS on May 17 and Nintendo Switch on November 15, respectively. The game is an expanded and enhanced version of the developer's previous freeware game Hydorah.
