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| 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]
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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 Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Rick Yune, Chad Lindberg, Johnny Strong, and Ted Levine. In the film, undercover cop Brian O'Conner (Walker) infiltrates a street racing crew to investigate a series of hijackings and finds himself developing a complex friendship with the group's leader, Dominic Toretto (Diesel).
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 a racing video game developed by TV Games Inc. and published by Nintendo. It was first released in arcades in 1994 by Midway Games, with a port to the Nintendo 64 developed by Williams Electronics released in 1996. It is the first game in the Cruis'n series and features races set in locations across the Continental United States.
Cruis'n World is a 1996 racing game developed by Midway Games and published by Nintendo. It is the sequel to the 1994 arcade racer Cruis'n USA. A port for the Nintendo 64 developed by Eurocom was released in 1998, and was the best received of the Cruis'n ports.
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.
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 or male animals 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 developed by Just Games Interactive and published by Midway Games for the Wii. It is a modified version of Raw Thrills' The Fast and the Furious which was released in arcades in 2004, based on the Fast & Furious franchise; the Wii version used the Cruis'n brand owned by Nintendo.
Fast & Furious, also known as The Fast and the Furious, is a 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.
Mark Ritchie is an American pinball designer and video game producer. He is best known for his successful pinball designs from 1982-1996. He has continued to work in the coin-operated amusement industry, currently serving as production coordinator for Raw Thrills, Inc. / Play Mechanix, Inc. Mark is the younger brother of fellow pinball designer Steve Ritchie.
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.
Specular Interactive, Inc. is an arcade game entertainment company based in Foothill Ranch, California. It is best known for developing arcade games H2Overdrive, Dirty Drivin', and Batman.
Cruis'n Blast is a racing video game developed and published by Raw Thrills. Originally released for arcades in 2017, it is the sixth and latest installment in Nintendo's Cruis'n series. A version for the Nintendo Switch which includes additional modes, cars, and tracks, was released on September 14, 2021.
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