Krome Studios Melbourne

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Krome Studios Melbourne
Type Video game developer
Founded 1980
Headquarters Melbourne, Australia
Key people Kevin Burfitt, Myles Abbott, Mark Coombes, Holger Liebnitz, Russel Comte, Darren Bremner, Marshall Parker, Kyuji Kawase
Industry Video games
Products Transformers: Armada, Test Drive Unlimited (port), Shadowrun, Alien Earth, Grand Prix Challenge, Le Mans 24 Hours, The Hobbit, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Krush Kill 'n' Destroy, KKND2: Krossfire, DethKarz, GP500, Looney Tunes: Space Race, Men in Black II: Alien Escape, The Dame Was Loaded
Employees 40
Website http://www.melbournehouse.com/

Krome Studios Melbourne, formerly Melbourne House, is a video game development studio owned by Krome Studios and based in Melbourne, Australia. They were founded in 1980 under the name Beam Software by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen. The name, Beam, is a contraction of Alfred and Naomi's initials.

They are known for the early games The Way of the Exploding Fist (Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Commodore 64 and Commodore 16), The Hobbit (1982) (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and BBC Micro) and Sherlock (1984) (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64). They also helped distribute the Arcade Hit Double Dragon on the PC in 1988. Melbourne House is one of the longest surviving game development companies in the world and for most of its existence has been the largest game development studio in Australia.

In the early 90s Melbourne House found success in their home country with releases such as Aussie Rules Footy and International Cricket for the NES. In 1993 they released Shadowrun (SNES), with an innovative dialogue system using the acquisition of keywords which could be used in subsequent conversations to initiate new branches in the dialogue tree. In the mid-to-late 90s, Melbourne House found further success with PC titles Krush Kill 'n' Destroy (KKND), and the sequels KKND2: Krossfire and KKND Xtreme.[1] Unfortunately, they released KKND2 in South Korea well before they released it in the American market, and pirated versions of the game were available on the internet before it was available in stores in the U.S. They were the developers of the 32-bits versions of Norse By Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation and PC in 1996.[1] They also helped produce SNES games such as WCW SuperBrawl Wrestling, Super Smash TV and an updated version of International Cricket titled Super International Cricket.[1] They ported the Sega Saturn game Bug! to Windows 3.x in August, 1996.

1998 saw a return to RPGs with Alien Earth, again with a dialogue tree format.[2] Also in 1998, the studio developed racing games DethKarz[1] and GP500 Shortly thereafter, they were acquired by Infogrames and cemented a reputation as a racing game developer with Test Drive: Le Mans and Looney Tunes: Space Race (both Dreamcast and PlayStation 2), followed by the technically impressive Grand Prix Challenge (PlayStation 2), before a disastrous venture into third-person shooters with Men in Black II: Alien Escape (PlayStation 2, GameCube).

In 2004 the studio released Transformers: Armada for the PlayStation 2 games console and based on the toy franchise of the same name. The game reached the top of the UK PlayStation 2 games charts, making it Melbourne House's most successful recent title.

The studio recently completed work on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable ports of Eden's next-generation Xbox 360 title Test Drive: Unlimited.

In 2006 Krome Studios announced that it had acquired Melbourne House from Atari and that the studio would be renamed to Krome Studios Melbourne.

[edit] Other games

  • 1998: NBA Action '98 (PC)
  • 1997: Caesars Palace (Playstation)
  • 1996: 5 in One Fun Pak (GG); Wildcats (SNES)
  • 1995: True Lies (GB, Genesis; SNES); The Dame Was Loaded (PC)
  • 1994: WCW: The Main Event (Game Boy); Super Smash TV (GG, SMS); Solitaire FunPak (Game Boy); Cricket '97 Ashes Edition (PC); Radical Rex (SNES)
  • 1993: We're Back BC (Game Boy); Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness (Game Boy); Blades of Vengeance (Genesis); NFL Quarterback Club (Game Boy); Radical Rex (Genesis)
  • 1992: NBA All-Star Challenge 2 (Game Boy); Tom and Jerry (GB), Super Smash TV (Genesis, SNES), George Foreman's K.O. Boxing (Game Boy)
  • 1991: Hunt for Red October (Game Boy), Smash TV (NES), The Punisher (1991) (NES), Family Feud (NES)
  • 1990: Back to the Future II & III (NES), Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum (NES), Boulder Dash (Game Boy), NBA All-Star Challenge (Game Boy)
    [1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Company bio: Beam Software". Gamespy. http://www.gamespy.com/company/026/026025.html. Retrieved 9 August 2009. 
  2. ^ Al Giovetti. "Alien Earth". The Computer Show. http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/alienearth.htm. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krome_Studios_Melbourne"
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