Argh sorry, I was sure I was on the Metroid board
Here ya go:
By koam
It sure took me a while, but here it is, my 5000th post. I have decided to post about the history of Retro Studios because they have created the only game that, in my opinion, beat out Zelda: Ocarina of Time as the greatest game of all time. Of course, this masterpiece is Metroid Prime and a well deserved sequel is underway. So here goes.
The history of Retro Studios
Dispite popular belief, Retro Studios is not a company that just surfaced out of nowhere. In fact, most of the staff members come from well established companies. The founder of Retro Studios, Jeff Spangenberg, used to work for Iguana, a small company who was bought out by Acclaim. Iguana is responsable for the early versions of NBA Jam, as well as the hit game Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for the N64; which is not to be confused with the ill-fated Turok Evolution. In 1997, Jeff filed a lawsuit against Acclaim Studios for breach of contract and was fired. I'm not 100% sure on this but it appears the breach was a result of Acclaim being able to buy stock options from Iguana but after they bought a sufficient amount, they fired Jeff.
Jeff Spangenberg didn't stop there. On December 1st, 1998, Jeff started a new company named Retro Studios and consisted of 25 employess. Howard Lincoln, NOA chairman at the time, helped fund the Austin, Texas based company. The team of 25 consisted of members from high profile companies such as:
- Iguana Entertainment - (Turok 1 and 2, NBA Jam)
- Valve Software - (HalfLife)
- id Software - (Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein)
- Looking Glass - (Thief, System Shock)
- EA Canada - (NHL, FIFA, NBA Live)
- Origin Systems - (Ultima)
- Terminal Reality - (Fly, Nocturne)
- LucasArts Entertainment - (Star Wars games)
and of course,
- Nintendo of America - (Don't know which staff members made the jump)
As you can see, Retro has a good solid ground and is far more established than say, NSpace. Retro began immediate work on 5 games for the Nintendo gamecube, 4 of which were cancelled.
Thunder Rally (Car Combat)
Apparently, this game was supposed to be a Twisted Metal like game. Here are some quotes:
"We could have literally blown [Twisted Metal Black] away on the level of interactivity the game could've had. Much more strategy in manipulation, avoiding, changing world objects to modify gameplay, and so on," a source said. "We would have had many more weapons than Twisted Metal Black, with multiple functions including counters, additive effects, complementary effects, etceteras."
"The Retro title was, more than anything else though, designed from the ground up to be multiplayer-ready -- and more specifically, Internet compatible. The team hoped to combine split-screen four-player battles with Internet play. Unfortunately, though, the Internet functionality never came together as planned. "We never got details from Nintendo on the Internet end," a person working intimately with the project confided. And then the axe dropped."
In Game:
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Artwork:
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NFL Retro Football
Considering they hired people form EA Canada, this game could have been pretty great. Too bad though. No info on this game.
1st Person Shooter
Canned obviously, but it seemed very intersting. Especially since Dave Kirsh (Capture the Flag mod for Quake) was working on it. Here's a quote:
"Piecing the clues together, we contacted Zoid for comment about his future plans with Retro, which, it seems, are exactly as we'd expect. When asked if he would be working on a first-person shooter after beginning work at Retro in March, Zoid responded, "I will be focusing on network design and implementation. My game design experience is certainly specific with goal-orientated teamplay in first person shooters." This definitely suggests that Retro is in the works with a first-person shooter and it adds even more weight to the rumors that the company is preparing an online strategy. Mix in Retro's recently registered Internet domain names,
www.retroworld.net and
www.nintendoonline.com and we begin to grasp the bigger picture of Retro's -- and Nintendo's -- future plans"
Raven Blade
The most intriguing and promissing of the cancelled games. Here;s some info from the game from an IGN preview:
Raven Blade pits players in the role of a hero knight on a quest to find a magical weapon of the same name. The epic tale takes the main character through populated villages, ancient ruins, dungeons and even a city that floats in the blue sky above.
The game's hero can use weaponry and magic to aid him on his long quest. In traditional RPG style, items are amassed by killing enemies, and can also be gathered through various shops in-game, including interaction with a blacksmith. The acrobatic main character can, according to a brief snippet of rendered video released by Nintendo, flip-kick and cartwheel in battles against armies of demonic goat-like beasts, sorcerers and grotesque, overgrown birds. The title's nemesis is called 'Beastlord,' which pretty much says it all."
Features:
-A third-person action-RPG set to the backdrop of an ancient world
-An epic quest involving a powerful, magical weapon called Raven Blade
-Play as a knighted hero who can wield weapons and use magic
-Interact with townspeople, blacksmiths, magicians, a king and more
-Engage in real-time 3D battles as opposed to turn-based ones
-Amass items, weapons and magic
-Travel to cryptic ruins filled with demonic beasts or to a city that floats high in the sky above the land
-An advanced 3D engine allows for super-realistic high-polygon models, beautiful lighting effects, cinema-quality animation and more
-Single-player adventure
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Nintendo eventually asked for Retro Studios to can (or hopefully, put aside?) all these projects to work on Metroid 4 (which later became Metroid Prime). Since then, the development studio grew to almost 100 people and the Metroid game saw various changes. Here is what the game looked like in the first ever Gamecube showing at Spaceworld 2000.
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Months later, at E3 2001, we were shown this new artwork.
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But then, things started to look bad. It seemed like Retro was having problems and the conferences with Nintendo grew. In addition, the were rumors of massive firings within Retro, about half the staff was cut. Then IGN gave us this info:
"Uh-oh -- not again. It seems Texas-based Retro Studios only makes headlines with disappointing news, and today's is no different. Insiders have revealed to IGNcube that the company's two under development projects Raven Blade and Metroid Prime are not progressing as planned due to engine shortcomings and trouble realizing gameplay mechanics up to what Nintendo expects of its second-party contributors."
Look at how bad the Samus model looked now:
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To add to the bad news, since Nintendo didn't like the direction the project was heading in, they decided to make the game 1st person which cause a stir of emotions from Metroid and Nintendo fans. Making matters worse, the new batch of screens was horrendous:
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But then, the new batch of screens started to show some promise. The morph ball was also shown for the first time. In addition, it was announced that the game would be seen via Samus' visor and the game would be a first-person adventure.
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And then, things started to look WAY better. Samus looked normal again and the game looked solid.
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In the end, Retro Studios delivered a solid title. In fact, Nintendo was so impressed, they bought Retro and made them 1st party. However, Jeff Spangenburg was left out of the picture:
"Nintendo announced today that it has purchased $1 million in Retro Studios stock, making it the majority holder of the development house's shares. The purchase will buy out Retro Studios' current owner, Jeff Spangenberg, who, according to Nintendo, has decided to pursue new business interests. Nintendo made the decision to purchase Retro based on the development studio's work on Metroid Prime, the upcoming first-person adventure game for the GameCube."
In addition, Retro went on to win various awards including:
Console First Person Action Game of the Year, Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences
Game of the Year, Game Developer's Choice Awards
Excellence in Level Design, Game Developer's Choice Awards
Rookie Studio of the Year, Game Developer's Choice Awards
Editor's Choice Platinum Award, Electronic Gaming Monthly
2002 GameCube Game of the Year, GameSpy
Game of the Year, Edge Magazine
Best Adventure Game, Edge Magazine
Audio Achievement of the Year, Edge Magazine
Koam's best game of all time award, Koam.
In April of 2003, Nintendo announced a new president for Retro Studios:
"Nintendo of America today announced that its wholly owned software company Retro Studios has been appointed a new president. Michael Kelbaugh will lead the Texas-based developer.
Kelbaugh joins the firm from Nintendo of America, where for the last 15 years he has held the position of director of business development. Kelbaugh replaces Steve Barcia, who took over the studios after original owner Jeff Spangenberg was bought out and removed by Nintendo.
Many ex-Retro employees have alleged Barcia's mismanagement of the company was one of their primary reasons for leaving."
The future of Retro looks very sweet. The previous projects are still cancelled as far as we know but the sequel to Metroid Prime is well underway. Supposedly, the game will also be the first Metroid Title to feature multiplayer aspects and judging from Retro's innitial intentions, it wouldn't surprise me if the game went online. Here's the quote from IGN:
"No details were given about the project, but one employee under the condition of anonymity did note that team members were throwing around the idea of including a multiplayer mode."
Here are some screens from Metroid Prime 2.
[Just look at the first page of this topic instead
]
I cannot wait, my frothing demand for this game is increasing.
Retro Studios Homepage