So this is it, Duke Nukem Forever is finally gone. Even though I hopped off the hype train many years ago, there was always part of me that hoped it’d come out some day, and the removal of that sliver of hope has left this odd sense of emptiness. That game had been in production for slightly under half my lifetime, shocking really. What are all of us hack writers going to joke about now? Anyway, we’ll continue our retrospective on the best games to come out of Australia and New Zealand, from developers who took less than 12 years to develop and release their games.

This week’s edition includes Melbourne House’s Transformers, the former Irrational Games’ Freedom Force and Auran and Activision’s joint real-time strategy effort, Dark Reign.

The Best of Home Grown, Part III

As we’ve showcased over the last couple of weeks, Australian and New Zealand game developers are a talented bunch. They might not be behind the Marios, Grand Theft Autos and World of Warcrafts, but many high quality games have come out of the two countries. For our last instalment of this series, we’re going to look at a few games that were developed in cooperation with American teams, and one rather well known Quake mod that spawned something a whole lot bigger. There are lots of other great Aussie-made games out there; Puzzle Quest, BioShock, Medieval II: Total War and Le Mans 24 Hours spring to mind, but there’s just not enough time to see them all.

You’ve Got the Touch

Let’s hope Prime has fresh undies

Before all of this (rather horrid) new Transformers movie business transpired, Hasbro had previously attempted to reconnect with its fans with a new series featuring everybody’s favourite robots called Transformers Armada. Being the opportunists that they are, Atari jumped on the rights to the licensed and looked to their Melbourne team, the former Beam Software to produce a game based on the new TV show and line of toys. The result was one of the most technically impressive and enjoyable PlayStation 2 games.

Transformers (sans the Armada subtitle) allows the player to control one of three Autobots (Optimus Prime, Red Alert and Hot Shot) in their fight against Megatron and his new Decipticlone army. The key figure in this latest war is the Mini-Cons, a race of small robots which can be used by the Autobots and Decipticons to enhance their powers. A Mini-Con beacon is activated on Earth just as Megatron is about to deliver the final blow to Optimus Prime, resulting in both forces making a dash for our planet to gain an upper hand in the Cybetron war.

Universally considered to be the best Transformers game to date, this game featured huge, free roaming environments, solid third person shooting action and a high level of customisability via the Mini-Cons. Melbourne House managed to achieve a level of detail and draw distance that was thought to be impossible on the difficult PS2 hardware. The game also features some of the biggest bosses in gaming like the ridiculously huge Tidal Wave, and beloved planet-eating Transformer Unicron. Transformers received a warm reception from critics and fans, but didn’t find quite as wide a success as it deserved, perhaps owing to its relation to the newer Armada series, rather than the more famous G1 series.

%$#@ing Spies!

A little crude, but a lot of fun

In the middle of the 90s, RMIT students Robin Walker, John Cook and Ian Caughly put their minds together to work on a mod for the then-most popular online shooter, Quake. The fruit of their labours was Team Fortress, a team-focused, class-based mod which would become one of the most popular Quake mods, and would propel its designers into the limelight and into the arms of Valve Corporation.

The setup for Team Fortress is pretty simple; players join one of two sides, and pick a class. Player classes have different roles in a match and different abilities to distinguish them – scouts serve as your speedy, yet weak retrievers, heavies are powerful but slow, engineers build support structures and defensive turrets, and medics provide healing services. Different maps had different objectives, usually capture the flag or capture and hold, and players had to work together, finding the best combination of classes to ensure a swift and decisive victory.

The success of Team Fortress’ original incarnation caught the attention of Valve, who picked the team up to produce Team Fortress 2. Prior to the commencement of work on TF2, the team produced a version of Team Fortress for Half-Life, known as Team Fortress Classic. It might have taken a long time to come out, but Team Fortress 2 is easily one of the best multiplayer shooters on the PC, and knowing it has its origins in Australia should make you proud. It just goes to show that you don’t need millions of dollars and American citizenship to make a great game; just a good idea, a few hardworking guys and impeccable timing.

For Freedom!

Do not underestimate the awesomeness of Man-Bot

Coming off the critical success of System Shock 2, Irrational Games decided to open an Australian studio to be led by SS2 lead programmer and project manager Jonathan Chey. The Canberra-based studio has worked hand in hand with the Boston studio on all projects since, and since most of those games have been pretty classy, picking one isn’t an easy choice. I’ve decided to highlight Freedom Force, an unapologetic love-letter to the silver age of comics

Freedom Force is an real-time strategy/RPG hybrid which puts you in control of a rag-tag bunch of super heroes who’ve recently acquired their powers through run-ins with Energy X, a strange material of unknown origin. The characters are diverse in their design and personality, though pay a degree of homage to popular silver age heroes from the DC and Marvel universes. There’s the fiercely patriotic commie-buster Minute Man and his sidekick Liberty Lad, the hot-headed Latino El Diablo, Man-Bot, an iron suit-clad man on a path towards redemption, and many more. Players can also create their own super heroes using the game’s intuitive creation system.

Players take their team of super heroes through a series of missions combating less scrupulous individuals who’ve been empowered by Energy X. The game is played in real time with the ability to pause to issue commands. As your characters defeat more opponents, they grow stronger and unlock new powers. You’ve got to be careful though, as new powers bring the threat of collateral damage. On the other hand, you can be an evil bastard and try to flatten the city, which is always fun, particularly in multiplayer. Freedom Force was successful enough to spawn a sequel Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich, but sadly nothing has been said concerning any further adventures.

The Future of War

It’s quiet. Too quiet.

Dark Reign: The Future of War is often held up as one of the best games to come out of Australia, but the game was worked on jointly by Auran and Activision. The Brisbane team developed the original concept, called Corporation, and took the project to Activision, who decided to construct a new game concept and story while the Auran boys worked on the gameplay systems and technology.

Like most real-time strategy games of the time, Dark Reign allows players to control one of two different factions – in this case, the Freedom Guard and the Imperium. The game follows the standard structure in most real time strategy games of the time, in that it focuses on building bases, gathering resources and assembling an army. The difference is that it introduced some more advanced elements to the battlefield, including a more complex fog of war system, production queues, terrain modifiers, cover and a customisable waypoint system. There are also some pretty cool unique units, like the long-range artillery, who could level a base swiftly given the chance.

After production wrapped on Dark Reign and its add-on pack Rise of the Shadowhand, a portion of the Activision team that worked on the game set up a new developer, Pandemic Studios. Pandemic Studios snapped up a few of the guys from Auran and developed the sequel, Dark Reign 2, and later set up a studio back in Brisbane when the Aussies became homesick. Sadly, Dark Reign hasn’t been heard of in 10 years, Auran got itself into a right pickle with MMO Fury, and Pandemic Brisbane was recently shut down.