NeoZeedeater
07-03-2005, 02:15 PM
Thanks to the Xbox, Microsoft has become an important part of the console gaming scene today. This is a thread devoted to the history of three of the developers purchased by Microsoft. Obviously, over the years people come and go and these developers don't resemble their origins much today but I find the evolutions interesting.
Developer - Bungie
Alex Seropian founded Bungie in 1991 and made a tank action game for the Mac called Operation Desert Storm. Soon afterwards, programmer Jason Jones joined the team and created Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, a multiplayer action/adventure game for the Mac.
http://www.bungie.net/images/Inside/History/sm_minotaur1.gif
Bungie reached critical success with their 1993 Mac game, Pathways into Darkness and proved that the PC wasn't the only format for the increasingly popular FPS genre.
Their next FPS proved to be one of the most pivotal in Mac history. 1994's Marathon was an engaging and technologically impressive sci-fi action game. It had a few sequels and was also released on PC.
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/july01/top505/44s.jpg
Bungie published Crack Dot Com's 2d PC action game Abuse in 1996.
In 1997, Bungie took a crack at the RTS genre with Myth: The Fallen Lords for PC and Mac. It had an expansion set and a sequel.
http://www.macuarium.com/macuarium/actual/juegos/16121999myth/imagenes/screenshot1.jpg
Oni became the last non-Microsoft game for Bungie. It was an anime-inspired third-person action game for PC, PS2, and Mac. I wasn't too impressed with it but it temporarily filled a void in the PS2's early months.
http://www.psillustrated.com/teamps2/ss_oni3.jpg
Like Marathon did for the Mac, the sci-fi FPS Halo was exactly what Microsoft needed for their Xbox.
http://www.emulationgalaxy.co.yu/images/xbox-halo.jpg
Halo 2(2004)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/lifestyle/games_room/2004/halo/images/halo2_400.jpg
Developer - Access Software
Founded by Bruce Carver in 1982, Access has made some impressive contributions to computer sports, adventure, and action games.
Released in 1983 on multiple computer formats, Beach Head was a war-themed action game that used a variety of perspectives. My favorite was the first-person battleship level where you shot down airplanes.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/thething/screen/beachhead11.png
Beach Head had a couple sequels. Access didn't develop the recent arcade/PC games of the same name.
Neutral Zone(1983)
http://www.juegomania.org/Neutral+Zone/fotos/c64/0/348/Foto+Neutral+Zone.jpg
Surpassing Beach Head was another war-themed game, Raid Over Moscow in 1984. This game also was quite varied; it had side-scrolling shooter levels and on foot battles near the Kremlin.
http://www.gb64.com/oldsite/gameofweek/top64/Raid_Over_Moscow_2.gif
Access published Fanda's C64 platform games Ollie's Follies and The Scrolls of Abadon in 1984.
In 1986, Access released their first computer golf game, World Class Leaderboard. I'm not big on golf games but this is the one I have played the most by far. The graphics of the terrain and every little detail was very impressive for its time.
http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/IMAGES/4/games/2reviews/leaderboardgolf-c64.gif
Golf games became Access' most successful genre with their Links series on PC and Xbox. I'm sure Microsoft's acquisition of Access was to obtain the Links franchise and it continues on today, although Carver is no longer with the company.
Links 2004
http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/XBox/links-2004/links-2004-4.jpg
1987's Echelon was one of the more innovative space sims of its time. It mixed in puzzle elements and also came with a headset/microphone to give voice commands.
Heavy Metal(1988) - A tank action game.
http://www.classicgaming.com/amigareviews/pic/heavymetal-a.png
In 1989, Access began making graphic adventure games with Mean Streets, the first game in the Tex Murphy detective series. It had some action segments as well.
http://www.adventurecollective.com/screenshots/mean02.gif
Mean Streets was followed by Martian Memorandum(1991), Under a Killing Moon(1994), Pandora Detective(1996) and Tex Murphy: Overseer(1998). Killing Moon is shown here.
http://www.adventure-archiv.com/u/under3.jpg
Access made a few other adventure games as well: Countdown(1990) and Amazon: Guardians of Eden(1992).
They also made a shitty NARC-type game called Crime Wave.
Developer - Rare
In 1982, brothers Chris and Tim Stamper founded called Ashby Computer and Graphics(ACG) and began publishing their games under the name Ultimate - Play The Game.
Their first game was Jetpac for the Spectrum in 1983. Jetpac involved gathering the pieces of of your ship together while avoiding enemies. The game was a huge success. It was included as a mini-game years later in Donkey Kong 64 for the N64.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/jetpac.jpg
Also released in 1983 for the Spectrum were the racing game Trans Am, the bug spraying game Pssst and Cookie.
Trans Am is the ancestor of the RC Pro-Am series that would later appear on NES, Game Boy and Genesis. They're still some of the best RC car racers to this day. http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/trans.html
RC Pro-Am(NES, 1987)
http://www.nintendogamezone.com/images/Pro_11.gif
1984 had Lunar Jetman, a side-scrolling sequel of sorts to Jetpac.
http://crashonline.org.uk/01/images/jetman1.gif
Jetman had another sequel on the NES in 1990. Solar Jetman was a neat action game reminiscent of arcade classics like Atari's Gravitar.
http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/snaps/solarjet-snap-0002.gif
Atic Atac(1984) was an action game where you threw axes at oncoming enemies. I found the animation and art in this game to be particularly appealing.
http://www.crashonline.org.uk/02/images/atic.gif
One of Ultimate's most popular games was the 1984 action/adventure game Sabre Wulf.
It was followed by other games in the Sabreman series: Underwurlde, Knight Lore, and Pentagram.
Sabre Wulf also recently resurfaced on GBA - http://gbamedia.gamespy.com/gba/image/Sabre-Wulf-GBA-Screen-1s_1087592916.jpg
Knight Lore used an isometric view as did its futuristic follow-up Alien 8.
http://crashonline.org.uk/15/images/alien8a.gif
Some other Ultimate Spectrum games:
Nightshade(1985)
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/nightshade.html
The Cyberun(1986)http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/cyberun.html
Gunfright(1986) http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/gunfright.html
Martianoids(1987)
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/martianoids.html
Bubbler(1987) - http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/bubbler.html
Many of Ultimate's Spectrum games were ported to other computers like the CPC, C64, MSX, and BBC Micro.
The Commodore 64 managed to get a few exclusive games but I think most of them were just published by Ultimate and not developed in-house.
The Stampers sold the Ultimate - Play The Game distribution rights to U.S. Gold in 1985 and began developing NES games under the name Rare. The influence of their Spectrum work is very noticeable in their NES games.
The first game developed under the Rare name was Slalom in 1986, a skiing game for the NES published by Nintendo. Nintendo also released it in arcade form. I really enjoyed it as a kid because it was the first arcade game I had played that used skis as a controller. Today, stuff like that is expected in arcade games like Namco's Alpine Racer series but back then it was quite novel.
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA018294/retoro/gamen.gif
Published by Acclaim in 1987, Wizards & Warriors brought Rare's style of fantasy action gaming to the NES. I still don't get how a knight in armor can jump so high. I loved the game back then but today it doesn't interest me. W&W had a couple NES sequels and a Game Boy game.
http://www.bigmother.no/aw/games/nes/pics/Wizards_&_Warriors.jpg
Published by Milton Bradley in 1988, Captain Skyhawk was one of the better shooters on the NES and had pseudo-polygon graphics. It was based on some toy, I think.
http://www.nes-site.com/articles/article_11/images/captain_skyhawk_01.gif
I loved Cobra Triangle(1988). The animation of the speedboat was incredibly fluid and it controlled perfectly.
http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Cobra_Triangle_NES_ScreenShot2.jpg
Super Glove Ball(1990) used the Power Glove peripheral.
1990's Pin Bot was based on the Williams pinball machine.
Snake, Rattle 'n Roll was released for the NES and Genesis.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/snakerattlenroll.jpg
1991 introduced my personal favorite Rare series, Battletoads. Despite having characters trying to capitalize on the TMNT craze, 'toads was an excellent beat 'em up and much more varied than most with its platform and speed bike levels.
http://outerspace.terra.com.br/retrospace/materias/consoles/imagens/parte15/battletoads.gif
Battletoads was ported to the Game Boy, Genesis and Game Gear. The Game Boy also had an original game which was very well done. A sequel called Battletoads in Battlemaniacs was released for the SNES in 1993.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/battletoads.jpg
It was ported to the European Master System.
An excellent arcade version was also made and was published oddly enough by Electronic Arts. http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php...=B&game_id=7058
Battletoads and Double Dragon for the SNES, NES and Genesis combined the two great beat 'em up series yet managed to fall short of expectations. I still recommend checking it out.
Here are the rest of Rare's NES games. The majority of them are ports of other companies' games.
Cabal, California Games, World Games, NARC, Super Off Road, Marble Madness, Arch Rivals, Jordan vs Bird, Pirates, Silent Service, Beetlejuice, High Speed, Double Dare, Anticipation, Jeopardy, Hollywood Squares, Wheel of Fortune, Sesame Street, WWF Superstars, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Taboo and Time Lord.
As we head into the later years of the 16-bit era, Rare changed their focus to become an exclusive developer for Nintendo. 1994's Donkey Kong Country for the SNES was a major success thanks to its fancy CG look and large marketing campaign. The game itself was a very solid platformer but nothing of Mario or Sonic quality. Unfortunately, Nintendo adopted Rare's awful new art style for future DK appearances.
http://www.armchairempire.com/images/classics/donkey-kong-country/donkey-kong-country-4.jpg
DKC had a couple sequels on SNES as well a few Game Boy versions.
Also from 1994 was Rare's arcade fighting game Killer Instinct which focused on timing insane amounts of combos. It was ported to SNES and Game Boy. Killer Instinct 2 was an arcade sequel and Killer Instinct Gold was on N64. I'm not much of a KI fan so I don't know the differences between them.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/killerinstinct.jpg
Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run was released for the SNES in 1996.
Their 1997 N64 game Blast Corps was one of their most original post 16-bit games. It was an overhead view action/puzzle game where you used various vehicles to smash stuff.
http://outerspace.terra.com.br/retrospace/materias/consoles/imagens/parte37/blastcorps.jpg
Goldeneye 007 was responsible for a lot of N64 sales. It was impressive for a console FPS at the time with its neat gadgets and well designed missions. It certainly doesn't deserve the "best FPS of all time" status many bestow upon it though.
http://www.jamesbond.de/assets/images/goldeneye3.jpg
Banjo Kazooie represents much of what went wrong with Rare in their N64 years. Instead of making great original content, they became focused on imitating Nintendo. Banjo tried to outdo the exploratory platform gameplay of Super Mario 64 but didn't turn out as good. Like its sequel and the awful Donkey Kong 64, Banjo was an often tedious fetch quest with an art style that couldn't touch NCL's.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/screenshots_library/dir_44/vortal_pic_22041.jpg
Diddy Kong Racing also tried to mimic Nintendo. I thought they did a good job on this one though. It was very similar to the Mario Kart games but the adventure elements and flying vehicles were nice additions.
http://www.rombase.de/n64/diddy-kong-racing.jpg
They also made another N64 cart racing game, Mickey's Speedway. I haven't played it. They made GBC Mickey game too.
Jet Force Gemini in 1999 was a decent third-person action game but a lack of control customizability killed the fun for me. With a little more tweaking, this could have been a great game.
http://www.gamecritics.com/review/jetforcegemini/screen01.jpg
Perfect Dark was as far from perfect as you can get. I expected this FPS to surpass Goldeneye but instead I was given a game that felt like a fan-made Goldeneye mod with a barely playable frame rate. Having a bunch of the Goldeneye team leave to form Free Radical during development is likely the reason PD turned out so bad. Elvis didn't help either.
http://www.n64europe.com/graphicsx/perfectdark7.jpg
A 2D Perfect Dark game was also made for Game Boy Color.
I liked Rare's 2001 platform/adventure Conker's Bad Fur Day. Any game that lets you get drunk and piss on people can't be that bad. ;) This game was originally intended to be a typical cartoony game aimed at kids like the GBC Conker's Pocket Tales before it but they decided mid way through development to make it a humourous game for adults.
http://www.nintendo.com.au/n64/games/screenshots/conkers1.jpg
Bad Fur Day was recently remade for Xbox as Conker: Live and Reloaded.
Rare's final game for Nintendo was Star Fox Adventures for the Gamecube in 2002. It was originally under development as Dinosaur Planet for the N64.
http://www.raretopia.com/games/gcn/starfoxadventures/070a.jpg
Grabbed by the Ghoulies was Rare's first Xbox game.
http://www.salzburg.com/jugend/imbild02/spiele/xbox/grabbed/1.jpg
The GBA games Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge and Banjo Pilot were published by THQ although they were released after the Microsoft purchase of Rare.
Banjo Pilot(GBA, 2005)
http://www.mundorare.com/juegos/bkpilot/screenshots/bp033.jpg
What are your thoughts on these companies? I probably missed a few games so please make additions.
Developer - Bungie
Alex Seropian founded Bungie in 1991 and made a tank action game for the Mac called Operation Desert Storm. Soon afterwards, programmer Jason Jones joined the team and created Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, a multiplayer action/adventure game for the Mac.
http://www.bungie.net/images/Inside/History/sm_minotaur1.gif
Bungie reached critical success with their 1993 Mac game, Pathways into Darkness and proved that the PC wasn't the only format for the increasingly popular FPS genre.
Their next FPS proved to be one of the most pivotal in Mac history. 1994's Marathon was an engaging and technologically impressive sci-fi action game. It had a few sequels and was also released on PC.
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/july01/top505/44s.jpg
Bungie published Crack Dot Com's 2d PC action game Abuse in 1996.
In 1997, Bungie took a crack at the RTS genre with Myth: The Fallen Lords for PC and Mac. It had an expansion set and a sequel.
http://www.macuarium.com/macuarium/actual/juegos/16121999myth/imagenes/screenshot1.jpg
Oni became the last non-Microsoft game for Bungie. It was an anime-inspired third-person action game for PC, PS2, and Mac. I wasn't too impressed with it but it temporarily filled a void in the PS2's early months.
http://www.psillustrated.com/teamps2/ss_oni3.jpg
Like Marathon did for the Mac, the sci-fi FPS Halo was exactly what Microsoft needed for their Xbox.
http://www.emulationgalaxy.co.yu/images/xbox-halo.jpg
Halo 2(2004)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/lifestyle/games_room/2004/halo/images/halo2_400.jpg
Developer - Access Software
Founded by Bruce Carver in 1982, Access has made some impressive contributions to computer sports, adventure, and action games.
Released in 1983 on multiple computer formats, Beach Head was a war-themed action game that used a variety of perspectives. My favorite was the first-person battleship level where you shot down airplanes.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/thething/screen/beachhead11.png
Beach Head had a couple sequels. Access didn't develop the recent arcade/PC games of the same name.
Neutral Zone(1983)
http://www.juegomania.org/Neutral+Zone/fotos/c64/0/348/Foto+Neutral+Zone.jpg
Surpassing Beach Head was another war-themed game, Raid Over Moscow in 1984. This game also was quite varied; it had side-scrolling shooter levels and on foot battles near the Kremlin.
http://www.gb64.com/oldsite/gameofweek/top64/Raid_Over_Moscow_2.gif
Access published Fanda's C64 platform games Ollie's Follies and The Scrolls of Abadon in 1984.
In 1986, Access released their first computer golf game, World Class Leaderboard. I'm not big on golf games but this is the one I have played the most by far. The graphics of the terrain and every little detail was very impressive for its time.
http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/IMAGES/4/games/2reviews/leaderboardgolf-c64.gif
Golf games became Access' most successful genre with their Links series on PC and Xbox. I'm sure Microsoft's acquisition of Access was to obtain the Links franchise and it continues on today, although Carver is no longer with the company.
Links 2004
http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/XBox/links-2004/links-2004-4.jpg
1987's Echelon was one of the more innovative space sims of its time. It mixed in puzzle elements and also came with a headset/microphone to give voice commands.
Heavy Metal(1988) - A tank action game.
http://www.classicgaming.com/amigareviews/pic/heavymetal-a.png
In 1989, Access began making graphic adventure games with Mean Streets, the first game in the Tex Murphy detective series. It had some action segments as well.
http://www.adventurecollective.com/screenshots/mean02.gif
Mean Streets was followed by Martian Memorandum(1991), Under a Killing Moon(1994), Pandora Detective(1996) and Tex Murphy: Overseer(1998). Killing Moon is shown here.
http://www.adventure-archiv.com/u/under3.jpg
Access made a few other adventure games as well: Countdown(1990) and Amazon: Guardians of Eden(1992).
They also made a shitty NARC-type game called Crime Wave.
Developer - Rare
In 1982, brothers Chris and Tim Stamper founded called Ashby Computer and Graphics(ACG) and began publishing their games under the name Ultimate - Play The Game.
Their first game was Jetpac for the Spectrum in 1983. Jetpac involved gathering the pieces of of your ship together while avoiding enemies. The game was a huge success. It was included as a mini-game years later in Donkey Kong 64 for the N64.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/jetpac.jpg
Also released in 1983 for the Spectrum were the racing game Trans Am, the bug spraying game Pssst and Cookie.
Trans Am is the ancestor of the RC Pro-Am series that would later appear on NES, Game Boy and Genesis. They're still some of the best RC car racers to this day. http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/trans.html
RC Pro-Am(NES, 1987)
http://www.nintendogamezone.com/images/Pro_11.gif
1984 had Lunar Jetman, a side-scrolling sequel of sorts to Jetpac.
http://crashonline.org.uk/01/images/jetman1.gif
Jetman had another sequel on the NES in 1990. Solar Jetman was a neat action game reminiscent of arcade classics like Atari's Gravitar.
http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/snaps/solarjet-snap-0002.gif
Atic Atac(1984) was an action game where you threw axes at oncoming enemies. I found the animation and art in this game to be particularly appealing.
http://www.crashonline.org.uk/02/images/atic.gif
One of Ultimate's most popular games was the 1984 action/adventure game Sabre Wulf.
It was followed by other games in the Sabreman series: Underwurlde, Knight Lore, and Pentagram.
Sabre Wulf also recently resurfaced on GBA - http://gbamedia.gamespy.com/gba/image/Sabre-Wulf-GBA-Screen-1s_1087592916.jpg
Knight Lore used an isometric view as did its futuristic follow-up Alien 8.
http://crashonline.org.uk/15/images/alien8a.gif
Some other Ultimate Spectrum games:
Nightshade(1985)
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/nightshade.html
The Cyberun(1986)http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/cyberun.html
Gunfright(1986) http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/gunfright.html
Martianoids(1987)
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/martianoids.html
Bubbler(1987) - http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/01/bubbler.html
Many of Ultimate's Spectrum games were ported to other computers like the CPC, C64, MSX, and BBC Micro.
The Commodore 64 managed to get a few exclusive games but I think most of them were just published by Ultimate and not developed in-house.
The Stampers sold the Ultimate - Play The Game distribution rights to U.S. Gold in 1985 and began developing NES games under the name Rare. The influence of their Spectrum work is very noticeable in their NES games.
The first game developed under the Rare name was Slalom in 1986, a skiing game for the NES published by Nintendo. Nintendo also released it in arcade form. I really enjoyed it as a kid because it was the first arcade game I had played that used skis as a controller. Today, stuff like that is expected in arcade games like Namco's Alpine Racer series but back then it was quite novel.
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA018294/retoro/gamen.gif
Published by Acclaim in 1987, Wizards & Warriors brought Rare's style of fantasy action gaming to the NES. I still don't get how a knight in armor can jump so high. I loved the game back then but today it doesn't interest me. W&W had a couple NES sequels and a Game Boy game.
http://www.bigmother.no/aw/games/nes/pics/Wizards_&_Warriors.jpg
Published by Milton Bradley in 1988, Captain Skyhawk was one of the better shooters on the NES and had pseudo-polygon graphics. It was based on some toy, I think.
http://www.nes-site.com/articles/article_11/images/captain_skyhawk_01.gif
I loved Cobra Triangle(1988). The animation of the speedboat was incredibly fluid and it controlled perfectly.
http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Cobra_Triangle_NES_ScreenShot2.jpg
Super Glove Ball(1990) used the Power Glove peripheral.
1990's Pin Bot was based on the Williams pinball machine.
Snake, Rattle 'n Roll was released for the NES and Genesis.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/snakerattlenroll.jpg
1991 introduced my personal favorite Rare series, Battletoads. Despite having characters trying to capitalize on the TMNT craze, 'toads was an excellent beat 'em up and much more varied than most with its platform and speed bike levels.
http://outerspace.terra.com.br/retrospace/materias/consoles/imagens/parte15/battletoads.gif
Battletoads was ported to the Game Boy, Genesis and Game Gear. The Game Boy also had an original game which was very well done. A sequel called Battletoads in Battlemaniacs was released for the SNES in 1993.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/battletoads.jpg
It was ported to the European Master System.
An excellent arcade version was also made and was published oddly enough by Electronic Arts. http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php...=B&game_id=7058
Battletoads and Double Dragon for the SNES, NES and Genesis combined the two great beat 'em up series yet managed to fall short of expectations. I still recommend checking it out.
Here are the rest of Rare's NES games. The majority of them are ports of other companies' games.
Cabal, California Games, World Games, NARC, Super Off Road, Marble Madness, Arch Rivals, Jordan vs Bird, Pirates, Silent Service, Beetlejuice, High Speed, Double Dare, Anticipation, Jeopardy, Hollywood Squares, Wheel of Fortune, Sesame Street, WWF Superstars, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Taboo and Time Lord.
As we head into the later years of the 16-bit era, Rare changed their focus to become an exclusive developer for Nintendo. 1994's Donkey Kong Country for the SNES was a major success thanks to its fancy CG look and large marketing campaign. The game itself was a very solid platformer but nothing of Mario or Sonic quality. Unfortunately, Nintendo adopted Rare's awful new art style for future DK appearances.
http://www.armchairempire.com/images/classics/donkey-kong-country/donkey-kong-country-4.jpg
DKC had a couple sequels on SNES as well a few Game Boy versions.
Also from 1994 was Rare's arcade fighting game Killer Instinct which focused on timing insane amounts of combos. It was ported to SNES and Game Boy. Killer Instinct 2 was an arcade sequel and Killer Instinct Gold was on N64. I'm not much of a KI fan so I don't know the differences between them.
http://www.raretopia.com/features/ahistorylesson/killerinstinct.jpg
Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run was released for the SNES in 1996.
Their 1997 N64 game Blast Corps was one of their most original post 16-bit games. It was an overhead view action/puzzle game where you used various vehicles to smash stuff.
http://outerspace.terra.com.br/retrospace/materias/consoles/imagens/parte37/blastcorps.jpg
Goldeneye 007 was responsible for a lot of N64 sales. It was impressive for a console FPS at the time with its neat gadgets and well designed missions. It certainly doesn't deserve the "best FPS of all time" status many bestow upon it though.
http://www.jamesbond.de/assets/images/goldeneye3.jpg
Banjo Kazooie represents much of what went wrong with Rare in their N64 years. Instead of making great original content, they became focused on imitating Nintendo. Banjo tried to outdo the exploratory platform gameplay of Super Mario 64 but didn't turn out as good. Like its sequel and the awful Donkey Kong 64, Banjo was an often tedious fetch quest with an art style that couldn't touch NCL's.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/screenshots_library/dir_44/vortal_pic_22041.jpg
Diddy Kong Racing also tried to mimic Nintendo. I thought they did a good job on this one though. It was very similar to the Mario Kart games but the adventure elements and flying vehicles were nice additions.
http://www.rombase.de/n64/diddy-kong-racing.jpg
They also made another N64 cart racing game, Mickey's Speedway. I haven't played it. They made GBC Mickey game too.
Jet Force Gemini in 1999 was a decent third-person action game but a lack of control customizability killed the fun for me. With a little more tweaking, this could have been a great game.
http://www.gamecritics.com/review/jetforcegemini/screen01.jpg
Perfect Dark was as far from perfect as you can get. I expected this FPS to surpass Goldeneye but instead I was given a game that felt like a fan-made Goldeneye mod with a barely playable frame rate. Having a bunch of the Goldeneye team leave to form Free Radical during development is likely the reason PD turned out so bad. Elvis didn't help either.
http://www.n64europe.com/graphicsx/perfectdark7.jpg
A 2D Perfect Dark game was also made for Game Boy Color.
I liked Rare's 2001 platform/adventure Conker's Bad Fur Day. Any game that lets you get drunk and piss on people can't be that bad. ;) This game was originally intended to be a typical cartoony game aimed at kids like the GBC Conker's Pocket Tales before it but they decided mid way through development to make it a humourous game for adults.
http://www.nintendo.com.au/n64/games/screenshots/conkers1.jpg
Bad Fur Day was recently remade for Xbox as Conker: Live and Reloaded.
Rare's final game for Nintendo was Star Fox Adventures for the Gamecube in 2002. It was originally under development as Dinosaur Planet for the N64.
http://www.raretopia.com/games/gcn/starfoxadventures/070a.jpg
Grabbed by the Ghoulies was Rare's first Xbox game.
http://www.salzburg.com/jugend/imbild02/spiele/xbox/grabbed/1.jpg
The GBA games Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge and Banjo Pilot were published by THQ although they were released after the Microsoft purchase of Rare.
Banjo Pilot(GBA, 2005)
http://www.mundorare.com/juegos/bkpilot/screenshots/bp033.jpg
What are your thoughts on these companies? I probably missed a few games so please make additions.