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Metroid Prime Pinball (Fuse Games/Nintendo)

Nintendo DS (2005)


Innovative pinball, based on Metroid Prime where Samus is the ball! Not only can you use the flippers to guide Samus into targets, and lay mines, but also unfurl from ball form and shoot wave after wave of enemies. The gameplay takes place over both screens, with the touch screen being used to nudge the ball. There was even a multiplayer link-up mode from a single cartridge which is great fun.


Almost universally panned by Metroid fans on forums long before they saw the game, mainly by people who assume pinball games are for kids. It did get some very nice reviews when released, and even Nintendo said that it turned out better than they had expected.


Check out the entry on Wikipedia (inc. archived link to the official website)

History


Before forming Purple Wax Games, Kevin worked on many game titles. Perhaps you have fond memories of some of these? We’d love to hear from you - drop us a line

1990s. 2000s. 1980s.

Mario Pinball Land (Fuse Games/Nintendo)

GameBoy Advance (2004)


Known as Super Mario Ball in Japan & Europe - this was a sort of Pinball Adventure using lots of classic Mario environments and enemies.


Whilst trying to get my shareware business off the ground, some old friends (Hi Ade & Champie!) came to me with an idea: Mario Pinball on the GBA. I’d always wanted to do a GameBoy game and was quite surprised that there wasn’t already a pinball Mario game. I worked on the graphics & animation and together we made a little demo to show to Nintendo. It was nice to be working in a small team again and I was as surprised as anyone when Nintendo agreed to fund the project. Apparently, my animation of Mario being squeezed into a ball made Shigeru Miyamoto smile. He said we seemed to understand Mario.


Reviewers were amazed by the quality of the graphics on the humble GBA screen, which were pre-rendered using 3DS MAX, much like Rare had done with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES. Some people were confused into thinking it must be running on the new DS console.


You can see screenshots and more on Wikipedia

Conflict: Desert Storm (Pivotal Games/SCi)

XBox, PlayStation 2, PC (2002)


3D Squad Based Strategy game. Set in the Gulf War, you control upto 4 SAS/Delta Force soldiers on a number of secret missions.


After Eidos closed down Pumpkin Studios, most of the team went on to form Pivotal Games. This meant we had to create a new 3D engine. I took pictures of staff members for the character's faces, and because Pete Johnson (Hi Pete!) looked the part, he ended up as the entire Iraqi army!


I worked mainly on the 3D Characters, as well as all the technical graphic bits, such as character equipment, vehicles and weapons, although these will have been reworked by other artists, since I left Pivotal Games in March 2002 to try life as a shareware author (I must have been crazy!).


Now available on Steam where you can see some screenshots.

1990s. 2000s. 1980s.