Under-recognized Game Studios/Developers

[ianeddy44]

In the thousands of games made, many have had an impact on the future of gaming. Of course, these games were created by developers or studios. In this thread, I propose we name and discuss some of those game studios/developers. Try to get some great replies here, and try to avoid the typical replies.

Two developers that have _always_ been on my radar have been Sucker Punch Productions, accountable for Infamous and the excellent Sly Cooper series. As well as Insomniac Games, responsible for Ratchet & Clank, Spyro, and Resistance.

For me, at least, both the Ratchet & Clank and Sly Cooper games were defining moments in my gaming childhood. Nostalgia may slightly cloud my opinions, but those series were always rock-solid experiences.

How about you?

 

[neonsword13-ops]

Double Fine.

Of course, they have been gaining recognition through out these few years with their downloadable games.

 

[EHKOS]

Naughty Dog, Bethesda, Bioware, Rockstar, and Insomniac. Those are my favorites. Naughty Dog made Crash Bandicoot, Bethesda and Rockstar made huge open worlds. Bioware made some chilling atmospheres and Insomniac made Ratchet and Clank.

 

[Actual]

Obsidian Entertainment.

Makers of Alpha Protocol and designers/writers of Fallout New Vegas.

They make wonderful wonderful games, that are also hugely buggy.

Also made Star Wars: Knights of the Old republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2.

 

[manythings]

Troika (now Double Bear) made Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Just so good! I'd put up a link to plce to dl it for £8 (far less than Valve are asking for) but I dunno if that kind of thing is allowed.

 

[ianeddy44]

Naughty Dog, Bethesda, Bioware, Rockstar, and Insomniac. Those are my favorites. Naughty Dog made Crash Bandicoot, Bethesda and Rockstar made huge open worlds. Bioware made some chilling atmospheres and Insomniac made Ratchet and Clank.

Ah, yes! Good old Naughty Dog. I remember loving Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy back in the day.

 

[GrimSheeper]

Petroglyph I think. Empire at War had sublime space battles.
SEK-Ost made Paraworld which I thought to be magnificient, one of the units was a triceratops with a ballista on top, there was dimensional travel and steampunk enemies. Great game, nobody bought it.

Egosoft is also under-recognized with the X-series, my first and favourite 4X Space Sim.

 

[mysecondlife]

Sucker Punch and NaughtyDog deserves recognition..

but along with that is Team Ico mainly because they only have about 30 people in it. talk about insane..

..and ensemble studios. Age of Empires 2 is hell of a game. and I give them huge credit for adding in Turtle Ship

 

[Halo Fanboy]

G.rev is pretty under-recognized. Alfa Systems also.

 

[luckybreak]

Atlus and NIS America

 

[AlternatePFG]

Obsidian Entertainment.

Makers of Alpha Protocol and designers/writers of Fallout New Vegas.

They make wonderful wonderful games, that are also hugely buggy.

Also made Star Wars: Knights of the Old republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2.

I agree. They are one of my favorite developers. Neverwinter Nights 2 main campaign was pretty fun but the expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, was absolutely brilliant. True about the bugs though. Very true.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Troika (now Double Bear) made Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Just so good! I'd put up a link to plce to dl it for £8 (far less than Valve are asking for) but I dunno if that kind of thing is allowed.

Awesome game...at least up till where you find the Ankaran Sarcophagus and a glithc won't let the game go any further...can't say what it's like after that.

 

[gigastar]

Team Clover.

They brought Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and Okami into the world, and it slightly depresses me to think that they were shut down by Capcom in 2007.

 

[The_Shepherd]

Paradox interactive, makers of fine strategy games.

 

[manythings]

Troika (now Double Bear) made Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Just so good! I'd put up a link to plce to dl it for £8 (far less than Valve are asking for) but I dunno if that kind of thing is allowed.

Awesome game...at least up till where you find the Ankaran Sarcophagus and a glithc won't let the game go any further...can't say what it's like after that.

There is a community patch(3.4 was the last version I saw) that apparently fixed all that, haven had a copy to try it with and no money to get it as it is. It's on file planet definitely, probably a hundred others.

 

[TrevHead]

Cave make some really fantstic 2D games, their games just oozes quality. Even ppl who arnt into shmups should check out Nin2Jump.

Carpe Fulgur and Rockin Android for trailblailing Japanese indie games in the west.

Rising Star Games. For any Euro / Pal Japanese game fan they are a godsend as we dont have the likes of Altus, NIS, Aksys and Xseed that the US gamers are spoilt with. Also RSG are reall good at what they do aswell and go above and beyond what is the norm for publishers pleasing the fans.

Croteam the guys behind the Seroius Sam series, considering with SS BFE is the only game that is keeping the classic PC Action FPS alive they deserve some respect. The fact that they are a TINY dev studio, SS1 had only 10 ppl working on it (6 full time, 4 contractors) and from what ive heard SS BFE has only a dev team on 10 to 15 ppl.

As a UK gamer who has been playing games since the 8bit computer days, ive got allot of love for Codemasters, the made the Dizzy series back in the day (Yahtzee seems to be a fan of Dizzy aswell since he often shows Treasure Island Dizzy in EP when he is talking about the best games of all time). Fast forward to modern times and all the great racing games to have come from the UK game industry (Racing games is the UKs forte) it seems that Codmasters is the last remaning bastion as the UK industry has been bought out by mostly Japanese and US mega publishers and have dismantled much of the industry that was there in the PS2 era

 

[weker]

Naughty Dog, Bethesda, Bioware, Rockstar, and Insomniac. Those are my favorites. Naughty Dog made Crash Bandicoot, Bethesda and Rockstar made huge open worlds. Bioware made some chilling atmospheres and Insomniac made Ratchet and Clank.

I thought this was the "Under-recognized" devs XD

OT Platinum games apart from Bayonetta none were that highly regarded and didn't sell amazingly

MadWorld (2009)
Infinite Space (2009)
Bayonetta (2010)
Vanquish (2010)

 

[TrevHead]

^ Yea most ppl dont seem to know the words "Under-recognized"

I was gonna mention Sega with Vanguish and Bayonetta as these have a cult following. Im looking forward to Sega's Binary Domain even though the rest of the internet seems to hate it.

Although Treasure have a large cult following ill add them to the list. Their Wii hybrid lightgun shooter Sin and Punishment 2 is one of the best games to come out this console gen without a doubt.

All the Japanese games ive listed in this thread and the last I expect that boxed versions of the game will be highly sought after by collecters, as is normally the case with high quality niche game when ppl in the future find out just what gems theyve overlooked

 

[kyogen]

Cavia (closed 2010): They made a fair few anime games and spinoff titles, but they also had a knack for developing very clever, very quirky original IPs that lacked polish but took risks and showed real ambition. Nier (2010), Drakengard (2003), Drakengard 2 (2005), etc.

CD Projekt Red: They've only made The Witcher 1 (2007) and 2 (2011), and they've certainly learned to promote themselves, but so much of their international fame has developed over the years by word-of-mouth that I thought they should at least get an honorable mention. Wonderful rpgs. Simply wonderful.

Ninja'd on Clover/Platinum.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Team ICO. They made ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, and that's all that needs to be said. One of the major reasons why I bought a PS3 was so I would have the ability to play the next Team ICO, which wasn't even announced nor did it have a name either. The Last Guardian is my most wanted game this gen.

Platinum Games. Formerly Clover Studio, they have made 2 of the very best games of this gen, Bayonetta and Vanquish. The dodge offset mechanic in Bayonetta makes it the best game ever in it's genre. And, in this generation's never-ending flood of shooters, Vanquish is sitting at the very top.

Ninja Theory. They are one of the few developers nowadays that makes games with heart. Heavenly Sword is really a great game, the battle system is actually very well done and the end battle and boss fight is damn awesome. Heavenly Sword is easily the better game (both in gameplay and story) compared to God of War 3. Enslaved, while a flawed game, has characters you care about, which few games this gen have accomplished. I don't get the hate they are getting with the new DMC game; if I was a huge DMC fan, I'd be ecstatic that Ninja Theory is developing the game.