Argonaut Games

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Argonaut Games PLC was a British video game developer. Founded as Argonaut Software by teenager Jez San in 1982 the company name is a play on his name (J. San) and the movie title Jason and the Argonauts.

[edit] History

The company produced its first game Skyline Attack for the Commodore 64. It later produced the 3D Starglider games for the Amiga and Atari ST platforms.

In 1993 it designed the Super FX 3D graphics accelerator chip for the SNES and developed the game Star Fox along with Nintendo to take advantage of it. The division that designed the chip, Argonaut RISC Core, was spun off in 1998 to market configurable RISC-based chips.

Argonaut Software was split into Argonaut Technologies and Argonaut Games in 1999. Argonaut Games was floated the following year.

In late October 2004 Argonaut Games called in receivers David Rubin & Partners, fired 100 employees and was put up for sale. Lack of a constant stream of deals with publishers led to cashflow issues and a profit warning earlier in the year.

• Tom Ashton of The March Violets worked here, see http://themultiverse.org/biopress.htm

[edit] Selected games

• Skyline Attack, 1984 (Commodore 64)
• Alien, 1984 (Commodore 64)
• Starglider, 1985
• Starglider 2, 1988
• Days of Thunder, 1990 (Atari ST, Amiga)
• Race Drivin', 1992 (Atari ST, Amiga)
• A.T.A.C, 1992 (PC CDROM)
• Birds of Prey, 1992 (AMIGA)
• Star Fox, 1993 (SNES)
• King Arthur's World, 1993 (SNES)
• Vortex, 1994 (SNES)
• Creature Shock, 1994 (PC CDROM)
• Ren & Stimpy: Fire Dogs, 1994 (SNES)
• FX Fighter, 1995 (PC CDROM)
• Play with Teletubbies, 1996 (PC CDROM)
• Alien Odyssey, 1997 (PC CDROM)
• Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, 1997 (PS1, SAT, PC)
• Buck Bumble, 1998 (N64)
• Croc 2, 1999 (PS1, PC)
• The Emperor's New Groove, 2000 (PS1, PC)
• Alien: Resurrection, 2000 (PS1, PC)
• Red Dog: Superior Firepower, 2000 (DC)
• Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge, 2000 (PS1, PC)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 2001 (PS1)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2002 (PS1)
• Bionicle: Matoran Adventures, 2002 (GBA)
• Bionicle: The Game, 2003 (Xbox, PC, PS2, GameCube)
• I-Ninja, 2003 (Xbox, PC, PS2, GameCube)
• Swat: Global Strike Team, 2003 (Xbox, PS2)
• Carve, 2004 (Xbox)
• Catwoman: The Game, 2004 (Xbox, PC, PS2, GameCube)
• Powerdrome, 2004 (Xbox, PS2)
• Malice, 2005 (Xbox, PS2)

[edit] External links

• Different versions of the official Argonaut Games' homepage archived by Wayback Machine
• An overview of Argonaut Games at Games Investor
• Argonaut Games profile on MobyGames