-Cass Barkman
From adapting Australian championships like V8 supercars to including iconically popular brands like Holden, the videogame industry, both domestic and abroad, has sought to tap into Australian car and racing culture.
Racing in Bathurst
Australian car culture has frequently bled into Australian videogames – via developers like Ratbag and Melbourne House who have released a slew of racing games, to Australian-exclusive titles and localisations of international games seeking to appeal specifically to an Australian audience. The latter trend began in the 90s, with such games highlighting the ways Australian car culture was used to market games to Australian racing enthusiasts through the recreation of Australia-specific races and car brands.
The first game based on an Australian-exclusive race came from Torus Games in 1997 titled Touring Car Champions. The game was based on the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) that has been held since 1960 across Australia, with its name changing the year after Touring Car Champion’s release to its contemporary title, the Supercars Championship. Torus was founded in Bayswater, Victoria by Bill McIntosh in 1994 after working as a programmer at Beam Software[1] from 1985 to 1993.[2] Torus’ Touring Car Champions featured full motion video technology and was based specifically on the Mount Panorama ATCC race at Bathurst.
Not to be confused with TOCA Touring Car Championship developed by Codemasters that was also released in 1997, Touring Car Champions was an Australian-exclusive title published by Virtual Sports Interactive[3] and officially endorsed by the titular event. It was also the first racing game to take advantage of full motion video (FMV), a technique that relies upon pre-recorded video being inserted into the videogame. It contains only one track – Bathurst – and includes drivers from the 1995 race such as Peter Brock, Tomas Mezera and Greg Murphy, as well as clips from the race itself that play at key moments. The speed of the background’s FMV footage of the track ensures the player’s speed is restricted.[4]
Torus’ Touring Car Champions represents the Bathurst track through full motion video footage.
Touring Car Champions became the first of a series of racing games developed in Australia, as well as the first game to adapt the Australian racing scene to videogames. Torus followed up the game with Dick Johnson V8 Challenge also on PC in 1999, a game created with input from and named after the famed V8 racing team. It featured 25 drivers and 24 cars including the 1999 Holden Commodore. It also featured the Oran Park Raceway, Sandown Raceway and Queensland Raceway in addition to the original Bathurst. Unlike the previous game, Dick Johnson V8 Challenge was not FMV and supported the use of a force-feedback racing wheel. It was released by Australian publisher Tru Blue Entertainment[5] exclusively for Australia.
Reskinning the Beetle to a Honda: Localising for Australian Players
The presence of these two Australian-exclusive titles represented an attempt to tap into the market around Australian car culture through the avenue of videogames. The same year Dick Johnson V8 Challenge was released, EA made a similar attempt through a reskinning of an international racing game to appeal more directly to Australian audiences. The game was Beetle Adventure Racing, an arcade racer developed by Paradigm Entertainment[6] and EA Canada for the Nintendo 64. To the rest of the world, Beetle Adventure Racing saw players take control of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle as they drive around fantastical course while contending with pyramids, UFOs, dragons, pirates and dinosaurs. It also contained a ‘Beetle Battle’ mode based on Mario Kart’s ‘balloon battle’ that saw players collect powerups and compete over 6 different ladybug pendants.
To Australian audiences though, Beetle Adventure Racing was HSV Adventure Racing[7]. Perhaps EA believed Beetles were not as identifiable a car in Australia, or they simply believed that Holden Special Vehicles (HSV), being an Australian-exclusive brand, was a way to appeal to rev-heads more directly. In this version, every Volkswagen Beetle became a HSV Clubsport, the Beetles in ‘Beetle Battle’ mode became HSV pendants and the announcer was given a very Australian accent and lines like “g’day”, “nice wheels” and “goin’ off!”. All the tracks and modes however remained the same.
Every Volkswagen Beetle became a Holden Clubsport in the Australian localisation of EA’s adventure racing game.
HSV Adventure Racing was far from the last international game to be localised for Australian audiences. The second instance of this came from Australian developer Ratbag, who a year earlier had made a name for themselves in the racing game scene with Powerslide. Their follow-up game in 1999 was Dirt Track Racing, which maintained the same engine and game modes from Powerslide but with the addition of an early example of a career mode that saw the player start as an amateur with a thousand dollars who must work their way through various championships to earn more and upgrade their car. What was notable about the game for Australian audiences was that a localisation of it was released that essentially added additional content solely for its domestic audience. Creatively titled Dirt Track Racing: Australia, this version of the game contained six additional Holden muscle cars and was a significant hit, with Ratbag releasing two sequels and one spin-off of the Dirt Track Racing in subsequent years.
This approach to offering exclusive content to the Australian audience was also adopted by EA for their popular Need for Speed series. 1998 saw the release of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit worldwide on PC and PlayStation, with the Australian PC version including the Holden GTS (VT) and Falcon GT as exclusive unlockable cars. The next game in the series, Need for Speed: High Stakes was released a year later and similarly locked various Australian cars such as the Ford Falcon XR8 and Holden HSV VT GTS as exclusives to the Australian PlayStation release. The game also contained Australian police variants of the BMW M5 and Lamborghini Diablo SV. Slightly different exclusives were also included in the PC release. Both the PC and PlayStation versions also moved the location of the Durham Road track to Australia, whilst every other release saw it set in England.[8] A couple years later, EA decided to localise another of their racing games, turning the DICE-developed Swedish Touring Car Championship 2 from 2000 into V8 Challenge exclusive to Australia on PC in 2002.[9] It added various Australian tracks such as Bathurst, Adelaide, Queensland and Melbourne, as well as adding a series of V8 utes such as the HSV Maloo and the Falcon XR8.
V8 Supercars
This was followed by Codemaster’s TOCA series of racing games similarly beginning to adapt their Australian releases to the local market. TOCA is the company behind the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), a motorsport event that was adapted in 1997 PC and PlayStation game TOCA Touring Car Championships. The game was popular enough for Codemasters to spawn a series of sequels, with the fourth TOCA game, titled TOCA Race Driver in the UK and released in 2002, starting a trend of releasing under different titles in different regions. The game was renamed DTM Race Driver in Germany, Pro Race Driver in North America and V8 Supercars: Race Driver in Australia.
This was the first game ever to use ‘V8 Supercars’ in the title, despite Dick Johnson V8 Challenge coming close. The PlayStation 2 version of V8 Supercars: Race Driver was released in Australia in 2002, followed by the Xbox and PC versions in 2003. All versions of the game contained the same content, which included the TOCA racing championship, as well as twenty-one cars and seven tracks from the 2001 V8 Shell Champion Series in Australia. This began a trend of TOCA games releasing under the V8 Supercars licence, with V8 Supercars Australia 2[10] following in 2004 and V8 Supercars 3[11] in 2006. Supercars Australia 2 contained all the content from the previous game alongside the added Surfer’s Paradise track from another TOCA game, TOCA World Touring Cars. V8 Supercars 3 also contained additional V8 cars and was the last Codemaster game in the TOCA series.
This series of localised racing games highlights that the way the videogame industry, both domestic and abroad, have sought to take advantage of Australia’s car and racing culture. This has ranged from straightforward videogame adaptations of popular Australian championships like the Australian Touring Car Championship and V8 supercars, to popular domestic car brands like Holden Special Vehicles being used, to exclusive Australian content, to including Australian cars and circuits alongside a localised rebranding.
Notes
[1] A studio also known under subsequent monikers Melbourne House (1997-99), Infrogrames Melbourne House (1999-2003) and Krome Studios Melbourne (2003-2010).
[2] https://www.tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/210708/origins-of-australian-game-developers
[3] Reportedly the only videogame published by Virtual Sports Interactive.
[4] Footage from the game can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEpp6KH_YiQ.
[5] Tru Blu is also behind various other Australian-specific titles such as AFL and NRL videogames.
[6] Paradigm Entertainment had previous published several racing games such as F-1 World Grand Prix I and II.
[7] https://www.ign.com/articles/1999/11/18/there-are-no-beetles-in-australia
[8] The next major instalment in the series, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 in 2002, also contained several Australian cars, but were not exclusive to the Australian version of the game.
[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20031229231213/http://www.electronic-arts.com.au/easports/product_description.php?product_id=191
[10] Titled DTM Race Driver 2 in Germany and TOCA Race Driver 2 everywhere else.
[11] Titled DTM Race Driver 3 in Germany, TOCA Race Driver 3 everywhere else, as well as TOCA Race Driver 3 Challenge on PSP and Race Driver: Create & Race on the Nintendo DS.