Hummer Team

Hummer Team[1] (Chinese: 悍馬小組) was a Taiwanese developer of bootleg video games which was founded in 1992 and closed down in 2010.

Hummer Team
Company typePrivate
Founded1992
FounderHummer Cheng
Defunct2010
HeadquartersTaipei, Taiwan
ProductsVideo games

History

Hummer Team was founded in Taipei, Taiwan in 1992 by Hummer Cheng, who had previously worked at Sachen.[2] It was originally dedicated to the development and publishing of unauthorized ports of video games for the Nintendo Famicom. The first video game published by Hummer Team was Jing Ke Xin Zhuan (1992), a role-playing video game. Upon the releases of Kart Fighter (1993) and Somari (1994), the company began to gain attention.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hummer Team experienced economic troubles because it had difficulty developing for the fifth generation of video game consoles. This caused Hummer to begin making games for plug and play consoles, and working on things other than the Famicom.[2] Examples include the Samuri 60-in-1 and Z-Dog, the latter of which was released in 2006 by Zechess and was their final product. Most of their later plug-n-play consoles were based on OneBus "VT03" enhanced NES clone hardware by the Taiwanese company V.R. Technology.[3]

Recognition (1992–2006)

Hummer Team's first game,[4] Jing Ke Xin Zhuan, was released in 1992. The company was known in Argentina by its publisher, Yoko Soft, after the release of Street Fighter: The World Warrior in 1993. Some of Hummer Team's better known games include Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, an unlicensed port of Street Fighter II, Kart Fighter, a Street Fighter clone infamously using characters from the Super Mario World series, and Somari, a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game to the Famicom, featuring Mario instead of Sonic. Somari in particular gained a bit of notoriety, having been made fun of by many content creators and video game journalists for its poor physics, modified object placement and replacement of Sonic as the main character.

Games

Game Chinese Name Note Published
Jing Ke Xin Zhuan 荊軻新傳 Chinese language RPG. Hummer Team's first production. 1992
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior 街頭霸王 II：世界勇士 1992
Street Fighter IV 快打傳説 An enhanced port of Street Fighter II, with new characters and locations. 1993
Kart Fighter[5] 瑪莉快打 Another port of Street Fighter II, this time featuring the cast of Super Mario Kart. It gained popularity as an unofficial precursor to the Super Smash Bros. series.[6] 1993
Somari[7] 索馬里 A port of Sonic the Hedgehog with Mario as the main character. 1994
Dragon Ball Z – Super Butoden 2 龍珠 Z – 超級武神 2 1994
Tekken 鐵拳 1994
Mortal Kombat III 眞人快打 3 In actuality, a port of the original Mortal Kombat. Also known as Mortal Kombat IV. 1994
Aladdin 阿拉丁 Based on the Capcom title released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. 1995
Super Mario World 超级马里奥世界 A port of the SNES game of the same name. 1995
Sanguo Chunqiu: Sichuan Sheng 三國春秋 四川省 1996
Yuu Yuu Hakusho Final 宇宇白皮書終稿 1996
Street Fighter Zero 2 '96 街頭霸王零式 2 '96 1996
Street Fighter Zero 3 '97 街頭霸王零式 2 '97 1997
The King of Fighters '96 拳皇'96 1997
Tiny Toon Adventures 6 小香椿歷險記 6 A port of Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break, originally released for the Game Boy. 1997
Sonic & Knuckles 5 索尼克與指關節 5 A hack of Somari that replaces Mario with Sonic the Hedgehog. 1997
Donkey Kong Country 4 大金剛 4 An unlicensed port of Donkey Kong Country, which was originally released on the SNES. 1997
Earthworm Jim 3 蚯蚓吉姆 3 An unlicensed port of the Sega Genesis version of Earthworm Jim, published by NT. 1997
Final Fight 3 最後的戰鬥 3 A port of the SNES game. 1998
The King of Fighters '98 拳皇'98 1998
Titenic 泰坦尼克號 A beat-em-up video game inspired by James Cameron's movie Titanic. For the first 3 stages, you play as Jack, and for the last stages, you switch to playing as Rose. The game contains enemies stolen from the SNES game The Mask.[8] The music is NES adaptations of various themes from the movie. 1998
War War A game where you play as a soldier throwing grenades and shooting at enemies. Contains graphics and music reused from many of its earlier demakes.
Mortal Kombat 2 眞人快打 2 2000
Mortal Kombat II special 眞人快打II 特別版 2000
King Fishing 钓鱼王 A fishing game inspired by Sega Bass Fishing. It was commissioned by a Hong Kong-based company called Apollo Electronics for a fishing rod-shaped plug and play, which was distributed in America by Excalibur Electronics of Miami, Florida.[9] 2001
Harry's Legend 哈利的传奇 A hack of Titenic based off of the book Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.[10] It was commissioned because its publisher, Silicon Application, didn't think consumers would be interested in a game based off of Titanic, so they changed it to something people would be more interested in. The Titanic music was replaced with other music in order to disguise the game's origins. 2001
The Hummer 悍馬 A hack of Somari with an altered character sprite resembling Hummer Team's mascot, a horse named Hummer.[11] 2002
Mortal Kombat 4 眞人快打 4 2003
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers III 強大的嗎啡電力別動隊 III 2003
Shin Samurai 真侍魂II 2003
Super New Year Cart 15-in-1 超强年度新卡 A Famicom multicart released by Hongjing (鴻景). Contains versions of earlier Hummer Team games altered to remove copyrighted materials, most notably Titenic. It also contains several original games containing reused assets from earlier games as well. Created presumably to celebrate Lunar New Year. 2005
Titenic Remake 泰坦尼克號翻拍 A remake of the original Titenic. This version has different music, as found in Harry's Legend. 2005
Samuri 60-in-1 Samuri 60合1 The first plug and play console published by Zechess. Contains a controller modeled after the original Xbox controller.[12] 2006
Z-Dog Z狗 The second and final plug-and-play console published by Zechess. The last product released under Hummer Team before their closure. It's estimated that only 300 units were sold. 2006

References

  1. ^ What Happened To Hummer Team?, retrieved 24 September 2022
  2. ^ a b "PGC Forums-您好 / Hello". PGC Forums. 20 June 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  3. ^ "PGC Forums-Samuri/Star Angel - a Hummer Team plug & play console". PGC Forums. 15 June 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  4. ^ Every Hummer Team game for Famicom / NES / Dendy / 8 bit Family Game, retrieved 24 September 2022
  5. ^ NES Longplay – Kart Fighter, retrieved 24 September 2022
  6. ^ Staff, Siliconera (5 July 2006). "Before Super Smash Brothers there was Kart Fighter". Siliconera. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  7. ^ Somari (NES) Playthrough – NintendoComplete, retrieved 24 September 2022
  8. ^ "Titenic - The Cutting Room Floor". tcrf.net. Retrieved 3 December 2024.
  9. ^ "excaliburelectronics". web.archive.org. 16 June 2002. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  10. ^ "Harry's Legend - The Cutting Room Floor". tcrf.net. Retrieved 3 December 2024.
  11. ^ "Somari - The Cutting Room Floor". tcrf.net. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
  12. ^ "Samuri 60 in 1". fuji.12bit.club. Retrieved 3 December 2024.