See Master thread for links to other countries threads and poll, read rules, and tell me which country should receive a thread next:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/249268/master-thread-favorite-games-from-different-countries/

This time we are going to the Mediterranean, with Italy! I hope you like driving/racing games, because Italy has them in spades!

This was a challenge to make, as Italy does not have a huge gaming industry, a lot of their big profile games are co-productions with other countries, especially because of how Ubisoft has historically produced games. This naturally makes it hard to evaluate if a game qualifies or not, as I don’t want to include games there has merely received support by an Italian studio, rather than the Italian studio being part of the core process of the video game development and the creative process. Italy only really has two big developers, which are, to be fair, quite big! The indie scene is not as strong as in other countries, though they do have some gems. And as I said, hope you like driving, because when it comes to racing games, I can’t think of many countries that can rival the output nor the quality as the Italian scene.

Some notable Italian developers and their games:

Ubisoft Milan

Certainly the big AAA one. Doesn’t often develop games completely on their own, but rather serve as either co-developer or support team. This is why it is so damn difficult to decide which games would be eligible, as the information on how the development has been divided isn’t always clear or public, so sometimes I have had to make a ‘qualified’ guess. Let’s get the easy ones out of the way. There is no doubt from the information I could find that they were at least shared main developer on the Mario + Rabbits games together with Ubisoft Paris, probably even more so than the latter. Both directors on the second and the sole director on the first were affiliated with the Italian sub-division. Both games are of course well acclaimed tactical role-playing games, the former did fairly well critically and commercially, while the second did better critically, but disappointed a bit in sales.

Beyond Good & Evil is less clear cut, as it again was a co-production, between French Ubisoft (this time Montpellier) and Ubisoft Milan, but with a French director, however from what I could gather it seems the development was basically split evenly between the two studios, so I would say it qualifies. And given how competitive a potential French poll would be, I’d say it is fair it gets some love here. I do not doubt this cult classic adventure game will be one of the front-runners for the poll. Some say it beats several Zelda games even, quite a praise!

When it comes to the Splinter Cell games games it becomes very complicated. The first, fifth and sixth games had no involvement from Milan, while the second, third and fourth had to varying extends. The third Chaos Theory, has conflicting information about, some sources say it was solely by Montreal, others include Milan, but even some of those who include it have Milan as secondary developer. Replace Ubisoft Montreal with Ubisoft Shanghai and the story is basically the same for Pandora’s Tomorrow (unless you count the unpopular GBA port), leaving Double Agent the only eligible for the poll, as it is more clear to me that Ubisoft Milan and Shanghai contributed roughly equally on the PC/X360/PS3 version.

They have had some input on Ghost Recon over the years too, but it seems only Wildlands has enough input to qualify and it isn’t particularly praised.

Their contribution to Rainbow Six, mainly consist of DLC it seems, while on Assassin’s Creed they only did support.

Just Dance has so many developers on each game it ain’t funny, but Milan seems to have been consistently involved throughout the years, so I’ll say it qualifies

Notable games:

F1 Racing Championship

Beyond Good & Evil

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Xbox 360, PC, PS3 version)

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

Just Dance

Milestone s.r.l.

This studio has consistently made racing games since 1995’s Screamer. This includes the MotoGP (07+08 and 13-25) , WRC game franchises and maybe especially Hot Wheels Unleased.

Notable games:

Screamer

Superbike 2001

MotoGP 20

Hot Wheels Unleased

Hot Wheels Unleased 2: Turbocharged

Kunos Simulazioni

Another racing game developer. Their claim to fame is the Assetto Corsa series, of which the first is often considered one of the greatest driving simulators ever made, and one of the best selling.

Notable games:

Assetto Corsa

Assetto Corsa Competizione

Assetto Corsa Evo

34BigThings

Yes, another racing game developer, this one less simulation and more arcade. They are mainly known for just one game. Inspired by Wipeout and F-zero.

Notable game:

Redout

Other games to consider:

Last Day of June

Murasaki Baby

Remothered: Tormented Fathers

Close To The Sun

Fotonica

Gekido

Hundred Days - Winemaking Simulator

HyperParasite

Joe Dever's Lone Wolf

McDonald's Video Game (parody flash game)

Vera Blanc

Loren the Amazon Princess

Nippon Safes Inc.

Noctis

Saturnalia

Mario+Rabbids series. I just enjoy the games and their humor.

Mario+Rabbids: Sparks Of Hope. Didnt get as into it as Kingdom Battle, but it still is the better game.

Mario + Rabbids !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NP6dXEL2xY

Too many co-developed games, so I'll go with all Italian game, In Verbis Victus. I like puzzle solving adventures, this is adventure with action elements, but it caught my attention back in days for using microphone to cast spells - as in, you actually recite incantations to cast them. It was pretty nice experience, fairly challenging.

Once again TIL, I have never played an Italian developed game.

While turn-based gameplay isn't my thing, I'll still give the nod to the Mario + Rabbids titles for being well made and doing the Mario name justice.

If Wario is Italian, then my vote goes to Warioware Inc. for GBA.

Loren the Amazon Princess is a game I played quite a bit, pretty memorable characters and I like the combat system quite a lot.

Mario & Rabbits is a close second, but I found combat to be a bit too toned down compared to Jagged Alliance or X-Com to be really enjoyable for myself. However, it really is a great mashup of the Mario and Raving Rabbits franchises.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that half of the Italian-developed games on this list are racers, but I am surprised by just how few there are in general for such a large European country.