Melbourne House

Logo descriptions by logoboy95, EnormousRat, and anex407 Logo captures by EnormousRat

Melbourne House
Background: Melbourne House was a video game company that began in 1977. The same year Beam Software was founded as the subsidiary. In 1987, Melbourne House brand was sold to Mastertronic, which used it until 1989. In 1989, Mastertronic was folded into Virgin and the Melbourne House brand was shut down. In 1996, Virgin managed to put off the brand and it was picked up by Beam Software, a former subsidiary of Melbourne House, to be used as the publishing name for some of their games. The first appearance was in 1997, but the two names were always used separately.

1st Logo (Late 80s-1989)

Melbourne House (1989)Melbourne House (1989)

Nickname: "The Red Dot"

Logo: There's a 3D-border shield made of stone. It can be light brown or grey. A red dot lies on the shield, designed as a 3D object. Below the dot, we can read "MELBOURNE HOUSE".

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Rare. It's seen on War in Middle-Earth and Obliterator, among other games, mainly for Amiga.

Editor's Note: None.

2nd Logo (1997-1999) Melbourne House (1997)Melbourne House (1998)

Nicknames: "The Waking Television Eye"

Logo: The screen is full of white noise. The camera zoom out and we see the blue drawn eye with the TV in his eyeball. There are five eyelashes, two of them being red and yellow. Under the eye, the text is "Melbourne House". The whole picture is 3D.

FX/SFX: The static noise.

Variants: In KKND: Krossfire, the eye is being shot. After this, it makes arms and legs and starts to shoot back. In Dethkarz, the eye has four wheels and ride all over the screen before bumping into its normal position. There's a version with no 3D.

Music/Sounds: TBA.

Availability: Used in Dethkarz, GP 500 and in KKND game series.

Editor's Note: None.

Infogrames Melbourne House
In 1999, Melbourne House was sold to Infogrames and renamed "Infogrames Melbourne House". Beam Software soon went out of gaming business. In November 2006, Melbourne House was acquired by Krome and became "Krome Studios Melbourne", but closed down in 2010.

3rd Logo (November 13-27, 2000)

Nicknames: "Blue Armadillo", "Indian Armadillo" Melbourne House (2000) Logo: On a spotlight, we see the words "INFOGRAMES Melbourne House" in white and blue respectively with "INFOGRAMES" in white inside a black curvy shape with armadillo's footsteps below it and a blue Indian armadillo with his red Indian blanket.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: It was only used on 2 Dreamcast games, Test Drive Le Mans/Le Mans 24 Hours, and Looney Tunes: Space Race.

Editor's Note: None.

4th Logo (June 22, 2001-April 8, 2003) Melbourne House (2001)

Nickname: "Playing All-Over the Globe"

Logo: On a white background, the camera zooms out from the back of a old-fashioned cartoon-style CRT TV monitor and pans out to reveal a pale pink short-whiskered armadillo playing video games on the TV,mindlessly hitting buttons and rocking the joystickon the (Atari 2600 reminiscent) controller on ablue/bright purpleglobe. Everything is upside-down at first, but the camera cuts to a view of kangaroo copying the same deed the armadillo is currently doing, viewed right-side up. The animals sit on opposite hemispheres on the globe. The kangaroo sits on the top of the globe, and vice-versa. However, everything is upside down yet again when the stacked words"MELBOURNE HOUSE" in an odd cartoon font appears over it, each word going around the globe from opposite directions Suddenly, the animals freeze and look at the text frighteningly, as the globe rotates 180 degrees and change poles. After the animals blink a couple times,the"MELBOURNE HOUSE"revolve around the world(a la theUniversal Pictureslogo) and the text "INFOGRAMES" in the same style as the"MELBOURNE HOUSE"behind the globe, joining in. Despite this, the animals continue playing on their consoles until the logo fades out.

FX/SFX: The animals playing their video games, the camera zooming, and the text rotating."MELBOURNE HOUSE"It's all CGI.

Music/Sounds: The sound of tapping buttons with a bouncy cartoon synth soundtrack that stops when the animals stop, and resumes when the text rotates. Comical sound effects are also included.

Availability:Rare. It appears on 3 games, Le Mans 24 Hours for the PS2 and PC (2002 Re-Release), Space Race for PS2 and Men in Black ll: Alien Escape for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube.

Editor's Note: None.

5th Logo (November 22, 2002)

Nicknames: "The Wheel", "Melbourne House Racing"

Logo: On a black background, we see a wheel spinning, and flames stick all over it. Eventually the screen flashes and we see the Wheel in a box inside a red background with a white box. The large white word RACING appears on bottom of the wheel, and "MELBOURNE HOUSE" appears on the bottom of that.

FX/SFX: All the animation in the logo.

Music/Sounds: Racing car sounds.

Availability: It was only used on Grand Prix Challenge for the PlayStation 2.

Editor's Note: None.

6th Logo (2004-2007)

Melbourne House (2004)

Nickname: "MH", "Melbourne Wings"

Logo: On a black background, we see blue lines which are apart of a shape which reveals to be the MH logo in blue, then a flash happens inside the MH and the background turns white with "melbourne house" in blue appearing on the bottom of the MH. The box around it vanishes and the MH turns 2D.

FX/SFX: CGI Animation.

Music/Sounds: A Synth Sounder.

Availability: Was used on Transformers for PlayStation 2 and the PSP and PlayStation 2 versions of Test Drive Unlimited.

Editor's Note: None.