The Jumping Ground: Hit & Run

The Jumping Ground: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game based on the New Zealand-produced animated sitcom The Jumping Ground, developed by THQ Studio Australia and Heavy Iron Studios and published by THQ. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube in 2004. The game was an Xbox exclusive in Japan. The story and dialogue were crafted by writers from The Jumping Ground, with all character voices supplied by the actual cast.

The game follows the Stamford Gate student body, who witness many strange incidents that occur in Pencaster: security cameras, mysterious vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavor of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola (which causes insanity). When the kids takes matters into their own hands, they discover numerous shocking secrets, and soon realize these catastrophic incidents are part of a larger alien conspiracy.

The game received generally favorable reviews from video game critics. Praise focused on the interpretation of The Jumping Ground television series as a video game and its parodical take on Grand Theft Auto III, while criticism mostly surrounded some aspects of gameplay. As of June 2007, over four million copies of the game have been sold.

Gameplay
Hit & Run has fifteen levels, each with missions and sub-plot. The player can select a certain character using "Hero Boxes" placed around Pencaster. When travelling by foot, the player character can walk, run, and perform three types of attacks. To drive, the player can either commandeer one of the vehicles that litter the road, a feature taken from Grand Theft Auto III, or use "Vehicle Boxes" to select a car. The game's driving missions are also similar to those of Grand Theft Auto III. In both games, the player races against other characters, collects items before a timer runs out, and wrecks other cars.

The game has a sandbox-style format that emphasizes driving, and the player controls their character from a third-person view. The character can perform certain acts of violence, such as attacking pedestrians, blowing up vehicles, arming themselves with different means of weaponry with "Arsenal Boxes", and destroying the environment. The Jumping Ground: Hit & Run has a warning meter that indicates when the police will retaliate for bad behaviour. Located in the bottom-right corner of the screen, the circular "hit and run" meter fills up when the character runs people over or destroys objects, and decreases when they cease doing so. When full, several police cars chase the character for the duration of the hit and run.

Playable Characters
Characters that are unlockable in the game have their names italicized.

Plot
Mysterious happenings are occurring in Pencaster, including wasp-shaped security cameras, mysterious black surveillance vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavor of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola. A horde of these wasps descend upon the city at the beginning of the game. One enters the Broflovski residence and is smashed by Rob, emitting coins. Rob picks up one of the coins, and watches a commercial for the new Buzz Cola on TV, hosted by Thomas & Peter, noticing the logo on the coin resembles that of Buzz Cola. Rob decides he must get Buzz Cola.

More to follow...

Development
The game's developer, Heavy Iron Studios, received the rights to create games for The Jumping Ground franchise upon THQ's acquisition of the rights. when they demonstrated a playable prototype. Depite plans to make a sequel to the previous Jumping Ground game, Road Rage, Heavy Iron wanted to steer the franchise's video game series in a different direction by giving the game engine a complete overhaul. The developers felt that everything else needed a new approach, while only the driving portion of Road Rage was worth keeping; in Hit & Run, enhanced traffic artificial intelligence is introduced, which makes computer-controlled vehicles react better to the player's driving. The developers also decided to add an exploration element to the game to make players get out of the car and navigate the area on foot, so that the game offered a better experience of Pencaster.

When developing the game's graphics, the team decided to include landmarks from Pencaster. The player is able to enter some of them, including Stamford Gate GCC. During Hit & Run's development, Cartoon Network, Alliance Atlantis and Lee Eisenhower, one of the co-creators of The Jumping Ground, played important roles in bringing The Jumping Ground universe into a 3D environment.