HAL Laboratory

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HAL Laboratory, Inc.
Type	Private
Founded	February 21, 1980
Headquarters	Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Satoru Iwata (former president)
Industry	Computer and video game industry
Products	video games
Employees	106
Website	http://www.hallab.co.jp/

HAL Laboratory, Inc. (株式会社ハル研究所, Kabushikigaisha Haru Kenkyūjo^?) is a Japanese video game developer that was founded on February 21, 1980. Its name comes from the HAL 9000 computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The company is most famous for its character Kirby, the protagonist of the eponymous game series, as well as the Super Smash Bros. series. It is a second-party development studio of Nintendo.

They started off making games for the MSX system during the early '80s, some of their games since the 1986 Famicom Disk System game Gall Force (based on the anime series of the same name) have been released also on Nintendo systems.

In many of their games during the early to mid-'90s they used the name HALKEN (derived from their literal Japanese name "HAL KENkyūjo") as well as HAL Laboratory. Some of their early titles were also released as HAL America.

The current president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, was a former president of HAL. Other important figures include Masahiro Sakurai, who created the Kirby character and the Super Smash Bros. franchise and now leads his own company Sora Ltd..

[edit] Games developed

• HAL is responsible for the Kirby series.
• The Super Smash Bros. fighting game series starring many of Nintendo's most known characters, was designed by HAL Laboratory, Inc. Installments in the series have appeared on the Nintendo 64, and GameCube.
• HAL also created the Eggerland series, which includes the game Adventures of Lolo, and is regarded by many gamers as one of the greatest puzzle series ever^{[citation needed]}. The player plays as Lolo, a small, blue, ball-like creature who has to go through many rooms and solve many puzzles to save his love, a small, pink, ball-like creature called Lala. The characters Lololo and Lalala, who often appear in Kirby games as bosses, are modelled after Lolo and Lala.
• The company helped develop the MOTHER series (known as the EarthBound series in the United States), credited as HALKEN along with Ape, Inc.
• Air Fortress
• Radar Rat Race
• Alcahest, a RPG published by Square only in Japan.
• Arcana, a first-person and card-themed RPG.
• Ghostbusters II|New Ghostbusters 2, based on the Ghostbusters II movie and released for the NES and Game Boy. The NES game was released only in Japan and Europe. It is unrelated to Activision's Ghostbusters II version.
• HAL also co-developed in the Super NES port of SimCity 2000. It would be the last game developed by HAL without Nintendo's involvement.
• HAL co-developed Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64 with Nintendo's EAD team (Entertainment Analysis & Development). HAL also developed Pokémon Snap and Shigesato Itoi's No.1 Bass Fishing for the Nintendo 64 as well.
• HAL developed the ill-fated E-Reader, an accessory that was popular in Japan, but never caught on in the United States, and was never released in Europe.
• Hyper Zone (SNES)
• Rollerball (NES)
• HAL is also responsible for a new Pokémon game called Pokémon Ranger for the Nintendo DS. It is the first Pokémon game developed by HAL since Pokémon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64.
• Worked with Brownie Brown and Shigesato Itoi on developing MOTHER 3 (GBA).

[edit] External links

• HAL Laboratory, Inc (Japanese)
• IGN page
• N-Sider page (HAL Laboratory company profile)