#imagitec design

[retrocgads]

Combo Racer

Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd. (Imagitec Design Ltd.) UK 1990

[randomisedgaming]

North America cover artwork for the 1992 SEGA Genesis game from Imagitec Design and GameTek:

Gadget Twins

Art by Lou Brooks

Gadget Twins has a rather interesting history behind it, the game was developed by a British studio and had a planned Amiga release of 1991/1992 published by Mirage. That version never saw the light of day in the end and instead it only every got a North America, Mega Drive release published by GameTek.

It's pretty obscure these days, but has a wonderful art style and some superb music from Barry Leitch & Ian Howe. The gameplay lets it down somewhat with some rather hit and miss collision and the default weapons having to limited range. a modern remake with a twin stick control system would suit this perfectly. These days you can grab the Mega Drive version on Steam.

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[abandonwave]

The Humans: Insult to Injury (DOS), 1992.

[retrocgads]

UK 1991

[retrocgads]

UK 1991

[snesaday]

Approximate Release Date: April 13, 1993 Genre: Action Developer: Imagitec Design Publisher: GameTek

American Gladiators is a terrible experience for many reasons.

But of course it’s bad. Would anyone expect otherwise? The majority of minigame collections aren’t worth playing, and it takes a lot of variety and usually some kind of metagame to tie everything together. American Gladiators just has you play the same half dozen 30-second events in the same order every time you start the game.

None of those games are fun to play, and I’m not convinced it’s possible to even beat the computer in any of the events. The first event in American Gladiators has the computer shooting at you while you move from cover to cover. Your goal is to move to the exit, which is a hallway helpfully marked with the words “exit.” Even when I got to this hallway, my gladiator wouldn’t go in! He just stood there and got shot! Every event has one of those gotcha moments. Either the computer runs a perfect route, like in the wallclimbing event, or the game gives you no direction and throws you in with no idea of what you should be doing, like the cannonball event.

I don’t know how you would even improve the events since none of them really seem to fit the limitations of the Super Nintendo. The big marketing push of American Gladiators seems to have revolved around it featuring the television show’s best events, so creating new events or heavily modifying existing ones was probably never an option. The next best option would have been to, I don’t know, make the game not look like an NES game or make the controls standardized in every event, maybe?

American Gladiator‘s desire to be just like the show also means it features the likenesses of your favorite (?) competitors on the title screen, and even includes short biographies for each person. Reading these bios are the most interesting part of the game! It’s humanizing to see that Blaze is working toward competing in track and field in the 1992 Olympics or that Gemini played professional football for ten years, but I could have gotten that information from Wikipedia. And you can’t even play as them in the game!

The sad thing is that American Gladiators isn’t even bad enough to be memorable like the current champions Pit-Fighter and Race Drivin’. But at least those games have the clichéd train wreck quality that make them interesting to make fun of. This is just a badly designed and poorly conceived game.

Tomorrow: Oops! I missed a game! So let’s take a time machine to 1992 and check out Rival Turf!

  SNES A Day 170: American Gladiators Approximate Release Date: April 13, 1993 Genre: Action Developer: Imagitec Design Publisher: GameTek American Gladiators is a terrible experience for many reasons.

[snesaday]

Approximate Release Month: September 1992 Genre: Game show Developer: Imagitec Design Publisher: GameTek

Don’t play Wheel of Fortune. It’s not good at all.

The biggest problem with Wheel of Fortune is that it’s wholeheartedly devoted to the idea of trying to recreate the television experience. There are cuts to the contestants clapping after every spin. You have to sit and watch Vanna White walk across the game board and flip over letters. You have to sit through the computer typing out answers or thinking about how hard to spin the wheel. Everything involves waiting.

When you’re watching Wheel of Fortune on TV, you’re there for a passive experience. That’s what you signed up for by sitting on your couch. But it is harder to incorporate the experience of waiting into video games, especially old machines like the Super Nintendo that can’t create a visual spectacle. When a player has a controller in his or her hand, there’s an expectation of play. So when Wheel of Fortune makes the player constantly wait for everything, it’s a slog.

I don’t have this kind of patience.

Wheel of Fortune does provide the option to play solo, which speeds up the game significantly. There’s something depressing about playing a Wheel of Fortune game by yourself, though. It’s like playing both sides of Checkers at the same time. And that’s pretty much the only real option the game gives you. I’m curious about how many puzzles there are, too.

So much of adapting a property – be it a movie, or a TV show, or a board game – to a video game is about taking advantage of what developers can do to improve on the original. Look at how Monopoly managed to make the famous board game better, or at least more tolerable, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Wheel of Fortune doesn’t do anything to give itself an identity other than a licensed cash-grab.

Tomorrow: Has your Super Scope been sitting unused for a while? Dust it off for Battle Clash!

SNES A Day 86: Wheel of Fortune Approximate Release Month: September 1992 Genre: Game show Developer: Imagitec Design Publisher: GameTek Don't play Wheel of Fortune…

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