Coulda Been a Kusoge: Rebellion X

Scans of coin-op magazine RePlay have made their way online courtesy of Gaming Alexandria. The October 1993 issue in particular has a gift for fans of kusoge. It had great kusoge potential, at least, but maybe I'm being too judgmental. Maybe it would have been a genuinely awesome game.

Oh come on, just look at it!

It's an ad for Rebellion X, an arcade fighting game with character designs that, let's say, look very reminiscent of artist Tetsuo Hara's work. This hot new title was on display at AMOA Expo '93. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have been released.

The game was apparently produced by J-CO in Japan. We can see what look like screenshots, but on closer inspection are probably just artist renderings.

Another flyer can be found here, but it gives us no new insight, except that "J-CO" is short for "Justice Computer."

Unreleased: Rollerbabes (Amiga/DOS)

(Collins English Dictionary defines "phwoar" as a "British informal" word meaning "an admiring sound, roughly same as 'cor'; used to denote sexual attraction to another person," in case you really wanted to know.)

They promised me rollerbabes, and all I got was a cancelled Amiga game.

The time-honored sport of roller derby went through something of a resurgence in the late 1980s/early 1990s...I guess...or at least it was supposed to. The TV series RollerGames premiered in 1989, but only lasted one season. There were some pinball and video games based on it, and there was another, unrelated roller derby game for the NES (War on Wheels) that never came out.

Rollerbabes from Cinemaware would have included teams of over-the-top characters negotiating equally over-the-top obstacles while playing roller derby, in the future naturally. Actual screenshots show a game much less sexy than the publicity suggests.

(Source: Internet Archive)

British magazine Zero had a two-page spread on Rollerbabes (see above), and it was even on the front cover, but the world was just never meant to experience the wonder of this game.

It's important to note that Cinemaware had gone under in 1991, before the Zero feature, which is mentioned there. By this point, the Cinemaware assets had been purchased by British publisher Mirrorsoft. Cinemaware founder Bob Jacob's new company Acme Interactive would continue development; Rollerbabes was set for a release later in the year.

Unfortunately, Mirrorsoft had its own problems following owner Robert Maxwell's untimely death. "Certain assets" of Mirrorsoft were sold to Acclaim, and that was that.

The magazine Retro Gamer claimed Mindscape ended up with the Cinemaware assets and ultimately passed on Rollerbabes, but I have found nothing to substantiate that.

Konami was supposed to release the DOS version in the US as part of their deal with Mirrorsoft.

Other links of interest:
Bob Jacob looks back at Cinemaware (Amiga Power [UK])
Rollerbabes 1991 Calendar (from The One magazine [UK])

From a 1991 Konami catalog

This Razor Ain't Soft

I don't know what that title's supposed to mean, but someday I need to write up a post on RazorSoft. In the meantime, here's a little something to tide you over.

RazorSoft was a publisher based in Oklahoma that built a reputation on making violent games for the Sega Genesis (and had at least one planned for the Super NES). Their last games came out in 1992, but they were around longer than you think, long enough to get involved in something that had nothing to do with video games.

This article calls them "toys," but they're really sporting goods. One was a flying disc (Frisbee) launcher that was eventually called the M-7000; the other was a sled called the Downhill Screamer. They were marketed under the brand RazorSport.

Image: eBay listing

The Downhill Screamer even had a commercial that aired on MTV in 1995:

RazorSoft from Les Kerr on Vimeo.

Light Up Your Life with Light Games (1988)

Someone on eBay is selling a bunch of closeout items from Child World/Children's Palace, a US toy store chain that went bankrupt in 1992, years before all the other retailers started doing it.

All kinds of toys and games from the 1980s and early 1990s can be found, complete with smushed boxes and wrinkled packaging, but I'd like to focus on one oddity in particular: a game cartridge for something called the Light Games LCD Projection System.

I've never heard of this machine myself, but it reminds me of the R-Zone Super Screen, which came out less than a decade later. Like Tiger's handheld, each game cartridge has its own LCD that is then projected. While the Super Screen has its own screen (hence the name), Light Games projects its image outward, like an overhead projector, so you have to play it on a wall or projector screen, if you have one handy.



Light Games was originally sold by Playtime, which was eventually acquired by Tyco. Grandstand distributed it in the UK; Fantastiko handled distribution in Italy.

2 HOT 4 GAMEPRO: Working Designs' "Iron Storm" (Saturn) Ad

People remember controversial print ads like, say, the one for Daikatana, but this ad was so subtle in its flouting of basic morals that hardly anyone noticed. But I noticed it, and so did someone else apparently, because a change was made.

The ad in question was for Working Designs' World War II strategy game Iron Storm for the Saturn, a localization of Sega's World Advanced Daisenryaku: Koutetsu no Senpuu. An airplane is prominently featured, with nose art typical of the era — a pin-up girl appears naked with her legs in the air (see link below).

The image is small and fairly detailless, but that's how she appeared in Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM). If you were reading GamePro, however, you saw something a little different: the pin-up girl now wore a red outfit (see image below). Scandalous! (It should be noted that this same issue of GamePro also contained the Sega Saturn "naked woman" ad.)

Ad as seen in EGM (18+)

Ad as seen in GamePro

Unreleased: Chelnov (Saturn)

It seemed like such a random thing when it showed up online in 2012, but there it was — an unreleased Saturn version of an old Data East arcade game.

Chelnov puts the player in control of a coal miner given superpowers after surviving a nuclear power plant explosion. The original arcade game got some heat because it came out not long after the Chernobyl disaster. Data East denied the connection, explaining that Chelnov was a cousin of one of their other stars, Karnov. Not surprisingly, they completely changed the story for the Genesis game.

In retrospect, making a Saturn version of Chelnov isn't that weird. Publisher Xing released another Data East game, Wolf Fang, as part of a line of conversions of arcade games that were several years old by the time they came out on Saturn. (A version of ''Edward Randy'' was also announced, but not released.)

As for ''Chelnov'', this is a no-frills conversion with no extras or bonus material. Former Data East programmer FX-702P has talked about working on it on Twitter and confirmed the game was cancelled before the sound team could do the sound effects.

FX-702P also said there were plans to bring over Karnov. Imagine, Chelnov and Karnov on the same system. We are truly in the bad timeline.

Unreleased: In the Hunt (Super NES)

Better known as that game by the people who later made Metal Slug, this classic arcade submarine shooter almost came out for the Super NES. Irem showed it off at the 1994 Winter CES, as reported by magazines such as Gamefan at the time, or at the very least announced it there. The arcade game appears in camcorder footage of the event (following video of Super NES Undercover Cops), so it's unknown if they actually displayed the SNES version. Unfortunately, it quietly disappeared after Irem halted game development later in the year.

In 2019, former Irem planner Yoshinobu Oyama confirmed on Twitter that SNES In the Hunt (or rather, Super Famicom Kaitei Daisensou) really was in development. He also mentioned something about Mask of Zorro. If someone could translate these tweets, I would appreciate it.