The only possible way that one could put Ultra Games — publishers of fantastic fare like Metal Gear, Gyruss, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game — into the same feature as LJN — purveyors of terrible crap and even worse crap — is by seizing on the one thing they had in common. Namely, that both companies were fronts for other publishers who needed a vehicle for publish content beyond their Nintendo-mandated quotas. And that’s just what this article does! Fancy that.
Meanwhile, I’ve posted a couple of interesting (in my opinion) pieces at work: a review of Z.H.P. and a preview of Donkey Kong Country Returns. Both are rather positive. Sorry about that. I’ll try writing about something crappy next time. Maybe something by LJN…?
I actually wasn’t aware that Nintendo set a limit on releases, and it allows a lot of my ire towards missing localizations (for the 8-bit era, at least) to finally be put to rest.
I, unfortunately, ended up owning a large number of the LJN releases, and despised most all of them, especially x-Men. However, Friday the 13th always seemed far superior to the res of LJN’s releases. While still not fantastic, I find it to be a genuinely good game if you can stand the quick game overs long enough to figure out its system and the proper method of survival.
Wait a second, RARE developed those WWF games, not LJN.
It’s a good thing we’re talking about publishers, then!
Actually, LJN didn’t develop a dang thing. They published exclusively externally-developed games.
Also, the Rare WWF NES game was WWF Wrestlemania Challenge. The image in the article is of the game WWF King of the Ring, a game developed by a company no one has ever heard of. (I think this was their only game, but don’t quote me on that.)
Well, see, you don’t make that quite clear. You say “publishers” a lot, but you also say “make” and “create” several times. So it feels like you are saying THEY (LJN, Ultra) made the games.
So I guess I see the loophole in the article now.
RARE made 2 of the 4 WWF games yeah. Those were the highlights too :P
The comments in your DKCR preview are the kind of thing that makes me very weary of this whole “Internet” fad.
I just don’t understand how grown-ups can be this surprised at discovering that not everyone shares their exact same tastes, especially ones who presumably haven’t started frequenting forums or reading comments sections yesterday.
Does anybody know how this was handled in Japan? They had a significantly higher number of releases and approximately the same amount of rubbish as the U.S. but without a lockout chip. Did they start using the assessment process earlier?
I quite like your article, but I’m also really surprised that you didn’t mention the Wii. Every time I read about Nintendo’s per-publisher quota for third parties on the NES, I immediately think of how the Wii seems to represent the total death of this philosophy, what with such gems as the Coldstone Creamery game. I figure it has something to do with their relief at even having third party support at all, considering that they would have been grateful to even fit their NES-era quota on GameCube!
The WWF image screwup is my fault. I wouldn’t know a wrestling game if it put on a silly mask and hammerlocked me.
Pandareus: I’m well used to those sorts of reactions, although the DKCR preview does have an unusually high incidence of people ragequitting after the first paragraph and completely ignoring the upcoming game in favor of expression their indignation. It’s pretty amusing, actually!
Like every good Super NES owner, I dutifully bought into the hype for Donkey Kong Country. I watched the leaf-covered VHS cassette Nintendo mailed me, preordered the game, and spent Thanksgiving 1993 playing it.
I’m not going to wade through all the comments to see whether anyone has already pointed out that it was 1994.
Dammit, I fixed that already.
The “beauty” of LJN is that it doesn’t matter what NES WWF game you’re talking about. Chances are LJN published it. Yes, even the Rare one. I think they had a similar deal to what THQ has now, except it initially covered toys as well.