Acclaim wasn’t quite sure of the strategy initially, but as it started to be clear that it was an arcade success that had legs, the strategy set in rather quick." "After we made our pitch to Acclaim, they decided to send the Genesis version to Probe in the UK, who were considered the best Genesis developer at the time, and the SNES to Sculptured Software. "We made a passionate pitch of how we would develop the product," Peters continues. #SONIC BLAST MAN 2 SNES CENSORSHIP SOFTWARE#Later on, we definitely became known as the masters of 'Mode 7' and games that utilized that features of the SNES." Even so, Sculptured Software had to pitch for the work. #SONIC BLAST MAN 2 SNES CENSORSHIP HOW TO#"Sculptured had worked with them directly on NCAA Basketball, which showed how we really understood the SNES hardware and how to get the most out of it. "We also had a great relationship with Nintendo on a first-party basis," Peters adds. Like Probe, Sculptured Software had a healthy relationship with Acclaim, and had already made quite a name for itself in the games industry. Initially, I wasn’t a fan, but the more I played it in the arcades, I began to feel what was unique about the fighting mechanics and gradually began spending more time competing on Mortal Kombat than Street Fighter II." It had a completely different look as well as a new fighting model that players were adopting as an alternative to Street Fighter II. At the time, I was a highly competitive Street Fighter II player, so my initial frame of reference came from comparing Street Fighter II – and all of the mostly bad fighting game knockoffs at the time – to Mortal Kombat. "It had just been released when we started discussing it and hadn’t yet established itself as a success with legs in the arcades. "When Acclaim picked up the license, they weren’t quite sure if Mortal Kombat was actually a good game or not," he explains. Project Director Jeff Peters admits that like Carruthers, he perhaps wasn't fully aware of what he was dealing with when he first laid eyes on the game – although that stance changed rapidly. "It had just gone big in the arcades, but home gamers were less likely to have heard of it." Mortal Kombat's digitised visuals and blood-soaked special moves made it a hit in the arcades, creating plenty of interest in a home portįor the SNES version, Acclaim selected Sculptured Software, a studio situated over four thousand miles away from Probe in Salt Lake City, Utah. "Remember that Mortal Kombat was not necessarily thought of as a particularly hot property back then," he adds. He took it on as just another job at the time. Carruthers had just worked on T2: The Arcade Game, and after that was completed, was offered the lead programmer role on the Sega version of Mortal Kombat. "Probe was very close with Acclaim at the time and I guess the successful completion of T2: The Arcade Game – as well as some other Acclaim Mega Drive projects they were handling at the time – meant that Probe was first in line," says Paul Carruthers, who was employed as a freelance contractor at the studio at the time. For the Sega version, that was UK-based Probe Software, which had previously worked with Acclaim on titles such as Alien 3 and Terminator 2: The Arcade Game, as well as numerous original games and home computer conversions of coin-ops for other publishers. Publisher Acclaim was the company which secured the home console rights to the game, and it set about distributing conversion duties to the studios it trusted best. Mortal Kombat was ultimately converted to a wide range of systems, including the original monochrome Game Boy and the Commodore Amiga, but it would be the Genesis / Mega Drive and Super Nintendo versions which would garner the most attention, as those two systems were the world's best-selling games formats at the time. #SONIC BLAST MAN 2 SNES CENSORSHIP SERIES#While the series was born in the arcades, it's hard to imagine it would have been as successful were it not for the domestic ports which introduced it to millions of players the world over – and at the centre of that initial release was a battle that would present yet another thrilling chapter in the titanic 16-bit struggle between Sega and Nintendo. Following hot on the heels of Capcom's Street Fighter II and famous for its brutal 'Fatalities', digitised visuals and bucketloads of gore, this one-on-one fighter went on to spawn a franchise which continues to this day. September 13th, 1993 was a significant day in the world of video games seasoned players might remember it better as 'Mortal Monday' – the day on which Acclaim released the home conversions of Midway's Mortal Kombat arcade game.
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