Acclaim

Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game developer and publisher, founded in 1987 as a Delaware corporation, and maintaining operations in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Japan and Australia. The company developed, marketed, and distributed interactive entertainment software for a number of hardware platforms, including Sega's Mega Drive (Genesis), Saturn, Dreamcast and Game Gear; Nintendo's NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance; Sony's PlayStation and PlayStation 2; Microsoft's Xbox; and, to a lesser extent, personal computers and arcade games.

Although in its first years Acclaim was exclusively a video game publisher, they later purchased some independent studios, including Sculptured Software of Salt Lake City, Utah and Iguana Entertainment of Austin, Texas. The majority of their products were licensed titles, such as games based on TV series, films and comics. They also ported a number of Midway's arcade games in the early-to-mid 1990s, including the Mortal Kombat series. In addition, they published games from other companies that did not have an American branch, such as Taito's Bust-A-Move series, Technos Japan's Double Dragon II and Rare's Wizards and Warriors.

Another aspect of Acclaim's business included the development and publication of strategy guides for their software products and special edition comic magazines (via Acclaim Comics), to support the more lucrative brand names.

However, the declining arcade game industry, low sales and poor public enthusiasm for several key titles led to the eventual loss of many of their licenses. In a bid to revive sales, nude and semi-nude content such as full motion video of strippers and nude female riders was added to the 2002 game BMX XXX, part of the Dave Mirra's Freestyle series. However, this merely led to the game being derided for its trashy content and poor gameplay, and a law suit from Dave Mirra.

With the majority of their video and computer game titles selling poorly, Acclaim began to suffer severe financial problems, and in 2004, the Acclaim Studios Cheltenham and Acclaim Studios Manchester were closed and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Although an attempt was made to reopen the Cheltenham and Manchester studios under the new name Exclaim, this failed due to legal wrangling over Intellectual Property (IP),with both the UK and US administrators claiming rights.

In August 2005, former Activision executive Howard Marks purchased the name Acclaim for a reported $100,000, and in 2006, formed a new company called Acclaim Games, which aims to bring online multiplayer games to the 'tween' market. Over 150 Acclaim-published titles were bought by Throwback Entertainment in 2006, who announced their intention to bring them into the next-generation.

Acclaim Entertainment Titles

• 9DragonsOnline (PC)
• AFL Live 2003 (PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox)
• AFL Live 2004 (PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox)
• AFL Live Premiership Edition (PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox)
• All-Star Baseball (PlayStation, PlayStation 2, N64, Xbox, GameCube)
• Armorines: Project Swarm (PlayStation, N64, Game Boy Colour)
• Aggressive Inline (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)
• Batman Forever
• Blast Lacrosse (PlayStation)
• BMX XXX (Xbox, GameCube)
• BOTS Online (PC)
• Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands (Sega Saturn, PlayStation)
• Burnout PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube
• Bust a Move 2 (Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64)
• Constructor (PC)
• Crazy Taxi (GameCube,PlayStation 2,Game Boy, Arcade)
• D (PlayStation, Saturn, 3D0, PC)
• ECW Anarchy Rulz (Dreamcast, PlayStation)
• ECW Hardcore Revolution (Dreamcast, PlayStation, N64, Game Boy Color)
• Extreme-G (N64)
• Extreme-G 2 (N64, PC)
• Extreme-G 3 (PlayStation 2, GameCube)
• XGRA: Extreme-G Racing Association (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox)
• Fantastic Four (PlayStation)
• Forsaken (PC, PlayStation, Nintendo 64)
• Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance (PlayStation 2, XBox, PC)
• Juiced (PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)
• Jupiter Strike (PlayStation)
• Legends of Wrestling (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)
• Legends of Wrestling II (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)
• Marvel's X-Men (NES)
• Machines (PC)
• NBA Jam Extreme (PlayStation)
• Othello (NES)
• Re-volt (Dreamcast, PlayStation, N64, PC)
• Revolution X : Music is the Weapon (SNES, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation)
• Shadowman (Dreamcast, N64, PlayStation, PC)
• Shadowman: 2econd Coming (PlayStation 2)
• Showdown: Legends of Wrestling (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
• Smash TV (NES)
• South Park (PlayStation, N64, PC)
• South Park Rally (PlayStation, N64, PC, Dreamcast)
• South Park: Chef's Luv Shack (PlayStation, N64, PC, Dreamcast)
• Space Jam (PlayStation, Saturn, PC)
• Summer Heat Beach Volleyball (PlayStation 2)
• The Simpsons: Bart and the Beanstalk (Game Boy)
• The Simpsons: Bart Meets Radioactive Man (NES)
• The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (NES, Master System)
• The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World (NES)
• The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Juggernauts (Game Boy)
• The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare (SNES, Sega Mega Drive)
• The Simpsons: Virtual Bart (SNES, Sega Mega Drive)
• Turok: Dinosaur Hunter N64, (PC)
• Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (N64, Game Boy Color, PC)
• Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion (N64)
• Turok: Rage Wars (N64, Game Boy Color)
• Turok: Evolution (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, (PC)
• WWF In Your House (PlayStation)
• WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game (SNES, Sega Mega Drive, Saturn, Arcade, PlayStation)
• WWF War Zone (PlayStation, N64)
• WWF Attitude (PlayStation, N64)
• Vexx (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)
• XMEN Children of the Atom (Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation)