Rocket Science Games was a video game developer that created games for consoles and computers from 1993 to 1997. The company was responsible for games such as Obsidian , Rocket Jockey , and Loadstar .
History
Founded by Steven Gary Blank and Peter Barrett in 1993, Rocket Science Games receiving $12 million in funding from Sega Enterprises and the Bertelsmann Music Group in May 1994, they became RSG's North American and European publishers, respectively. Staffed with some of the brightest rising stars of the computer, comics and movie industries, RSG created a huge buzz even before the release of their first titles and claimed to be an on the verge of revolutionizing the video game industry using Full Motion Video. Founded at the height of the FMV video game craze of the '90s, their first three games utilized the technology heavily; but as a backlash grew against the technology, the games received mixed reviews and their fortunes suffered due to poor sales, they shifted away from consoles and FMV to concentrate on more traditional PC games.
After the disappointing sales of their early games they received much needed funds from SegaSoft, who then became the sole publisher for their titles in development. Sega canceled about half of the titles RSG was working on to reduce costs and speed up releases, this had a noticeable negative effect on their quality however. Rocket Jockey shipped missing Local area network support that had been heavily promoted to the press and was even advertised on the box, it wouldn't be patched into the game for several months. Obsidian also suffered quality problems as it had several bugs present at the time of its release, a few that prevented completion of the game. Unfortunately, while some of their SegaSoft games were critically acclaimed, none of them did particularly well financially, and unable to secure additional funding, RSG was forced to close down in 1997.
The Space Bar by Boffo Games was originally to be published by RSG but was transferred to Sega after RSG closed its doors. Darwin Pond was an unreleased title that was completed before the fall of RSG but was never commercially released; later its creator Jeffrey Ventrella released it for free over the Internet.
List of games made by Rocket Science
Released (by date)
- Loadstar: The Legend Of Tully Bodine
- Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm
- Wing Nuts: Battle in the Skies
- Rocket Jockey
- Obsidian
- The Space Bar
Unreleased (alphabetical)
- Darkride
- Darwin Pond
- Ganymede
- Loadstar II: Showdown on Phobos
- Pest
- Rocket Boy
See also
- Boffo Games
- SegaSoft
References
- ^ Snider, Burr (November 1994). "Rocket Science". Wired Magazine 2.11 . http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.11/rocket.science.html . Retrieved 2008-06-28 .
- ^ Computer Gaming World, May 1997.
- ^ Obsidian at GameSpot, review is included.
- ^ PC Gamer, May 1997.
- ^ Obsidian review at Four Fat Chicks, June 2002.
- ^ Obsidian review at Just Adventure, undated.
- ^ Darwin Pond webpage.
External links
- Rocket Science Games profile from MobyGames
- Darwin Pond Official Homepage
Articles
- Wired: Rocket Science Article on RSG from 1994
- "Coming Soon"
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