SEGA producer says the company almost passed on Gunstar Heroes
Coming from a SEGA-16 interview with Mac Senour, former SEGA producer...
12 people looked at it and passed before it got to me. If I didn’t pick it up, he was going to be rejected. I played it for five minutes, maybe less, and threw the controller on the floor and said “this is game of the year.” Every one in earshot laughed.
The reason was made very clear to me. Gunstar had small characters. We had just published, or were about to publish, World Series Baseball with a HUGE batter. All the games were showing off something the developers of Spider-Man had discovered, a way to make double high sprites. Gunstar didn’t use this and so the others passed. I saw it as something different. I have to say I made only one real change: there’s a boss in a military uniform, and in the original version he was Hitler. I asked them to remove the mustache or change the character.
That “throw the controller on the floor” bit has become a habit. To the point that at MTV my bosses used to ask me if it was a throw-down game. There is no secret formula to a great game. I usually say I look for something old and something new and a great mix of both. ...I was the last guy; if I said no then it would have been canceled. They spoke no English, so I had to go through my contact at SOJ, Henry Geison. Henry and I became friends when I was developer tech support.
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12 people looked at it and passed before it got to me. If I didn’t pick it up, he was going to be rejected. I played it for five minutes, maybe less, and threw the controller on the floor and said “this is game of the year.” Every one in earshot laughed.
The reason was made very clear to me. Gunstar had small characters. We had just published, or were about to publish, World Series Baseball with a HUGE batter. All the games were showing off something the developers of Spider-Man had discovered, a way to make double high sprites. Gunstar didn’t use this and so the others passed. I saw it as something different. I have to say I made only one real change: there’s a boss in a military uniform, and in the original version he was Hitler. I asked them to remove the mustache or change the character.
That “throw the controller on the floor” bit has become a habit. To the point that at MTV my bosses used to ask me if it was a throw-down game. There is no secret formula to a great game. I usually say I look for something old and something new and a great mix of both. ...I was the last guy; if I said no then it would have been canceled. They spoke no English, so I had to go through my contact at SOJ, Henry Geison. Henry and I became friends when I was developer tech support.
Link
