Something is bothering me, and it has been bothering me since the early 1990s. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, my skin cold and clammy, screaming. Badly colored sprites, badly animated, nonexistent collision detection, arrrgggggggh! I compose myself and reach for the paracetamol. Are you sure it was all a dream?

NO! Flying Edge really happened!

Mega Drive and Master System were fully supported between 1991 and 1994, which is why later MD games are so rare (except Ballz, please go away…). The list of external contributors to both consoles is long and many still exist, albeit in a different form (Domark is now Eidos, for example). One you think wouldn’t exist is Flying Edge. Even in my last years of elementary school and first years of high school, I knew that if I saw that logo it meant trouble.

Actually, it didn’t start so bad. The first FE game (how I’m going to refer to them from now on) was Arch Rivals, which seemed like a stupid idea at the time, a 2v2 basketball game where you could only play as one of the “characters”. “. . Although it doesn’t play very well, the reduced number of sprites on screen and slightly violent dynamics made it a relatively smooth and enjoyable experience compared to basketball games of the time. It also laid the groundwork for something really special, which you’ve probably already guessed.

So, FE was about to be a pioneer… not quite. The games that came after read like who’s who of complete and utter nonsense. If you ever get a chance to play George Foreman’s KO Boxing in the MS race, he runs as fast as you can. It looks like someone threw up on it and it’s actually less fun than looking at one of Mr. Foreman’s grills. He is rushed, plain and simple. This theme continues with Smash TV. Smash TV was an immensely popular arcade machine whose main draw was the dual joystick system where you could shoot in the opposite direction you were running. The SNES version works pretty well (all 4 buttons act as the second joystick), but the graphics and collision detection are horrendous on both the 16-bit and 8-bit versions. Don’t get me started on the sound and control systems of the Sega versions, we’ll be here all day… The ridiculous Crash Dummies, RoboCop 3 and Double Dragon 3 are just a few more games that no reputable developer would make. be associated with.

FE was just another bad developer with no one else to blame but themselves. Wrong! Now here’s the twist of the story, FE was actually a subsidiary of Acclaim. Apologies to those who already know this, but I didn’t! There’s a hint in the aforementioned SNES version of Smash TV, Acclaim are pretty proud in the opening sequence but they left FE for the Mega Drive version… How can a company responsible for making gems like Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam (see what I did there) do you have any part of Flying Edge? I just had to find out.

Acclaim had been established since 1987 with much of its focus on games based on licenses it acquired from comics (Spider-Man games galore), TV/Sports (WWF), and movies (Alien 3). It also forged a strong “partnership” with Nintendo even though titles like Rambo on the NES were pretty poor, Star Voyager on the other hand was considered revolutionary. You will never see Flying Edge in any Nintendo games (if you see it, doubt it, throw it away) as they were created specifically to “produce” Sega games. Apologies for the many speech marks already used in this article.

Information about the contract dispute between Nintendo, Acclaim, and Sega is so scant that I’m left wondering how Nintendo persuaded them to do this. In fact, the only conclusion I can come to is that Acclaim was happy that FE was the sacrificial lamb to preserve their relationship with Nintendo. This seems logical given Nintendo’s dominance in home entertainment and the gradual decline of arcades. Looking at FE’s back catalog, it’s easy to assume that the developers/programmers in this division weren’t very good compared to Acclaim’s. The reality is that for every Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam there were several stinkers. Forget what you know about Acclaim, the reality is that they really weren’t that good, period. If it wasn’t for Midway, Mortal Kombat wouldn’t have existed. Acclaim’s back catalog around the same time says: Double Dragon 2; Krusty’s fun house; NFL Quarterbacks Club; The Addams Family, etc, etc… Not good!

Flying Edge disbanded in 1994, which clearly must have provided Acclaim with an opt-out clause for all those bad titles. What did they back it up with? Once again, mostly random. Turok titles became popular on later consoles and some of the Spider-Man games were good. There was also Virtua Tennis 2 which is still a joy. However, rubbish… sticks. Poor licensed games continued: Batman Forever, Paris-Dakar, Gladiator, Fantastic Four. Acclaim filed for bankruptcy and disappeared in September 2004, ten years after Flying Edge’s demise.

There’s a reason the big guns (Sega, Nintendo) and some of the smaller guns (Domark like Eidos) still exist. Evolution. Acclaim, in all its glory, never strayed from its main goals: buying licenses, adding games around it, seeking help from other willing developers.

Acclaim (or the name) was bought by Acclaim Games, which was one of the few companies in the early 2000s to focus on online gaming. Unfortunately their games were unpopular and were subsequently bought and dissolved by Playdom Games in 2010. Acclaim’s name now only appears in the footnotes under “What Might Have Been”.