THE MAKING OF SHADOW MAN
The early-to-mid-Nineties proved to be a successful period for Acclaim Entertainment. Mortal Kombat was raking in the dollars, and with the millions invested by cable company Tele-Communications Inc burning a hole in its pocket, Acclaim was looking for companies to acquire. Valiant Entertainment was founded in 1989, partly by Marvel alumni Jim Shooter and Bob Layton. The comics industry was approaching its peak, which was reached around four to five years later when Valiant’s venture capital investor, Triumph, sold Valiant to Acclaim. As Acclaim’s CEO, Greg Fischbach, told Retro Gamer in issue 149, “We paid 75 million dollars [for Valiant] and lost a shitload of money. It was a banker. They were the third biggest comics company, and we were looking for something else to invest in.” Acclaim took over publication of Valiant’s line of comics, and naturally eyed up several titles as potential videogames. “But we bought into the comic book business right at the top of the market,” continued Greg, “and then all of a sudden it starts to fall apart. And we rode it all the way down.”
Acclaim’s first cross-media product was an obvious choice in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Dinosaurs were back in vogue thanks to the Jurassic Park franchise and Turok became a massive hit, particularly on the Nintendo 64. It was developed by Iguana Entertainment, based in Austin, Texas, and in addition to Valiant, Acclaim was busy acquiring more games developers and subsuming them as satellite development studios. In the UK, Optimus Software, founded by Jason and Darren Falcus in 1988, would become part of the American company.
“We were a small team in the northeast of England, working on
