A RETURN TO BETTER TIMES

There was a period in the video game industry where you could turn literally any property into a game, and as proof we offer you Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit. Many of these games were terrible (HI:PTP being an excellent example of that as well), but there was a wonderful hopefulness to this approach. Nobody bothered to ask whether it made sense to take something and turn it into a Super Nintendo game - you just did it, and maybe it was successful.

No athlete was better suited to ride this wave than Shaquille O'Neal.

Shaq Fu was not, to my recollection, a good game. I did not know any kids who owned it, though I knew plenty who rented it, because it would be foolish to emerge from a 1990s childhood without even trying a video game where you beat people up as Shaq. It was a product that clearly came from a place of "it's got Shaq, nobody cares if it's actually well-made." Bold as that approach was, it was ultimately doomed, because charging $50 or more for a game that wasn't fun to play did not a long-term business model make. The age of Make A Game Out Of Whatever eventually sputtered to a halt.

But now? Now there are alternative methods of funding. Now there are new possibilities outside of the major game makers. Now there is SHAQ FU: A LEGEND REBORN.

Think of how far we can take this. Steve Spurrier's Putt Putt Piss! Big Red Fallout: Adventures In The Western Kentucky Wasteland! Mike Locksley's Punch-Everything!

They can all be real. Even you, Tool Time: Mark Gets Turnt.