R.I.P. Acclaim: 1987-2004. 17 years…read more I'm surprised a Yelp listing existed for Acclaim considering the company went defunct in 2004, the same year Yelp was founded. Acclaim was best known for publishing video games in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. I know them best for publishing the Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam games on the Super Nintendo. Acclaim was also the parent company of LJN from 1990 to 1995. LJN gets a lot of flak, but I liked them because they published some really fun professional wrestling games using the WWF license. Memorable Acclaim and LJN titles to me (most of which I still own) include: Acclaim * Wizards & Warriors (NES, 1987) * Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES, 1990) * The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (NES, 1991) * Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (NES, 1991) * Mortal Kombat (Super NES, 1993) * NBA Jam (Super NES, 1994) * Mortal Kombat II (Super NES, 1994) * NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (Super NES, 1995) * WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game (Super NES, 1995) * True Lies (Super NES, 1995) * Mortal Kombat 3 (Super NES, 1995) * College Slam (Super NES, 1996) * Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (N64, 1997) * South Park (N64, 1999) * Crazy Taxi (PS2 and GameCube, 2001) I'm pretty sure Wizards & Warriors was my first experience with an Acclaim game. As a kid, I found the game to be very adventurous as well as a bit mystical and mysterious with the game's magical elements. The box art and music, especially the former, were awesome. Bart vs. the Space Mutants and Double Dragon III were both difficult. Mortal Kombat on the Super NES was amazing at the time. The graphics, animation, and sound were incredible for a home console, superior to the Sega Genesis version. However, as we all know, the Genesis version had blood while the Super NES version did not. Nintendo learned their lesson and quickly changed their stance on blood by the time MK2 was released. MK2 for the Super NES was incredible as were the NBA Jam games. These games truly brought the arcade into people's homes. I specifically got True Lies because the game got high ratings in gaming magazines; Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, Nintendo Power -- I forget which one(s). It was decent. I liked the movie too. College Slam was basically NBA Jam with college teams. Turok and South Park for the Nintendo 64, I got those used and didn't play them much. South Park wasn't a very good game as I recall. LJN * The Amazing Spider-Man (Game Boy, 1990) * Back to the Future (NES, 1989) * Back to the Future Part II & III (NES, 1990) * Friday the 13th (NES, 1989) * Jaws (NES, 1987) * The Karate Kid (NES, 1987) * A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES, 1989) * The Uncanny X-Men (NES, 1989) * Who Framed Roger Rabbit (NES, 1989) * WWF Raw (Super NES, 1994) * WWF Royal Rumble (Super NES, 1993) * WWF Super WrestleMania (Super NES, 1992) * WWF Superstars (Game Boy, 1991) * WWF WrestleMania Challenge (NES, 1990) * WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge (NES, 1992) Come on, guys. LJN wasn't that bad. OK, I admit Spider-Man, Back to the Future, and Jaws were pretty bad, but we still played them, didn't we? Friday the 13th was scary for an 8-bit NES game with its eerie cabin environments and jump scares. A Nightmare on Elm Street and X-Men were fun to play with two players. I remember one of my childhood best friends rented the latter from Action Video and I spent the night at his house one weekend, playing that game a lot. A Nightmare on Elm Street could be played with *four* players, but who actually played that game with four players? Probably a very small percentage. I liked how Who Framed Roger Rabbit switched from overhead perspective to side-scrolling perspective. It made the world feel big and somewhat realistic, like Grand Theft Auto today. As for the WWF games, I loved them and played the heck out of them. The grappling and move mechanics of the 1992-94 WWF Super NES games (Super WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, Raw) were essentially the same. I loved Royal Rumble the best because it finally introduced battle royal wrestling to a home console. I had been waiting a long time for that and even tried to imitate it for short periods of time in WWF WrestleMania Challenge for the NES. I'd set up tag team matches and would try to get the wrestlers on the outside of the ring into the action; of course, I was racing against the count-out clock. WWF Superstars for Game Boy was impressive because of the graphics, large sprites, and music. For a system as limited as the Game Boy, developer Rare (Acclaim was the publisher) did a fantastic job maximizing the hardware's capabilities. The only disappointing WWF game of those I listed above was Steel Cage Challenge. The rest were legitimately fun and well-made, in my opinion. I liked how the games incorporated each wrestler's theme song and special move. Thanks for the memories, Acclaim. Gone, but not forgotten.