Lobotomy Software was an American video game company, best known for the game
PowerSlave (
Exhumed in the Europe) as well as the successful
Sega SaturnThe is a 32-bit video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America, and July 8 1995 in Europe...
ports of
Duke Nukem 3DDuke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by Apogee Software. It was released on January 29, 1996 for the PC. It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...
and
QuakeQuake is a first-person shooter video game that was released by id Software on June 22, 1996. It was the first game in the popular Quake series of video games....
.
The company is no longer active but their few projects remain favourites among Sega Saturn owners.
Lobotomy Software was founded in 1993 when a group of friends working at Nintendo of America left to form their own company.
Lobotomy Software was an American video game company, best known for the game
PowerSlave (
Exhumed in the Europe) as well as the successful
Sega SaturnThe is a 32-bit video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America, and July 8 1995 in Europe...
ports of
Duke Nukem 3DDuke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by Apogee Software. It was released on January 29, 1996 for the PC. It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...
and
QuakeQuake is a first-person shooter video game that was released by id Software on June 22, 1996. It was the first game in the popular Quake series of video games....
.
The company is no longer active but their few projects remain favourites among Sega Saturn owners.
History
Lobotomy Software was founded in 1993 when a group of friends working at Nintendo of America left to form their own company. They originally worked out of Co-Founder Paul Lange's apartment but soon set up an office in Redmond, Washington. Here they began working on various demos, one of which became the
first-person shooterFirst-person shooter is a video game genre which centers the gameplay around gun- and projectile weapon-based combat through the first person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits...
PC game,
PowerSlave.
PowerSlave was similar to
Doom though it featured an Egyptian theme and ran on
3D Realms3D Realms is a publisher and video game developer based in Garland, Texas established in 1987. It is best known for popularizing the shareware distribution model and as the creator of franchises on the PC such as Duke Nukem, and also the publisher of other franchises such as Commander Keen and...
'
Build engineThe Build engine is a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman for 3D Realms. Like the Doom engine, the Build engine represents its world on a two-dimensional grid using closed 2D shapes called sectors, and uses simple flat objects called sprites to populate the world geometry with...
, the same engine that ran the PC version of
Duke Nukem 3DDuke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by Apogee Software. It was released on January 29, 1996 for the PC. It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...
.
PowerSlave received enough success to help Lobotomy secure a contract to port the game over to the Sega Saturn and
Sonyis a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. . Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game...
PlaystationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
.
Lobotomy originally wanted to port
PowerSlave over with no changes but the weaker hardware of the Saturn and Playstation compared to the PC made this impossible. Instead, Lobotomy decided to recreate the game from scratch, complete with new level designs and a different engine, named SlaveDriver.
The console versions of
PowerSlave were a success, especially on the Saturn, due to the small amount of other FPS titles available at the time.
Shortly after
PowerSlave was released,
Segais a multinational video game software and hardware development company, and a home computer and console manufacturer headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan...
secured the rights from
GT InteractiveGT Interactive Software Corporation was an American video game publisher and distributor, which later developed both video games and PC games....
to publish
Quake and
Duke Nukem 3D. Sega originally handed the projects to two other developers but they were unhappy with their work. Once the media buzz around
PowerSlave started to heat up, Sega saw potential in Lobotomy and let them work on the two games.
Both
Duke Nukem 3D and
Quake were well received and helped Lobotomy build a bigger fan base.