Remembering Bullet-Proof Software.

Oh, hey. Look at that. One of four FPS games on the SNES.

(The first-person segments in Lawnmower Man don't count)

Faceball 2000 is a neat little game. As stated earlier, Faceball is a first-person shooter on the SNES. That sounds weird, I know. Even weirder is the fact that Faceball is really just an updated release of an Atari ST game, MIDI-Maze. MIDI Maze is a networked FPS. On the Atari ST.

I know, right? Technolomogy, you so crazy!

Instead of doing the traditional FPS things, like killing Nazis and shooting hellspawn with a shotgun that could punch a hole through an engine block, you control a floating, sentient smiley-face. Your objective? Shoot the other floating, smiling geometric objects before they shoot you first. They're kind of a bunch of jerks.

Gameplay takes place in a boxed maze area, and each level is a little bit different than the last. The SNES version isn't exactly the best thing ever, though. The draw distance is pitiful even for SNES standards, and you're not exactly going to be getting smooth framerates when tons of things are happening at once. If only this were a Super-FX game, or if BPS was around to do a N64 version...

True to the spirit of the original MIDI Maze, Faceball 2000 for the Game Boy has four-player multiplayer capability. All you need is a 4-player Multitap, three more Game Boy Link Cables (sold separately, of course.) and three other friends who were willing to cough up $40 for copies of Faceball 2000 for the Game Boy. I've always wanted to see if this was any fun to do, but I haven't been willing or able to get people to care enough to try it out.

So. What happened to Bullet-Proof Software?

They were effectively gone by 1996. At least, their name was. The company changed their name in '96, to Blue Planet Software. I'm unsure as to why this occurred, but I'd really like to find out if it was due to the fact that their games weren't actually bullet-proof. Some dumbass probably bought up a ton of unsold copies of Michael Andretti's Indy Car Challenge, made a suit of body armor out of them, and tried to be a hero during a bank robbery.

That probably didn't happen, but it would be a pretty interesting story to tell people if it did.

Hey, at least they didn't have to get rid of any company signage that had just the company's initials on it.

LOOK WHO CAME:

Titannel   

Mxyzptlk   1