Developer: Beam Software
Publisher: Activision
Released: 1994
It’s so interesting to look back at the nineties and realize just how important a friendly mascot character was to absolutely every video game publisher. Everyone needed their version of Mario or Sonic. Bubsy. Sparkster. Aero the AcroBat. Now, in 2018, only Sonic and Mario seem to matter anymore, along with the occasional second-stringer making a short-lived comeback.
And since we’re talking about 1994, your mascot had to be extra radical! How about a dinosaur that rides a skateboard? Radical enough? What if his actual name is Radical Rex? Jurassic Park had been a huge hit in 1993. Extreme sports were gaining so much momentum that the X Games would kick off in 1995. Radical Rex definitely feels like a character created in a boardroom based on market research. Activision needed a mascot.
Radical Rex is the one and only appearance by Beam Software on the Sega CD. Beam was founded as Melbourne House in Australia in 1977. Most well-known early on for The Hobbit (1982), their main claim to fame in the nineties was probably Shadowrun for the SNES. Eventually they were bought up by Infogrames and renamed Melbourne House (ultimately Krome Studios Melbourne). In fact, they made one of my favourite games of all time: Test Drive Le Mans for the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2.
But during the nineties Beam Software’s output was uneven to say the least. And while there were some wins, Radical Rex definitely qualifies as one of the losses.
The game suffers from a lot of different problems. Rex does not seem to react to input immediately, lagging just enough to make the game feel sluggish. The camera feels too close to the action, exacerbating the controller lag even more. And enemies seem to come from every direction.
The hit detection is suspect, too. Rex can roar, breathe fire and kick. And in a lot of cases, he’s required to breathe first before his kicks have any effect. It slows down already slow and imprecise gameplay even further.
And then there’s the skateboarding. I don’t see what use this feature brings to the game at all other than mostly self-driving segments that are…radical?
This game is a mess.
Of course, Radical Rex came out on both the Genesis and SNES as well. The Genesis cartridge and Sega CD version are largely the same, while the SNES version features what appear to be drastically different level designs, at least early on. And for some strange reason, the main antagonist in the Genesis and Sega CD versions is Skriitch the weasel, while the SNES version features a wizard named Sethron. Their actions are the same – make all the dinosaurs mad so that they will go extinct, clearing the way for mammals to rule the world. It’s just a really strange change.
Honestly the more interesting bits about Radical Rex have to do with ownership and copyrights rather than the actual game itself. On the back of the box the legal text reads that the character Radical Rex is copyright and trademark of Laserbeam Entertainment Pty, Ltd. I thought this was kind of weird, but when I looked into it I found out that Laserbeam was just a publishing label of Beam Software. Former Krome Studios employee Cameron Davis shared an interview he did with Melbourne House co-founder Fred Milgrom where he explained that when Beam wanted to get back into publishing they were not able to use their original name – Melbourne House – because they had previously sold it to Mastertronic in the UK. Instead they chose Laserbeam as a bit of a play on the whole “Beam” thing. As soon as they were able, though, they grabbed the Melbourne House name again.
Oh, and if you should try to play Radical Rex on a Sega CDX, you may run into intermittent issues getting it to start properly. A very helpful bit of paper inside the case says you should just go ahead and turn it off and back on again. It’ll work eventually.
The oddest bit, though, is the sticker on the front of the box that states “Radical Rex is not associated with RAD REX or RAD BOARD products of Smith-Horton Enterprises, Inc.”
What this is referring to is a company out of Chattanooga, TN, which created, possibly among other things, Rad Boards. Rad Boards were these very nineties hybrid skateboard/scooters that basically look like three skateboards welded together at 45-degree angles. They’re bizarre.
What does that have to do with Radical Rex? Well, it would have been next to nothing if Smith-Horton hadn’t trademarked their own radical dinosaur, named Rad Rex, a year before Activision applied for the Radical Rex trademark. Looks like the Smith-Horton folks loved Jurassic Park as well.
Bogus.
