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[Krathoon]

Remember Shiny? They made such weird games.
Here they are:

1994 Earthworm Jim
1995 Earthworm Jim 2
1997 MDK
1998 Wild 9
1999 R/C Stunt Copter
2000 Messiah, Sacrifice
2003 Enter the Matrix
2005 The Matrix: Path of Neo
2007 The Golden Compass

Of course, who could forget Earthworm Jim? The game in which you launch a cow.


Or Sacrifice. A game where you play a wizard fighting for dieties.


Or MDK. Murder Death Kill.


Or Messiah. A game where you play a cherub that possesses and horribly kills people.


I think the only companies that were similar to Shiny are Double Fine and Planet Moon.

Please share your experiences with Shiny games.

 

[STARSBarry]

Everyone remembers Messiah, it's super famous for using.

 

[calistan]

Wasn't MDK the first game with a sniper zoom?

 

[sodstall]

Remember playing MDK for the first time on an iMac G3 as a kid. Played the heck out of both those matrix games too.

 

[stuminus3]

Aw, I was hoping you'd say they were back. In Pog form.

 

[Holammer]

Shiny always had good buzz, but after Messiah they stopped being the golden boy.
Gaming press elevated Messiah to the high heavens for its technology, but the game was a wet fart.

 

[Badlucktroll]

 

[Magic Carpet]

MDK, I remember a head that turned into a gun and a cigar chomping dog with a jetpack. Something about a scientist and puzzles.

 

[Krathoon]

I actually like Enter the Matrix and Path of Neo.

Path of Neo is famous for the alternate ending. Look it up.

 

[gtabro]

I bought a physical PC copy of Enter The Matrix 2 years ago and played it as I saw the game when I was a young teen but didn't have a computer at home, so one childhood dream fulfilled. It became my favourite 5/10 mediocre game.

BUT

I love the idea of going into the Matrix before Neo came into the picture. As evident by the movies, many people were already capable of dealing with the agents and the machines to some extent, which makes for intense stories (or hell, make the Animatrix into a video game if you can't come up with anything original). Kinda breaks my heart that nobody thought to license The Matrix for another game and tell another story like in Enter The Matrix, but with the vision of the re-imagined God of War games (and the beefed up combat system, as as old as the Matrix games now are, they had - and still have I'd argue - some of the most visually satisfying and unique hand-to-hand combat).

 

[Mr Hyde]

Earthworm Jim was my first game from Shiny. I did enjoy it back then, but thought it was way too hard and unfair, especially the later levels. The sequel was a disappointment however.

Next up was MDK2 for DC. I don't remember anything about it, other than I did enjoy it. I can't even remember how it played or what genre it was. It was probably a weird game, which would explain me liking it.

Shiny was a pretty big studio at the time, and Dave Perry was infamous for talking up his games as the second coming. I think his behavior predates that of Peter Molyneux. Especially when Messiah and Enter the Matrix was about to be released. He talked up these games like crazy, but I reckon most people had catched on to his PR-bullshit. The failure of Enter the Matrix led to his downfall iirc. Shiny never recovered after that.

Dave Perry however is probably a multi millionaire. He's the founder of Gaikai, the cloud based streaming service that he sold to Sony, who then created PS Now out of it (and now PS Plus).

 

[SF Kosmo]

I think the only companies that were similar to Shiny are Double Fine and Planet Moon.

Please share your experiences with Shiny games.

Planet Moon was an offshoot of Shiny, no? Also The Neverhood was very much a Shiny offshoot as well.

Shiny was kind of two different devs, at one point nearly everyone left and then they restaffed up for MDK.

 

[dem]

Shiny was the best

I loved MDK

 

[AJUMP23]

David Perry really made some greats back in the day.

David Perry (game developer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Krathoon]

It looks like you still can't buy Enter the Matrix digitally. Wow.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

The cartoon was also really good

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Earthworm Jim was my first game from Shiny. I did enjoy it back then, but thought it was way too hard and unfair, especially the later levels. The sequel was a disappointment however.

Next up was MDK2 for DC. I don't remember anything about it, other than I did enjoy it. I can't even remember how it played or what genre it was. It was probably a weird game, which would explain me liking it.

Shiny was a pretty big studio at the time, and Dave Perry was infamous for talking up his games as the second coming. I think his behavior predates that of Peter Molyneux. Especially when Messiah and Enter the Matrix was about to be released. He talked up these games like crazy, but I reckon most people had catched on to his PR-bullshit. The failure of Enter the Matrix led to his downfall iirc. Shiny never recovered after that.

Dave Perry however is probably a multi millionaire. He's the founder of Gaikai, the cloud based streaming service that he sold to Sony, who then created PS Now out of it (and now PS Plus).

MDK2 is a Bioware game.

 

[Krathoon]

Really, Enter the Matrix and Path of Neo are pretty much abandonware now.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. MDK2 is Bioware, but they really improved on the game. It is a solid game.

 

[Alebrije]

MDK is the only a played from them, Nice bizarre Game
.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Yea these guys ruled. Simpler times I guess but the variety in the games they made is wild.

 

[Krappadizzle]

There output from the 16-bit and 32-bit eras was awesome. LOVED Earthworm Jim and then Wild9. MDK2 was one of my favorite games on the Dreamcast.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Wild9 is the shit. Still have a copy in the case lying around somewhere.

MDK was mind blowing on PC at the time.

And Ill always stand by EWJ on Genesis being the better 16 bit version compared to the SNES one.



The golden years of Tommy Tallarico

 

[Krathoon]

There is also a Sega CD Special Edition of Earthworm Jim.

I have heard that the Sega Saturn version of Earthworm Jim 2 is the best version, but I am not 100% sure on that one.

 

[Platinumstorm]

You forgot one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Krathoon]

Sacrifice is also on gog if you want a DRM free copy.

I think the game can be modded for widescreen resolutions, I have not messed with it.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I just reinstalled MDK this morning! I played it on this beast first

I remember the reflection level impressing me, though it's a super basic effect today lol

 

[Krathoon]

MDK was back in the early days of 3D graphics. A lot of it was showing off what you could do in 3D.

 

[Hypereides]

I yearn for more developers like Shiny these days. Weird and surreal games should be popularised again.

 

[EruditeHobo]

Earthworm Jim is one of my favorite games of the 16 bit era.

Never played their 3D offerings, for some reason.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Yes. They were the prototypical 90s western studio. Style, edge, and mediocre-to-bad gameplay.

 

[Krathoon]

This is a spoiler for the ending of Path of Neo, but it is funny.

 

[acidagfc]

I wonder how did their games do financially.
None of them were especially good games. Unique, sure, very memorable indeed, and critically well received, but I doubt they sold well.

Still love Genesis EWJ games.

 

[Krathoon]

If Double Fine got more surreal, we would have some similar games.

 

[Beer Baelly]

Never liked Earthworm Jim. Reminded me of Ren and Stimpy, never liked that show. I did play the MDK demo. Thought it was cool but weird for sure.

 

[Krathoon]

Messiah is kind of buggy. I remember struggling with the gog version to get it to work with Direct3D.

I think they had it setup for 3dfx for some dumb reason.

 

[skit_data]

Remember playing MDK on PS1. Very unique game.
Played a demo of Messiah but I think that stuff was a bit too heavy for my Pentium 2 because I remember thinking "this is unplayable" due to it being more of a slideshow (and back then I considered in sub 15fps being totally playable).
Path of Neo was a good Matrix game as far as I remember, before discovering the HL mod "The Specialists" which was actually way cooler in many apects.

 

[Randall365]

Always thought the Dave Perry at Shiny was the Axl Rose doppelganger (including being a bit precious) off Gamesmaster. Freaked my nut out at the time.

This fella:

 

[N30RYU]

An Interplay game... Shiny renamed after perry sold it.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

 

[Rat Rage]

Earthworm Jim 1 & 2 are one of the best designed (and animated) games ever created. Truly timeless visuals. They'll look great even in 1000 years.

 

[KaiserBecks]

Wild 9 never got the credit it deserved. Loved this game back then.

 

[Crayon]

Massively influential on my tastes growing up, even though I always found most of their games flawed. Or sometimes disappointing because they were oversold by perry. Here's to shiny.

 

[SirTerry-T]

They could really make the 16 Bit consoles song, especially the Mega drive.
Perry used to be with the UK dev studio Probe back in the day, they created some knock out stuff on the 8 biy home computers. He was/is a proper old school assembly coder type.

 

[buenoblue]

Awesome dev. Funny story: in my mind for 30 years Dave perry, the guy who walked walked off on Gamesmaster was the founder of Shiny Entertainment.

Just double checked and found out that David Perry, who headed Shiny Entertainment, was a completely different guy than Dave Perry the Gamesmaster guy



Anyway. Earthworm Jim on mega drive is goat. MDK was awesome. Path of Neo, played that game like 20 times. Good times

 

[GamesDontSuck]

Wow some good games they've made.

 

[Beechos]

That David perry fellow was held in such high regard back in the days. Kinda reminds me of how people hold kojima on a pedestal nowadays.

 

[Beechos]

Shiny was great back in the day. If I'm not mistaken they pioneered something with software rendering with the game messiah to let it run without a 3d graphics card.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

their games just werent that fun to play

 

[mdkirby]

MDK was great, came with a new graphics card and thrustmaster joystick. Also happens to be my initials

 

[Griffon]

Mediocre gameplay through and through.

Their artstyle and humor was an aquired taste. Some liked it, I didn't care for it.