Gone But Not Forgotten Video Game Developers/Publishers Lost 2000-2017 - Kronos Digital Entertainment

Gone But Not Forgotten Video Game Developers/Publishers Lost 2000-2017

Kronos Digital Entertainment were a video game developer based out of Pasadena in California, the company were active from 1992 up until the studios closure in 2002. Initially the company which was founded by Stanley Liu was not a video game developer instead they worked as an animation and CG effect house.

Stanley Liu was the founder of Kronos Digital Entertainment in 1992

Stanley Liu also known as Stan Liu was originally a native of Hong-Kong up until the age of 16 when he attended the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena, California. Almost getting kicked out for the amount of time he spent on the computers.

After graduating from College he joined Alias now known as Maya, travelling the world doing demos and helping studios such as LucasFilms as well as Honda with their software, Liu would soon turn his attention back to his passion of computers and game with Liu founding Kronos Digital in 1992.

After the closure of Kronos in 2002, Stanley Liu went back to Art Centre College of Design where he would become a teacher, this position was fairly short lived however with Liu joining Disney to be the vice president of mobile content, where he would become a pioneer in the mobile and digital content space long before the now-ubiquitous iPhone and Android markets.

Following his time with Disney he went on to found another development studio Atomic Bullfrog, where he created the Garfield the Cat games, Sheep Launcher and the Action Bowling series. For mobile platforms, these games are listed under Kronos Games on the App store.

Stanley Kimman Liu, restaurateur and video game developer for Disney, Atomic Bullfrog and Kronos Games sadly passed away on the 12^th of July 2017, at the age of 54, Liu had been battling cancer for the last three years, but passed away peacefully surrounded by his family and friends.

During the early years before moving in to game development themselves the studio collaborated with Sierra, with Kronos Digital creating the animated intro for King’s Quest VI and art assets for Phantasmagoria with Stanley Liu credited as a producer on the game.

1995 first saw Kronos Digital move into game development themselves, their first title was the Playstation and Sega Saturn release Criticom, the first part of the trilogy of games dubbed the Trilogy of Terror by GameCritics reviewer Brad Gallaway during his Fear Effect 2 review.

 Criticom was the first game developed by Kronos Digital and was the first of three fighting games dubbed the Trilogy of Terror 

Criticom is a 1v1 fighting game featuring eight characters from across the galaxy, with the games main story focussed around something called a Crystal Artifact. The crystal is used by two alien races the Nezom and Zerai who have anointed themselves as the chosen ones and have been using the crystals power to subjugate other races.

Each of the characters have their own sci-fi themed back story as well as why each of the characters are interested in the crystal. Some of the characters that feature are a giant lizard man named Gorm, a female ninja named Yenji, a killer robot named S.I.D., and a mysterious vampire-like creature named Demonica.

As mentioned earlier the Trilogy of Terror which included this game as well as the two semi sequels Dark Rift and Cardinal Syn. The second of this trilogy of games Dark Rift is the only one of the three not to appear on the original Playstation, with the game releasing on the N64 and Windows.

Dark rift was the second game developed by Kronos and was the semi sequel to Criticom.

Dark Rift is the continuation of the story from Criticom, set sometime in the future gameplay now spans three dimensions with the Neutral Dimension where the Earth is located, the Dark Dimension which is home to demonic creatures and the Light Dimension which is the home to energy beings.

The crystal which was the main motivation for the characters from Criticom and what was being used by the Nezom and Zerai to enslave the other races turns out to be the Core Prime Element of a Master Key, this Master Key holds all of the secrets of the Universe.

Many, many eons ago the Master Key was found, lodged in a special tear, when the Key was finally retrieved from the tear it burst into three pieces sending two of the pieces into alternate dimensions as well as widening the tear, this is where the game gets its name from Dark Rift.

Unlike the majority of fighting games where bouts are decided best out of three, Dark rift opts for a best out of five during fights. As part of something called the trilogy of terror you would expect the game to score pretty lowly, and while the game does have its low scoring reviews just like Criticom, and just like Criticom it has some not so terrible review scores as well, while not being up their with the best there are certainly far worse fighting games that have been made.

Even the last entry in the supposed trilogy of terror Cardinal Syn had some pretty decent review scores with an 82 from Absolute Playstation, an 80 from German publication Video Games and a 77 from Gamezilla, far from disgraceful scores.

 Cardinal Syn was the last of the trio of semi related fighting games, it release in 1998 

The game like it’s two predecessors is a 3D fighting game, unlike Criticom and Dark Rift the fighters can move around the small interactive stage, similar to the DreamFactory developed Ehrgeiz. Like the previous games in this related series it has a dark fantasy theme with human and non human fighters, each of which is armed with melee weapons. The game also adds in several new features with combos, juggles, stage hazards, finishing moves, projectiles and power up’s featured.

During the period from 1995 to 1998 when Criticom, Dark Rift and Cardinal Syn were releases, Kronos Digital had another release, coming in 1997 a game titled Meat Puppet was released on Windows. Meat Puppet was an isometric shooter set in a dark futuristic post apocalyptic world.

In Germany the game had the misfortune of ending up on the BPjS index now known as the BPjM index, this index, games that are releases and put on this index have have legal restrictions in Germany. These restrictions include it being illegal to sell to minors, which is really no surprise, the games however that make it on to the BPjM index can not even be put on store shelves, reviews can not be published in gaming magazines, with the game only available under the counter.

By the turn of the new millennium Kronos Digital Entertainment releases the first entry in what would turn out to be a short series due to outside circumstances. This series would be what the company are best remember for and a series that proved to be a critical success, while sadly falling behind other similar games namely the Resident Evil and Silent Hill when it came to sales. With the first Fear Effect game selling an estimated 720,000 copies, still respectable none the less and warranted a sequel.

Fear Effect was an action adventure game with survival horror elements, the games characters were textured to resemble cell shading, unlike other games at the time which used pre rendered 2D backgrounds, Fear Effect’s environments use streaming or looping full motion video. The obvious downside to this was the increase in disc space required for all of this full motion video as a result the game filled 4 discs. 

The game is focussed around three main characters, all three are working as mercenaries these are the beautiful and mysterious Hana, a former, a former army officer named Glas and a ruthless killer named Deke. Set in a futuristic Hong Kong filled with corporations, flying cars and home to the famous Triad mafia.

 

This is the reasons the three mercenaries have come to Hong Kong, the daughter of one of the Triad bosses has disappeared, the mercenaries however are not their to rescue the kidnapped girl but find her before her fathers men find her and hold her for ransom.  

The trio of mercenaries don’t expect this to be an easy one and one that will lead them into very dangerous areas of Hong Kong, as well as the outlying regions, this is where the survival horror aspect comes in with the outlying areas infested with Zombies.

Unlike other survival horror games Fear Effect does not have a traditional health bar, instead the game has a fear bar or fear meter which turns red and kills the character when they are damaged or find themselves in a stressful situation. The fear meter can be restored back to a healthy green colour by reducing the characters stress, this is done by solving puzzles and eliminating enemies using stealth.

The Second fear effect game, again set  in the not too distant future in 2048, the world is suffering from a new a terrifying disease known as Einds or Environmentally Induced Nucleotides Degeneration Syndrome, rapidly spreading the disease has already claimed a billion lives.

The second Fear Effect game, titled Fear Effect 2  Retro Helix is a prequel that described the events leading up to the first game, set in Hong Kong four people with different pasts and motivations arrive in the city.

With the three main character from the first game Hana, Glas and Deke as well as Rain, a mysterious young woman who was found by Hana during one of her missions. The games story is played out with all four characters with the player taking control of different characters at different points throughout the game, giving the player multiple perspectives of the story.

Gameplay wise it is very similar to the original Fear Effect, with the game combining, shooting, puzzle solving and action set pieces, unlike the original Fear effect which one featured survival horror-style character-dependent control scheme, the sequel however allows for switching to a 3D camera-dependent control scheme.

The prequel makes a switch to a more puzzle orientated game, with additional locations to explore as well as a few weapon additions, the game maintains its visual look as well. With unshaded 3D anime style characters over backgrounds that are either pre rendered images or steaming full motion video.

The year is now 2002, with the first two Fear Effect game proving to be a critical and a fairly decent commercial success work was alreading in motion for the third entry in the Fear Effect series, titled Fear Effect Inferno.

However 2002 was also the year that Fear Effects publisher Eidos went though major restructuring of their budget. As a result funding for the Fear Effect Inferno project was discontinued by Eidos, in the following months Kronos Digital shopped the game around to other publishers but none came forward to continue funding the project. Shortly afterward Kronos Digital Entertainment was disbanded and Fear Effect Inferno cancelled.

Fear Effect does still live on somewhat, in  2015 Square Enix who own the rights to the Fear Effect licence announced that they would allow developers to create games based off their older Eidos IP’s this included the Fear Effect IP.

 Fear Effect Sedna is a real time tactical action game being developed by Sushee and is set for a 2018 release

In 2016 a kickstarter was announced for a new instalment in the series, titled Fear Effect Sedna, with the goals for the game reached and over $100,000 raised for the game development, this release however switches from the action adventure genre and moves to a real time tactical action game instead. The game is being developed by Sushee and according to the games Steam page has a planned 2018 release date, with the game planned for Steam, Xbox One and PS4.

Good news however if you prefer the original over this re-imagining of the Fear Effect series, Fear Effect Reinvented has also been announced by Square Enix, this game which Is set to release on PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One is a remake of the original Fear Effect with a 2018 planned release date.

  

Written By

P J Gibbon