Sewer Shark was created by Hasbro for a device that never hit the
market. This was 15 years ago. The game unit went between your TV and
VCR. It took the 60Hz output from the VCR as 4 15Hz video streams. It
also multiplexed the audio into at least 16 different channels. The unit
then overlayed sprites, etc. on the video. Based on what was going on in
the game logic, you were presented on of the 4 video tracks and appropriate
audio. Besides obvious drawbacks, you could never demand the user to
rewind. Sewer Shark was the best use of this device. When a branch in a
tunnel came up you switch video feeds. Most of the audio tracks were
giving various feedback on how you were doing, but other were devoted to
game over and giving you a restart/continue or even a new game. A new game
had it's own intro video and dialogue. And the user could die and never
wait more than 30 seconds to start a new game. The unit itself controlled
the difficulty and could give you more and harder enemies. The game was so
cleverly designed, it covered up many of the systems drawbacks and you
simply couldn't guess at how it was done.

All other versions were done by Hasbro wanting to recoup the $1M they paid
John Dykstra (Star Wars) effects company to create the sewer sequence, and
game developers figuring they could get some expensive production assets cheap.

Dan

At 07:25 PM 9/26/2003, Darryl Giors wrote:
>Question:
>How do I block all this SPAM about SPAM? :P
>
>Ok, now that I've contributed to the spam I wanted to respond to what DP
>said about Sewer Shark...
>Was there a VCR edition of that game? The version I remember seeing was
>for the Sega CD addon for Sega Genesis. This game came out about the same
>time as the controversial "Night Trap". I sort of remember a port to 3DO
>as well.
>
>Perhaps I'll do a Google search on this one...
>
>-Darryl Giors