The Shaq Attack is back

Those of you old enough to recall the 16-bit era will no doubt remember a fighting game for the SNES by the name of Shaq Fu. It took the famous basketball star Shaquille O'Neal and placed him in a fantasy world when he had to use his intense B-Ball skills to defeat the malevolent Sett-Ra.

Despite being created by the respected French studio Delphine Software (Flashback, Another World), the game was terrible — so terrible that a website has since been established with the aim of "liberating" all available copies and destroying them to "prevent other generations from feeling the corruption of this game and its evil."

The makers of that site may well be shaking their heads in dismay at recent news, however. Several trademarks for Shaq Fu have recently been filed in the US by Mine O'Mine, a company owned by Shaquille O'Neal himself.

The trademarks cover a dizzying array of different entertainment mediums, including — you guessed it — video games:

Entertainment services, namely, providing online games; Providing a website featuring electronic and video games and news, information, tips, hints, enhancements, audio-visual content, music, videos, television programs, movies, animated series, and other multimedia materials in the field of computer and video games, computer and video game characters, music, sports and entertainment.

The Shaq Fu trademarks are in addition to the ones recently filed for Shaqfighter, again by Mine O'Mine.

So what does the retired basketball player have in store for gamers? Could we be forced to suffer a sequel to Shaq Fu, or is he planning on releasing the original game on modern consoles? Maybe he's aware of the game's reputation and is looking to produce a humourous and self-deprecating update? Whatever is in store, we sure hope it's not anywhere near as bad as the original title.

[source eurogamer.net]