
Retired game developer Kevin Edwards has recently been taking to Twitter to share his experience of the industry in the 1990s. While these posts certainly provide a deep dive into the intricacies of building a video game, so too do they demonstrate the trials involved when the development team is placed under high pressure and restrictive deadlines.
One such post has been unpacked by the good folks over at Time Extension, in which Edwards shares a less than forgiving fax concerning the 1992 SNES title, Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge. Sent from Arcade's Revenge publisher, Acclaim (via its LJN label), the note details what changes needed to be made to the superhero platformer.
These notes range from gameplay tweaks to outright calling out individual members of the development team, though the one that really caught our eye sees Acclaim insist that the team change the central location's name, 'Murderworld', to something a little less stabby, we guess.
The full, caps-lock engaged note can be found below.
NINTENDO HAS INFORMED US THAT WE CAN'T USE THE TERM 'MURDERWORLD' PLEASE REMOVE IT FROM THE ARCADE TEXT. YOU SHOULD JUST DELETE THE SECOND PART OF THE SENTENCE THAT INCLUDES THE WORD MURDERWORLD, 'HORRORWORLD' WON'T WORK.
We understand the desire to keep things child friendly, but come on. Nintendo was just fine to release titles like Super Castlevania IV for crying out loud - 'Murderworld' seems like a nice warm hug by comparison to that Dracula-hunting horror fest. Combine that with the fact that the location has appeared many times throughout Marvel comics as Arcade's central hunting ground, the fact that it is missing from the game is a little suspect. Got to keep them little 'ens safe!
Our Time Extension friends have delved deeper still into Edwards' notes, detailing the other requests that were made of the dev team. Check out their full article to find out more.
Do you remember Arcade's Revenge fondly? Thwip on down to the comments and let us know!
- Further reading: Best Spider-Man Games On Nintendo Consoles
[source twitter.com, via timeextension.com]
Comments 42
That was Nintendo of America. It was largely an independant company when it came to localize games during the Snes era.
Considering how games seemed to be more scrutinized by parents/lawyers/specific focus groups back then and at the end of the day this is a product using a license that is technically geared towards the general public, it makes sense that such restrictions were handed out. People complain about helicopter parents but I feel like many don’t care what type of media their kids consume now.
Honestly I feel there are likely still restrictions in place when making a licensed game but today’s easier communication means devs don’t have to scramble to change things.
In all fairness, Nintendo was far more heavily invested in maintaining a kid-friendly image than they are now.
For example, the then-Senior Vice President of Nintendo of America, Howard Lincoln, stated that Night Trap, which came out on the Sega CD around the same time as this Spider-Man game, would never appear on a Nintendo system.
Of course, it's on the Switch now. But that's because Nintendo is now trying to appeal to all ages, young AND old (just look at the slew of M-rated games for the Switch). I guarantee, if this game came out today, it would undoubtedly have kept the name Murderworld.
Back in the day, I remember I was so excited to finally have a Spider-Man game to play on my SNES. I found it to be mostly disappointing though, and I never could beat that level with the Juggernaut.
That comment about tweaking the difficulty is interesting. I had this but remember it being very difficult at times, to the point it was a huge detriment to actually enjoying it
Every time 🌈 is mentioned by name, the Angry Video Game Nerd involuntarily twitches.
WOW thanks for sharing this!
Alot of this censoring seems to always come from Nintendo of America .. and the Germans wanting censoring in games like Contra. Nintendo of Japan seem to be alot looser with it .. Super Castlevania 4 has blood, Triforce of The Gods and Actraiser has no problem with religion and Yoshi eating the big jumping dolphin type fish for small examples
Ahh how I love the ever growing censorship to cater to the PC babies and wokies.
Marvel contents were also pretty dark back then too so choosing any of Arcade's saga to be adapted into a game would likely result in censorship. Had they delay the game a year or two later like late 93 or 94 when the ESRB finally happen then I believe they could still keep the famous theme park name as the reason Nintendo stopped doing censorships after 1994 was cause the ESRB was already put in place.
@The_Top_Loader Nintendo of Japan isn't all dark and gritty happy either, if the western contents in their games looks disgusting to them they will censored it as well like in Mortal Kombat II where fatalities got gray out and red blood got change to green or the peeing fatality from Chaos in Primal Rage which got an x mark blocking it when the implementation is perform. The reason Mai Shiranui still retain her bouncing boobs in the Super Famicom version of Fatal Fury 2 and Special was cause eye candy gals are a thing in Japan. Also in Japan they eat dolphins, it's part of their culture. Why else would they keep that feature in their version of Super Mario World?
I remember this game as being one of the times I was disappointed in a rental choice. I remember seeing the box on the shelf of my local video store figuring that this game has to be good it has Spider-man on the cover. Boy was I wrong.
@SteamEngenius Them pesky wokies with their aim of racial equality and social justice going back in time 30 years to censor a video game really makes me mad too. Grrrrrr!
And yet Nintendo let Home Alone 2 get released, around the same time, with a Christmas tree level.
Religious imagery was notably just as banned.
I'm guessing someone on the censorship board was familiar with one of these IPs but not the other.
@Serpenterror Nintendo was still censoring things after 1994, just SLOWLY dropping away from that.
Somehow Breath of Fire II got away with one cuss word (which was still a zero-tolerance policy for NoA), which got retroactively censored on the Wii VC (though I guess the ESRB would be the reason for that decision).
It's a certain that Nintendo would've liked to censor the western version of SNES MK2 but after the (most important to them) market backlash from the first game, they had to relent.
@KingMike Christmas is not a religion, Christmas is a holiday. Holiday are represented just fine in every media around the world unless it's a nationwide holiday like 9/11 and Independence Day which are only celebrated in the USA and not the whole North America. Also there are two versions of Breath of Fire II, vr.1.1 was the one that had the word censored and that one was the one that was included as part of Wii's Virtual Console. The original one stays untouch.
Haha, I guess that makes sense.
@KingMike …What? How do you compare “murderworld”, Mortal Kombat, and a CHRISTMAS TREE? Why would they censor a holiday a lot of their audience celebrates, and everyone in North America is at least aware of?
The only level that's somewhat tolerable in this game was the Wolverine one. The opening Spider-Man level is just boring with the follow-the-arrows, Cyclops's stage is full of instant death floors, Storm's is a dreaded underwater level, and Gambit's is too hard. Never made it to the final level with Spidey.
Not remotely surprised this was a troubled production.
Pretty interesting, my older brother had this game on the SNES back in the day. I actually don’t like it.
It's not only all CAPS but also **BOLD**
At the very top of the first page dude wrote Kevin's name wrong. That alone paints the sender in a less-than-ideal light for me
@Bass_X0 LOL nice one.
This is widely considered a bad to mediocre game by most, but as a kid I liked it on my genesis. I could never get too far but the opening level with spider collecting bombs and swinging and clinging about was a fun little distraction.
@Bass_X0 Well, he's the new owner of LJN and he even got his own Fred Whatsitsname in Sam, who coded the NES Back to the Future remake.
@speedyb It was an LJN game, what did you expect?
@HammerGalladeBro As a kid (which is when I first played this), I didn't pay attention to companies and trends. I just rented games and played them.
@SteamEngenius this is from the 90’s… unless you were calling folks “PC babies and wokies” then. And at that time the most pro-censorship of video games were conservatives and christian focus groups. I know it’s cool to play the “red team vs blue team” game but your comment is nonsensical in context to the actual article.
@Ryu_Niiyama yes true but, Lieberman was a Democrat and look what he try to do.
Btw Nintendo did some scummy things, they threw sega under the bus during that hearing for violence in video games. Instead of standing together against censorship.
@BabyYoda71 Nintendo was kind of that crazy in those days.
A religion-origin holiday, Nintendo was afraid of being accused of pushing religion on children.
They wouldn't allow "death" in games, and even Final Fantasy games had to rename the Holy spell (Fade, White, Pearl). They didn't want things with a mile of spiritual beliefs referenced on games. No "devils" either.
@Serpenterror I only know of Japan getting two physical revisions of BoF2.
Unless you want to count the US prototype ROM.
MOST of the changes from the released version are minor spelling/grammar changes.
The only significant ones I recall is Joker ordering Nina to "kneel" in front of him changed to "stand" (a nuance implicarion), the options for sneaking Bow out of HomeTown replaced Adult Mag with Comic Book, and maybe one other.
From what I heard, it is VERY unlikely Capcom USA did more than one print run of those late era games.
As with all historical events, we should be careful not to judge past actions by the standards of the present. We may laugh at their conservative views on the word "murder," but I'm pretty sure we have views now that would definitely be considered atrocious both by past generations and probably future ones as well.
@Geostyle a company is going to protect its bottom line. Nintendo had no reason to stand with a business rival. At the end of the day a game is a product and must be tailored to the culture and market it is releasing to in order to maximize profit. The comment I think you are responding to takes no sides (as I don’t really care either way about videogame censorship) but instead was speaking to being clear in one’s attacks/blame rather than using the current buzz words.
“The squirts of ‘liquid’ from that water pistol gun look rediculous. What is he doing, sweating from that gun???”
It’s hilarious to me that whoever at Acclaim that wrote this didn’t know how to spell ridiculous, and also just sounds like a modern day comment section dweller.
I used to own this game and was a moderate Marvel fan at the time... But the only time I have ever heard of the character of Arcade was in this game. I had just assumed he was one of those one-off villains that's around for like one or two issues. So, I certainly wasn't missing the term "Murderworld," never mind that it just sounds like a silly, knock-off term for a horror movie or B-grade comic book.
On a side note: the podcast Pixelated Audio just did their most recent episode on this game's soundtrack!
This game was hard. Getting through the first Spider-Man level was easy enough, but the rest? Impossible.
I loved this game and am tempted to load it up!
@Serpenterror It's funny either way each culture censors something right? Even The Sega Mega Drive version of Castlevania "The New Generation" was censored. Everybody at that time seemed to do something
Challenging game but I beat it. I still dig the unique earworm-inducing soundtrack with its groovy disco synth mashed up with wah wah guitars. Sometimes, I hear the clowns from Wolverine’s second stage laughing at me in my nightmares. Have to remember to keep my claws sheathed so I can recover health. The experience is like a 70s porn cover of Crispin Glover’s Clowny Clown Clown… Fun times.
@Serpenterror It's this kind of attitude that has gradually weakened Christmas spirit over the years! Yes, many people celebrate it as a non-religious holiday (although I don't think they should), but it is and always has been first and foremost a religious holiday for Christianity! It's even right there in the name as Christ's mass!
While whether or not such religious symbolism should've ever been censored is another issue, anyone who claims Christmas doesn't count as religious anymore is flat out wrong and being sacrilegious towards our Lord Jesus Christ.
@BabyYoda71 Why did they censor Christian crosses or Stars of David, etc. in their old games? They never should've censored any of it, but many of the other religious symbols that got censored back are almost as well known, while a Christmas tree is just as much of a religious icon as any of those other things.
@Geostyle To be fair, violence and such in video games was a legitimate issue back before the rating systems.
I agree that Nintendo should've cooperated with Sega instead of throwing them under the bus, but that cooperation should've been towards joint support of the new ratings systems that would then allow them to immediately stop their overbearing censorship practices (although some like the removal of most religious references never made sense in the first place), rather than outright denouncement of all forms of censorship.
@BulbasaurusRex completely agree with that. Good reply my guy.👌🏻💯🇮🇹
I can still hear the clown laughter, 30 years later…!
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