The process successfully compressed the data from the animator’s drawings into the limited processing capacity of the Sega Mega Drive. This was achieved by use of the “Digicel” process - developed at Virgin Interactive by David Perry, Andy Astor, Mike Dietz, Andy Luckey and Dr.
#Aladdin games genesis series#
It should be unsurprising, therefore, that the series of Disney games on the Genesis in the early 1990s capture the mood of classic Disney animation better than any before or since. Unlike the SNES version, the Genesis version was worked on by Disney animators under the supervision of Virgin’s Animation Producer Andy Luckey and Virgin animators Mike Dietz and Ian Freedman. Griffin at the request of Virgin’s audio director, Tommy Tallarico, who did the Genesis instruments and incidental transition music.
#Aladdin games genesis movie#
Five original compositions and five arrangements from the movie were composed by Donald S. The platformer had remarkably fluid graphics for the time through the use of cel animation. The SNES version sold over 1.75 million units worldwide.Aladdin is game for the Sega Genesis designed by Virgin released in 1993, based on the Disney film Aladdin. The Mega Drive version sold 4 million copies making it the best-selling Mega Drive game that was not a pack-in. Mega placed the game at #12 in their Top Mega Drive Games of All Time. Both reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. The game was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon #211 by Jay & Dee in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. The game was awarded Best Genesis Game of 1993 by Electronic Gaming Monthly. On release, Famicom Tsūshin scored the Mega Drive version of Aladdin a 35 out of 40. In Abu's bonus round, the player controls the little monkey who has to catch bonus items that fall from the sky, but without touching any of the unwanted objects like rocks and pots. The Genie bonus round is a game of luck played for apples, gems or extra lives, and continues until the player runs out of Genie tokens or lands on Jafar. Finding Genie or Abu icons enables bonus rounds. Next to apples, Aladdin can also collect gems which can be traded for lives and continues from a traveling peddler. He can attack either close range with a scimitar, which can deflect certain projectiles, or long range with a limited supply of apples. It was a 10-Megabit cart (an awkward size actually) which paled in comparison to the 16 Megabit consumed by the Sega Genesis game, in a time where people tended to equal quantity and quality.
The Sultan's guards and also animals of the desert want to hinder Aladdin in his way. Aladdin for SNES was a regular quality platform game and did not bring any new advances in technology, and was not marketed as the flagship game for the system back in 1993.
The player controls Aladdin, who must make his way through several levels based on locations from the movie: from the streets and rooftops of Agrabah, the Cave of Wonders and the Sultan's dungeon to the final confrontation in Grand Vizier Jafar's palace. The game also featured arrangements and original compositions composed by Donald S. The game has been noted for its use of traditional animation, which was produced by Disney animators under the supervision of Virgin's animation staff, including animation producer Andy Luckey, technical director Paul Schmiedeke and animation director Mike Dietz, using an in-house "Digicel" process to compress the data onto the cartridge.
#Aladdin games genesis license#
This was due to the fact that Sega had both obtained a license for publishing video games based on Disney's motion picture and established a collaboration deal with Disney's animation studios which was a first in the video game industry, so Sega of America tasked the Virgin Games USA development team with the programming duties because of their successful previous efforts with McDonald's Global Gladiators and 7 Up's Cool Spot. The series consists of three drastically different games: one developed by Virgin Interactive for the Sega Mega Drive, which was ported to various other formats, another developed by Capcom for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which was later ported to the Game Boy Advance, and a final version developed by SIMS for the Sega Master System and Game Gear.ĭisney's Aladdin for the Mega Drive was developed by Virgin Interactive's studio of Virgin Games USA and published by Sega in 1993. Disney's Aladdin is a series of platformer video games based on the 1992 motion picture of the same name.